Morning, December 23
Go To Evening Reading
“Friend, go up higher.”
Luke 14:10
When first the life of grace begins in the soul, we do indeed draw
near to God, but it is with great fear and trembling. The soul conscious
of guilt, and humbled thereby, is overawed with the solemnity of its
position; it is cast to the earth by a sense of the grandeur of Jehovah,
in whose presence it stands. With unfeigned bashfulness it takes the
lowest room.
But, in after life, as the Christian grows in grace, although he will
never forget the solemnity of his position, and will never lose that
holy awe which must encompass a gracious man when he is in the presence
of the God who can create or can destroy; yet his fear has all its
terror taken out of it; it becomes a holy reverence, and no more an
overshadowing dread. He is called up higher, to greater access to
God in Christ Jesus. Then the man of God, walking amid the splendours
of Deity, and veiling his face like the glorious cherubim, with those
twin wings, the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ, will, reverent
and bowed in spirit, approach the throne; and seeing there a God of
love, of goodness, and of mercy, he will realize rather the covenant
character of God than his absolute Deity. He will see in God rather
his goodness than his greatness, and more of his love than of his
majesty. Then will the soul, bowing still as humbly as aforetime,
enjoy a more sacred liberty of intercession; for while prostrate before
the glory of the Infinite God, it will be sustained by the refreshing
consciousness of being in the presence of boundless mercy and infinite
love, and by the realization of acceptance “in the Beloved.” Thus the believer is bidden to come up higher, and is enabled to
exercise the privilege of rejoicing in God, and drawing near to him
in holy confidence, saying, “Abba, Father.”
“So may we go from strength to strength,
And daily grow in grace,
Till in thine image raised at length,
We see thee face to face.”