Walking with Jesus! Part 13

Cheer up! We are now nearer glory than when we first believed. There sits Jesus, once crowned with thorns, bruised and crucified for your sins and mine, in all His ineffable beauty and glory waiting to bid us welcome home. "Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world." Heaven is not so far off as we think. It invites us; and it is but a step and we are there! This poor world is not our rest! Heaven is our home, and we are but sojourners here in this wilderness for a while, soon to be away! Cheer up!

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Holy counsels to a young clergyman- The Holy Spirit must be your teacher. He alone can accompany His own Word spoken to the soul. He it is who gives life. He it is that convinces of sin, strips the sinner of his filthy rags, and applies the blood of Christ to the guilty conscience and speaks peace. Do not give the promises to the goats, which are intended only for the sheep! Here, my friend, make a distinction, lest any take the children's bread and are self deceived. I have seen a whole congregation addressed as believers, while fully two thirds or more were unconverted! Oh, how awful is such a deception! Oh, preach with your eye upon eternity! Preach the gospel as though Jesus were at your side! Think of the never dying souls around you, unawakened, insensible, led captive by Satan at his will. Work for Christ. Be much in prayer. Go to Jesus for all your supplies. "Without me you can do nothing." Get your message from Him. Great is your work! Vast is your responsibility! You are in yourself powerless, but He is all power, and is ready to give you all you need. Carry your empty vessel to His overflowing fountain of living grace!

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Pray in prayer. Oh, how many unmeaning, heartless prayers are offered up that never reach the ear or heart of God!

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Praise and laud His holy name for all His mighty goodness and rich display of love to us, poor lost sinners! It was love that carried Him through His deep degradation and sorrow, and that transfixed Him to the cross! It was boundless, matchless love from first to last! Oh, should we not live for Him! I think if I had ten thousand hearts, I would give them all to Him! May the Lord bless you with much of His presence, and shed abroad His own precious love in your heart!

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Dear friend, do you feel Jesus precious to your soul? Is He not the fountain, yes, the ocean of love? Oh, get much of His love into your heart! Aim to live on high! The soul naturally, through the weakness of the flesh, cleaves to the dust; and Satan is ever busy in encumbering our minds with the poor world we are rapidly passing through. Well may he be called the "god of this world." Do not be ignorant of his devices.

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While passing through all the daily changes of life, we should call to mind that, either sooner or later, we are hastening to the great and most eventful change that will take place. The world, with Satan at its head, will be incessantly calling off our attention to the poor trifles of time, making every effort to occupy our thoughts, and so leave very few, if any, for the glory that awaits us above. Do we not daily see the extreme folly of taking up our rest here on earth?

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On looking back upon the past of my eventful life, I can trace God's fatherly hand in all His correctings and disappointings, the crosses and losses by the way, and how needful they all were to bring me to seek all my good in Jesus; for in Him I find all my soul needs.

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Oh, to have such a Friend to go to, who has all things at His command; the gold and the silver are His, and the cattle upon a thousand hills, and all hearts are His. Let there be no distance between you and Jesus. Live upon Him. Live for Him. Yes, live with Him even here. Cling to Him, for He is your life. Carry all your cares, little or great, to Him. He will listen to all. It is written, "Casting all your cares upon Him, for He cares for you." Do not let the poor trifles, the gewgaws of this trifling world entangle your heart's best affections. Look at this world as "passing away," and not worthy of a thought. Keep close to Jesus. He loves you. Oh, repay Him by giving Him your whole, your undivided heart! He will accept it just as it is, and make it all you may wish to have it.

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Oh, this is a world full of snares, and our sinful hearts are so deceitful, they are ever ready to fall into them.

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Dear child of God, Jesus' loving eye is ever upon you, and His loving heart is ever towards you.

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Jesus is now, though in heaven, what He was when on earth. He is just as ready to bow down His loving ear, and listen to our faintest whisper, as He was when here in this world of sin and sorrow. He was never known to turn one away that came to Him for help. He is the same now; full of the tenderest sympathy; and He needs us to deal with Him as helpless children, who can do nothing of ourselves that is good, and need to be led and upheld every step we take in this sinful and treacherous world.

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The purity of heaven is sweetly attractive, and, next to being with Jesus, will make heaven what it is, a place of perfect happiness. It is sin that creates all our sorrow here on earth.

