Evening, March 30
Go To Morning Reading
“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 you, 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.