Morning & Evening for January 3rd - Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Morning
I
will give thee for a covenant of the
people.
Isaiah 49:8
Jesus
Christ is Himself the sum and substance of the
covenant, and as one of its gifts, He is the
property of every believer. Believer, canst thou
estimate what thou hast gotten in Christ? "In Him
dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily."
Consider that word "God" and its infinity, and then
meditate upon "perfect man" and all his beauty; for
all that Christ, as God and man, ever had, or can
have, is thine--out of pure free favour, passed
over to thee to be thine entailed property forever.
Our blessed Jesus, as God, is omniscient,
omnipresent, omnipotent. Will it not console you to
know that all these great and glorious attributes
are altogether yours? Has he power? That power is
yours to support and strengthen you, to overcome
your enemies, and to preserve you even to the end.
Has He love? Well, there is not a drop of love in
His heart which is not yours; you may dive into the
immense ocean of His love, and you may say of it
all, "It is mine." Hath He justice? It may seem a
stern attribute, but even that is yours, for He
will by His justice see to it that all which is
promised to you in the covenant of grace shall be
most certainly secured to you. And all that He has
as perfect man is yours. As a perfect man the
Father's delight was upon Him. He stood accepted by
the Most High. O believer, God's acceptance of
Christ is thine acceptance; for knowest thou not
that the love which the Father set on a perfect
Christ, He sets on thee now? For all that Christ
did is thine. That perfect righteousness which
Jesus wrought out, when through His stainless life
He kept the law and made it honourable, is thine,
and is imputed to thee. Christ is in the covenant.
"My God, I am thine--what a comfort divine!
What a blessing to know that the Saviour is mine!
In the heavenly Lamb thrice happy I am,
And my heart it doth dance at the sound of His
name."
Evening
The
voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye
the way of the Lord, make his paths
straight.
Luke 3:4
The
voice crying in the wilderness demanded a way for
the Lord, a way prepared, and a way prepared in the
wilderness. I would be attentive to the Master's
proclamation, and give Him a road into my heart,
cast up by gracious operations, through the desert
of my nature. The four directions in the text must
have my serious attention.
Every valley must be exalted. Low and grovelling
thoughts of God must be given up; doubting and
despairing must be removed; and self-seeking and
carnal delights must be forsaken. Across these deep
valleys a glorious causeway of grace must be
raised.
Every mountain and hill shall be laid low. Proud
creature- sufficiency, and boastful
self-righteousness, must be levelled, to make a
highway for the King of kings. Divine fellowship is
never vouchsafed to haughty, highminded sinners.
The Lord hath respect unto the lowly, and visits
the contrite in heart, but the lofty are an
abomination unto Him. My soul, beseech the Holy
Spirit to set thee right in this respect.
The crooked shall be made straight. The wavering
heart must have a straight path of decision for God
and holiness marked out for it. Double-minded men
are strangers to the God of truth. My soul, take
heed that thou be in all things honest and true, as
in the sight of the heart-searching God.
The rough places shall be made smooth.
Stumbling-blocks of sin must be removed, and thorns
and briers of rebellion must be uprooted. So great
a visitor must not find miry ways and stony places
when He comes to honour His favoured ones with His
company. Oh that this evening the Lord may find in
my heart a highway made ready by His grace, that He
may make a triumphal progress through the utmost
bounds of my soul, from the beginning of this year
even to the end of it.