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\ / Charles Spurgeon's MORNING & EVENING
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Monday, December 10, 2007
MORNING:
"So shall we ever be with the Lord."
-- 1 Thessalonians 4:17
Even the sweetest visits from Christ, how short they are-and how
transitory! One moment our eyes see him, and we rejoice with joy
unspeakable and full of glory, but again a little time and we do not
see him, for our beloved withdraws himself from us; like a roe or a
young hart he leaps over the mountains of division; he is gone to the
land of spices, and feeds no more among the lilies.
"If to-day he deigns to bless us
With a sense of pardoned sin,
He to-morrow may distress us,
Make us feel the plague within."
Oh, how sweet the prospect of the time when we shall not behold him at
a distance, but see him face to face: when he shall not be as a
wayfaring man tarrying but for a night, but shall eternally enfold us
in the bosom of his glory. We shall not see him for a little season,
but
"Millions of years our wondering eyes,
Shall o'er our Saviour's beauties rove;
And myriad ages we'll adore,
The wonders of his love."
In heaven there shall be no interruptions from care or sin; no weeping
shall dim our eyes; no earthly business shall distract our happy
thoughts; we shall have nothing to hinder us from gazing for ever on
the Sun of Righteousness with unwearied eyes. Oh, if it be so sweet to
see him now and then, how sweet to gaze on that blessed face for aye,
and never have a cloud rolling between, and never have to turn one's
eyes away to look on a world of weariness and woe! Blest day, when wilt
thou dawn? Rise, O unsetting sun! The joys of sense may leave us as
soon as they will, for this shall make glorious amends. If to die is
but to enter into uninterrupted communion with Jesus, then death is
indeed gain, and the black drop is swallowed up in a sea of victory.
EVENING:
"Whose heart the Lord opened."
-- Acts 16:14
In Lydia's conversion there are many points of interest. It was brought
about by providential circumstances. She was a seller of purple, of the
city of Thyatira, but just at the right time for hearing Paul we find
her at Philippi; providence, which is the handmaid of grace, led her to
the right spot. Again, grace was preparing her soul for the
blessing-grace preparing for grace. She did not know the Saviour, but
as a Jewess, she knew many truths which were excellent stepping-stones
to a knowledge of Jesus. Her conversion took place in the use of the
means. On the Sabbath she went when prayer was wont to be made, and
there prayer was heard. Never neglect the means of grace; God may bless
us when we are not in his house, but we have the greater reason to hope
that he will when we are in communion with his saints. Observe the
words, "Whose heart the Lord opened." She did not open her own heart.
Her prayers did not do it; Paul did not do it. The Lord himself must
open the heart, to receive the things which make for our peace. He
alone can put the key into the hole of the door and open it, and get
admittance for himself. He is the heart's master as he is the heart's
maker. The first outward evidence of the opened heart was obedience. As
soon as Lydia had believed in Jesus, she was baptized. It is a sweet
sign of a humble and broken heart, when the child of God is willing to
obey a command which is not essential to his salvation, which is not
forced upon him by a selfish fear of condemnation, but is a simple act
of obedience and of communion with his Master. The next evidence was
love, manifesting itself in acts of grateful kindness to the apostles.
Love to the saints has ever been a mark of the true convert. Those who
do nothing for Christ or his church, give but sorry evidence of an
"opened" heart. Lord, evermore give me an opened heart.
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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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