Thursday, March 30, 2006

Let us search and try our ways

"Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the
Lord."-Lamentations 3:40

The spouse who fondly loves her absent husband longs for his return; a
long protracted separation from her lord is a semi-death to her spirit:
and so with souls who love the Saviour much, they must see His face,
they cannot bear that He should be away upon the mountains of Bether, and
no more hold communion with them. A reproaching glance, an uplifted
finger will be grievous to loving children, who fear to offend their
tender father, and are only happy in his smile. Beloved, it was so once with
you. A text of Scripture, a threatening, a touch of the rod of
affliction, and you went to your Father's feet, crying, "Show me wherefore Thou
contendest with me?" Is it so now? Are you content to follow Jesus afar
off? Can you contemplate suspended communion with Christ without alarm?
Can you bear to have your Beloved walking contrary to you, because you
walk contrary to Him? Have your sins separated between you and your
God, and is your heart at rest? O let me affectionately warn yo!
u, for it is a grievous thing when we can live contentedly without the
present enjoyment of the Saviour's face. Let us labour to feel what an
evil thing this is-little love to our own dying Saviour, little joy in
our precious Jesus, little fellowship with the Beloved! Hold a true
Lent in your souls, while you sorrow over your hardness of heart. Do not
stop at sorrow! Remember where you first received salvation. Go at once
to the cross. There, and there only, can you get your spirit quickened.
No matter how hard, how insensible, how dead we may have become, let us
go again in all the rags and poverty, and defilement of our natural
condition. Let us clasp that cross, let us look into those languid eyes,
let us bathe in that fountain filled with blood-this will bring back to
us our first love; this will restore the simplicity of our faith, and
the tenderness of our heart.

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