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Truly, all whose eyes the Lord has opened must say this is a world of sorrow. Trials, in endless forms- crosses, sickness, temptations; assail us at every step we take through this wilderness. But we look for better things to come. The Lord is too good to put us off, even with the best of this poor world. For what is the best of it? If we had health, riches, and all the honor of a princely throne, what would they avail us? We are appointed to die, and a better world, or a worse world, is prepared for us.

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I am unworthy of the least crumb of mercy that falls from His own dear, loving hand.

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Remember, all the way you are led is chalked out for you by infinite wisdom; and in that covenant that is ordered in all things and sure. Not a step we take but is ordered by infinite love. All our chastenings and rebukes are so many precious tokens of our adoption into the family of God. Unbelief would often suggest hard thoughts of Him whose heart is always love towards us; but He, seeing the best way for each to attain to that blessed preparation for the full enjoyment of what He has gone to prepare for us, deals with us as seems in His infinite wisdom to be the best. Then, let us hush every murmur, or desire to have our own way, seeing that the Lord's way must be the best way. When we get above, we shall then study all the way He has led us, and admire and adore the wisdom that condescended to take such care of us, and at last to make all our trials, crosses, and losses, to work together for our good and His glory.

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May we never forget that God's glory is connected with every step a saint of God takes through the wilderness.

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How sweet it is to look above and beyond this transient valley of tears! This is not our rest, because it is polluted. There is no sickness in heaven; no desponding feelings there; all love, enjoyment, and blessedness.

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How is our loving, gracious God dealing with you? In all His dealings, whatever they may be, there is nothing but the tenderest love towards you, all designed to draw you nearer and nearer to Himself. We are tried in order to bring us to a better acquaintance with His tenderness, sympathy, and unchanging love. He cares for you. You need not trouble yourself about, or load yourself with, earthly cares. Carry them, as they arise, to Him. Do not fret yourself about managing matters, when He, who has sent the cares, will manage better for you than you can for yourself. Come with an open heart, and pour all into His own loving heart. This is the confidence He loves. What a mercy to have such a God and Father to deal with us, who pities and loves us too! Oh, let us rejoice together, and cast all our cares upon Him, and be anxious for nothing.

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Do not be concerned with all the tinsel glory of this empty, unsatisfying world. It is not worth a straw when compared with what awaits us! What an unsatisfying world this is, to have our all in! How trifling does everything appear which is not in some way connected with God's glory. Look upon all you now see or admire as passing away, yourself passing away with it. This world is a waste land, a howling desert! Oh, that we did but consider it as such, and expect nothing in it but thorns and thistles; looking unceasingly, with the anticipation of holy joy, to the period when He shall say to us, "Come away, my love, my fair one, enter into the joy of your Lord!"

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Go to Jesus when you will, you will be always welcome, and never more so than when you come full of needs. You may tire a fellow creature out with your often coming, but you will never weary Jesus, your own Jesus, that Brother born for your adversity. Recollect you can, at all times, and under all circumstances, in the streets, in company, abroad, or at home, have the loving, listening ear of Jesus! What an honor is this put upon a poor worm! Whatever concerns you, equally concerns Christ.

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What poor creatures we are if left to ourselves! What a mercy there is One that loves us better than we love ourselves, and will watch over us all our journey here, and who has engaged (by all the varying dispensations of His providence) to prepare us for that blessed place He has gone to prepare for us. And oh, what a place will that be! Love Him supremely! Live for eternity! Live for Jesus! Have much to do with Him!

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Live for eternity! This world is not worth living for. Its honors, its riches, its glories are things ever passing away; but the love of Jesus is eternal as Himself. Oh, live for eternity! The glory of this world is fading, and is soon gone, and gone forever! Again I say, live for a glorious eternity! If you could have the glory, the wealth, and the honors of this world laid at your feet, short would be the empty enjoyment of them. Then, live and act with reference to eternity! And oh, the glory that awaits the true follower of Christ, who has cast overboard all that the world calls good and grand, and taking the Bible as his directory, walks as Jesus did.

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Let us keep very near to Jesus. Be much in close communion with Him. While we tell Him all that is in our hearts, He will unfold His own tender loving heart to us. How He loves us! It is His glory and delight to do us good. We must die before we can know how much He loves. He is watching over us moment by moment; and there is not a pain or a trial but by its discipline He is preparing us for that dwelling above, which His infinite love has prepared for us, and which He will have us in the full enjoyment of.

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We need not fear the prospect of changing worlds- earth for heaven; sin for holiness; and the disappointing creature for the overflowing fountain of all goodness and love. That world we hope to go to is worthy of all our thoughts and best affections.

