Morning, February 29
Go To Evening Reading
“With lovingkindness have I drawn thee.”
Jeremiah 31:3
The thunders of the law and the terrors of judgment are all used to
bring us to Christ; but the final victory is effected by lovingkindness.
The prodigal set out to his father’s house from a sense of need; but his father saw him a great way off,
and ran to meet him; so that the last steps he took towards his father’s house were with the kiss still warm upon his cheek, and the welcome
still musical in his ears.
“Law and terrors do but harden
All the while they work alone;
But a sense of blood-bought pardon
Will dissolve a heart of stone.”
The Master came one night to the door, and knocked with the iron hand
of the law; the door shook and trembled upon its hinges; but the man
piled every piece of furniture which he could find against the door,
for he said, “I will not admit the man.” The Master turned away, but by-and-bye he came back, and with his
own soft hand, using most that part where the nail had penetrated,
he knocked again—oh, so softly and tenderly. This time the door did not shake, but,
strange to say, it opened, and there upon his knees the once unwilling
host was found rejoicing to receive his guest. “Come in, come in; thou hast so knocked that my bowels are moved for
thee. I could not think of thy pierced hand leaving its blood-mark
on my door, and of thy going away houseless, ‘Thy head filled with dew, and thy locks with the drops of the night.’ I yield, I yield, thy love has won my heart.” So in every case: lovingkindness wins the day. What Moses with the
tablets of stone could never do, Christ does with his pierced hand.
Such is the doctrine of effectual calling. Do I understand it experimentally?
Can I say, “He drew me, and I followed on, glad to confess the voice divine?” If so, may he continue to draw me, till at last I shall sit down
at the marriage supper of the Lamb.