Attachment to Christ
"Him whom my soul loveth". Song of Solomon 3:4
Marvel not that Christ in glory All my inmost heart hath won;
Not a star to cheer my darkness But a light beyond the sun.
All below lies dark and shadowed, Nothing there to claim my heart,
Save the lonely track of sorrow Where of old He walked apart.
I have seen the Face of Jesus -- Tell me not of aught beside;
I have heard the Voice of Jesus -- All my soul is satisfied.
T.P.
(pp. 65-68, Footprints for Pilgrims)
We do not read scripture with sufficient intimacy of heart. We read it as if we were aquainting ourselves with words and sentences. If I do not get by scripture into nearness to God in heart and conscience I have not learned the lesson it would teach me.
Christ is your lesson as well as your teacher ... Is any book so worthy of reading as the book that we call Jesus ?
(Luke 19:12-27) I am never really in the spirit of service if I do not remember that Christ is an absent and rejected Lord. I am ... a servant who has to recognize the sorrowful fact that His Master has been rejected and insulted here. Is it not a tender thought that the very sorrows and insults which have been heaped upon Him here are so many fresh claims on one's affections ?
The heart, not the head, is the parent of eloquence.
It is to make much of Christ that we want --- much of Himself and His glorious achievements for poor sinners. We want ... the breathings of a soul content with Him, and the peace of a conscience for ever at rest in His unaided sufficiency.
"And when He rose up from prayer, and was come to His disciples, He found them sleeping." (Luke 22:45) They were His thought, not He theirs. He their thought ! They could not watch with Him one hour. So it is now."He ever liveth to make intercession for us"; do we ever live to love Him, to serve Him ? He ever lives for you; do you live ever for Him ?
Our power in drawing others after the Lord mainly rests in our joy and communion with Him ourselves.
Is there not a fear lest familiarity with the things of Christ be much more than the soul's aquaintance with Himself ? ... I may be reading the books which tell of Him ... I may speak, nay, write about Him, while others ... may be a good deal withdrawn from this, but their growth in divine knowledge and living understanding of Him may be far more advancing.
It is one thing to render to Jesus the tribute of admiration, or even tears, and another to join one's self with Him for better or for worse, through good and evil ... One thing to speak well of Him, another to give up all for Him.
"O fools, and slow of heart to believe" What ? "ALL that the prophets hath spoken." Oh, how that should bind round your heart and mine every jot and syllable of God's word !
It is worth a world to have an intimate eternity with Christ.
Oh, how poorly has the soul learnt ... the living practical lesson of a scorned and rejected Jesus ... though the mind and pen can trace the form of it without doubt or difficulty ! Lord, give us to know the honour of witnessing Thy rejection in this proud world !
--- J.G.B.
