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\ / Charles Spurgeon's MORNING & EVENING
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Monday, December 24, 2007
MORNING:
"For your sakes he became poor."
-- 2 Corinthians 8:9
The Lord Jesus Christ was eternally rich, glorious, and exalted; but
"though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor." As the rich
saint cannot be true in his communion with his poor brethren unless of
his substance he ministers to their necessities, so (the same rule
holding with the head as between the members), it is impossible that
our Divine Lord could have had fellowship with us unless he had
imparted to us of his own abounding wealth, and had become poor to make
us rich. Had he remained upon his throne of glory, and had we continued
in the ruins of the fall without receiving his salvation, communion
would have been impossible on both sides. Our position by the fall,
apart from the covenant of grace, made it as impossible for fallen man
to communicate with God as it is for Belial to be in concord with
Christ. In order, therefore, that communion might be compassed, it was
necessary that the rich kinsman should bestow his estate upon his poor
relatives, that the righteous Saviour should give to his sinning
brethren of his own perfection, and that we, the poor and guilty,
should receive of his fulness grace for grace; that thus in giving and
receiving, the One might descend from the heights, and the other ascend
from the depths, and so be able to embrace each other in true and
hearty fellowship. Poverty must be enriched by him in whom are infinite
treasures before it can venture to commune; and guilt must lose itself
in imputed and imparted righteousness ere the soul can walk in
fellowship with purity. Jesus must clothe his people in his own
garments, or he cannot admit them into his palace of glory; and he must
wash them in his own blood, or else they will be too defiled for the
embrace of his fellowship.
O believer, herein is love! For your sake the Lord Jesus "became poor"
that he might lift you up into communion with himself.
EVENING:
"The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall
see it together."
-- Isaiah 40:5
We anticipate the happy day when the whole world shall be converted to
Christ; when the gods of the heathen shall be cast to the moles and the
bats; when Romanism shall be exploded, and the crescent of Mohammed
shall wane, never again to cast its baleful rays upon the nations; when
kings shall bow down before the Prince of Peace, and all nations shall
call their Redeemer blessed. Some despair of this. They look upon the
world as a vessel breaking up and going to pieces, never to float
again. We know that the world and all that is therein is one day to be
burnt up, and afterwards we look for new heavens and for a new earth;
but we cannot read our Bibles without the conviction that-
"Jesus shall reign where'er the sun
Does his successive journeys run."
We are not discouraged by the length of his delays; we are not
disheartened by the long period which he allots to the church in which
to struggle with little success and much defeat. We believe that God
will never suffer this world, which has once seen Christ's blood shed
upon it, to be always the devil's stronghold. Christ came hither to
deliver this world from the detested sway of the powers of darkness.
What a shout shall that be when men and angels shall unite to cry
"Hallelujah, hallelujah, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!" What a
satisfaction will it be in that day to have had a share in the fight,
to have helped to break the arrows of the bow, and to have aided in
winning the victory for our Lord! Happy are they who trust themselves
with this conquering Lord, and who fight side by side with him, doing
their little in his name and by his strength! How unhappy are those on
the side of evil! It is a losing side, and it is a matter wherein to
lose is to lose and to be lost for ever. On whose side are you?
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THE SECRET MESSAGE OF JESUS: UNCOVERING THE TRUTH THAT COULD CHANGE EVERYTHING, by Brian McLaren
Unafraid of controversy or the uncomfortable gray areas of life,
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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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