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\ / Charles Spurgeon's MORNING & EVENING
http://www.heartlight.org/
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Thursday, July 3, 2008
MORNING:
"The ill favoured and leanfleshed kine did eat up the seven
wellfavoured and fat kine."
-- Genesis 41:4
Pharaoh's dream has too often been my waking experience. My days of
sloth have ruinously destroyed all that I had achieved in times of
zealous industry; my seasons of coldness have frozen all the genial
glow of my periods of fervency and enthusiasm; and my fits of
worldliness have thrown me back from my advances in the divine life. I
had need to beware of lean prayers, lean praises, lean duties, and lean
experiences, for these will eat up the fat of my comfort and peace. If
I neglect prayer for never so short a time, I lose all the spirituality
to which I had attained; if I draw no fresh supplies from heaven, the
old corn in my granary is soon consumed by the famine which rages in my
soul. When the caterpillars of indifference, the cankerworms of
worldliness, and the palmerworms of self-indulgence, lay my heart
completely desolate, and make my soul to languish, all my former
fruitfulness and growth in grace avails me nothing whatever. How
anxious should I be to have no lean-fleshed days, no ill-favoured
hours! If every day I journeyed towards the goal of my desires I should
soon reach it, but backsliding leaves me still far off from the prize
of my high calling, and robs me of the advances which I had so
laboriously made. The only way in which all my days can be as the "fat
kine," is to feed them in the right meadow, to spend them with the
Lord, in His service, in His company, in His fear, and in His way. Why
should not every year be richer than the past, in love, and usefulness,
and joy?-I am nearer the celestial hills, I have had more experience of
my Lord, and should be more like Him. O Lord, keep far from me the
curse of leanness of soul; let me not have to cry, "My leanness, my
leanness, woe unto me!" but may I be well-fed and nourished in thy
house, that I may praise thy name.
EVENING:
"If we suffer, we shall also reign with him."
-- 2 Timothy 2:12
We must not imagine that we are suffering for Christ, and with Christ,
if we are not in Christ. Beloved friend, are you trusting to Jesus
only? If not, whatever you may have to mourn over on earth, you are not
"suffering with Christ," and have no hope of reigning with him in
heaven. Neither are we to conclude that all a Christian's sufferings
are sufferings with Christ, for it is essential that he be called by
God to suffer. If we are rash and imprudent, and run into positions for
which neither providence nor grace has fitted us, we ought to question
whether we are not rather sinning than communing with Jesus. If we let
passion take the place of judgment, and self-will reign instead of
Scriptural authority, we shall fight the Lord's battles with the
devil's weapons, and if we cut our own fingers we must not be
surprised. Again, in troubles which come upon us as the result of sin,
we must not dream that we are suffering with Christ. When Miriam spoke
evil of Moses, and the leprosy polluted her, she was not suffering for
God. Moreover, suffering which God accepts must have God's glory as its
end. If I suffer that I may earn a name, or win applause, I shall get
no other reward than that of the Pharisee. It is requisite also that
love to Jesus, and love to his elect, be ever the mainspring of all our
patience. We must manifest the Spirit of Christ in meekness,
gentleness, and forgiveness. Let us search and see if we truly suffer
with Jesus. And if we do thus suffer, what is our "light affliction"
compared with reigning with him? Oh it is so blessed to be in the
furnace with Christ, and such an honour to stand in the pillory with
him, that if there were no future reward, we might count ourselves
happy in present honour; but when the recompense is so eternal, so
infinitely more than we had any right to expect, shall we not take up
the cross with alacrity, and go on our way rejoicing?
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MORNING & EVENING from HEARTLIGHT /\/\
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Morning & Evening is the classic devotional by 19th-century writer
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