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I can truly say I love the Lord. But oh, how little in proportion to His love to me!

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Who could or would have borne with us as Jesus has done? He has led and kept us, loving us in spite of all that was so unlovely in us.

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What a change from a bed of suffering at once into the presence of Christ! Oh, let us make and sustain a close acquaintance with Christ here, that we may not feel we are going to a stranger when we depart, but to be with one with whom we have had close communion and heavenly communion here below.

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Truly we live in a dying world! We see one another pass away out of sight, and yet how little impression it makes upon the survivors!

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What a mercy to know that all these events which seem confusion to us are, even now, accomplishing His own eternal plans and purposes of love. Oh to trust Him fully, and watch His providence in all that is transpiring.

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Is it not a blessed thing to know that God has to do with us, and that we have to do with God, every moment of our fleeting existence? How precious is the thought! I would not desire it otherwise for millions of worlds! It is the joy of my heart by night and by day. How sweetly and securely can I travel through all the intricate mazes of this wilderness state, while I feel that God is with me, that His eye is upon me, and His heart toward me.

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Oh, to be more alive to eternal things, and to sit loose to the things that are passing away daily. We too much magnify present trifles, and dwell too little upon the glory that awaits us above. And yet, in one moment, we may be put into possession of our glorious inheritance. What a heaven awaits us! What glory is before us! Jesus standing ready to receive us! Let us encourage each other in the way. We shall soon be at home; our happy home; no home like it here. It is sweet in prospect! Absent from the body, present with the Lord!

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Blessed be God for all the rich supplies afforded us in this wilderness.

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Such a Friend is Christ to us- always ready to help us, to strengthen us, to comfort us when we are cast down, and to lift us above the base cares of time, and to speak sweet peace to our too often failing and doubting hearts. Unbelief, cruel unbelief, destroys more than half our comforts while on our short passage to glory.

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A little while and we shall be put into possession of our glorious inheritance; and all our poor, short lived trials, crosses, and disappointments are so many rich blessings in disguise to prepare us for it. What a hope we have of being shortly with Jesus! Oh that we might be kept disentangled from the rubbish of this fallen world! In a fallen house we must expect a great deal of rubbish; such are the poor trifles of this contaminating world by which we are so often engrossed, and through which we are so rapidly passing.

Oh, to look forward more! Are we not too much like children playing with toys, and when they are broken, sitting down and mourning over them? Let us keep our hearts near to Jesus, so as to be quite willing to depart and be with Him.

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We trifle too much with our God!

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God will not put us off with the worldling's trash. He has higher enjoyments for His children.

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What a poor, unsatisfying world is this! While we have cause to be grateful; oh, how grateful; for the accommodation afforded us while here, yet what a mercy of mercies we are not to live here always! Oh, the goodness of God, to prepare us for, and point us to, a better world! My soul is often overwhelmed at the thought of it, and how very soon I shall be there in its full enjoyment.

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Dear friend, think more of that eternity to which day by day we are hastening, and less of this world we are so soon to leave.

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Jesus is watching over us with an ever watchful eye. Oh, to know that He loves us, that His love never changes, that He is causing all things to work together for our best interests, and in due time will come and receive us unto Himself, and that when we see Him we shall be like Him! What a thought is that for a poor sinner; to be like the Son of God; the Son of the Highest; the Great Jehovah! Oh, if I had a thousand hearts I would give them all to Jesus!

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What a mercy that Jesus is ever with us, by day, by night, in sickness, in health, in time, and through eternity! "I will never leave you nor forsake you." But we live in a changing world. The creature changes, we change, but, "I the Lord, do not change." Ever the same loving, faithful friend is Jesus. Bless the Lord for this, O my soul! I live in Him, and I desire to live for Him, and with Him, even here, as far as I can, in the body. But oh, the joy of knowing and feeling, that before long I shall be with and like Him forever! How great the bliss, even in anticipation, of beholding Him face to face!

Often my aged heart seems to spring into youth again at the prospect of being with Jesus; seeing Him face to face; sitting at His feet; beholding Him as He is. I am favored sometimes with glimpses of the coming glory, a look into Heaven now and then, a little anticipative realization of the presence of Him who will make Heaven what it will be to us.

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Dear friends, live above a dying world and all its fading things. It is not worth a thought. Live independently of the creature, and walk hand in hand with Jesus. Keep an open heart with Him, confiding to His love all you feel or fear. He will not betray your confidence, but will lead you safely along the right road to glory; glory begun here, and increasing through the countless ages of eternity!