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\ / Charles Spurgeon's MORNING & EVENING
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Wednesday, October 24, 2007
MORNING:
"The trees of the Lord are full of sap."
-- Psalms 104:16
Without sap the tree cannot flourish or even exist. Vitality is
essential to a Christian. There must be life -a vital principle infused
into us by God the Holy Ghost, or we cannot be trees of the Lord. The
mere name of being a Christian is but a dead thing, we must be filled
with the spirit of divine life. This life is mysterious. We do not
understand the circulation of the sap, by what force it rises, and by
what power it descends again. So the life within us is a sacred
mystery. Regeneration is wrought by the Holy Ghost entering into man
and becoming man's life; and this divine life in a believer afterwards
feeds upon the flesh and blood of Christ and is thus sustained by
divine food, but whence it cometh and whither it goeth who shall
explain to us? What a secret thing the sap is! The roots go searching
through the soil with their little spongioles, but we cannot see them
suck out the various gases, or transmute the mineral into the
vegetable; this work is done down in the dark. Our root is Christ
Jesus, and our life is hid in him; this is the secret of the Lord. The
radix of the Christian life is as secret as the life itself. How
permanently active is the sap in the cedar! In the Christian the divine
life is always full of energy-not always in fruit- bearing, but in
inward operations. The believer's graces, are not every one of them in
constant motion? but his life never ceases to palpitate within. He is
not always working for God, but his heart is always living upon him. As
the sap manifests itself in producing the foliage and fruit of the
tree, so with a truly healthy Christian, his grace is externally
manifested in his walk and conversation. If you talk with him, he
cannot help speaking about Jesus. If you notice his actions you will
see that he has been with Jesus. He has so much sap within, that it
must fill his conduct and conversation with life.
EVENING:
"He began to wash the disciples' feet."
-- John 13:5
The Lord Jesus loves his people so much, that every day he is still
doing for them much that is analogous to washing their soiled feet.
Their poorest actions he accepts; their deepest sorrow he feels; their
slenderest wish he hears, and their every transgression he forgives. He
is still their servant as well as their Friend and Master. He not only
performs majestic deeds for them, as wearing the mitre on his brow, and
the precious jewels glittering on his breastplate, and standing up to
plead for them, but humbly, patiently, he yet goes about among his
people with the basin and the towel. He does this when he puts away
from us day by day our constant infirmities and sins. Last night, when
you bowed the knee, you mournfully confessed that much of your conduct
was not worthy of your profession; and even tonight, you must mourn
afresh that you have fallen again into the selfsame folly and sin from
which special grace delivered you long ago; and yet Jesus will have
great patience with you; he will hear your confession of sin; he will
say, "I will, be thou clean"; he will again apply the blood of
sprinkling, and speak peace to your conscience, and remove every spot.
It is a great act of eternal love when Christ once for all absolves the
sinner, and puts him into the family of God; but what condescending
patience there is when the Saviour with much long-suffering bears the
oft recurring follies of his wayward disciple; day by day, and hour by
hour, washing away the multiplied transgressions of his erring but yet
beloved child! To dry up a flood of rebellion is something marvellous,
but to endure the constant dropping of repeated offences-to bear with a
perpetual trying of patience, this is divine indeed! While we find
comfort and peace in our Lord's daily cleansing, its legitimate
influence upon us will be to increase our watchfulness, and quicken our
desire for holiness. Is it so?
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VELVET ELVIS: REPAINTING THE CHRISTIAN FAITH, by Rob Bell
In this provocative, hopeful book, Bell asks what the church might look
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http://shopping.heartlight.org/cgi-shl/link?254
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MORNING & EVENING from HEARTLIGHT /\/\
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Morning & Evening is the classic devotional by 19th-century writer
and preacher Charles Spurgeon. It's part of HEARTLIGHT Magazine,
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