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THE LORD MY PORTION or,
DAILY NEED DIVINELY SUPPLIED
By Octavius Winslow, 1870
PREFACE
The Lord's people but imperfectly realize their boundless wealth. They resemble an heir to whom a vast estate has been bequeathed, but who yet remains ignorant of the rich and extensive mines which underlie its surface, filling every acre with veins of the richest ore, until some incidental upturned sod brings to light the precious deposit. God has given us His Word--a field of wealth incalculable; His Son--in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge; the covenant of grace--ordered in all things and sure; and Himself, our infinite, all-sufficient, all-satisfying, and inalienable--PORTION. Well may the apostle, summing up the inventory of our possessions, exclaim--as if no measurement or number could compass and compute their extent--"ALL THINGS are yours!"
To enable the pious reader to estimate in some experimental measure his vast opulence, is the design of this little work. The writer has endeavored to concentrate all the believer's wealth--where, in truth, God has deposited it--in JESUS; deeply, solemnly convinced that, it is the lack of more simple views of Christ, and a more direct application to His mediatorial sufficiency--dealing with the Father more immediately through the Son, in whom it pleased Him that all fullness should dwell--which is the cause of so much soul-leanness, prostration of spiritual power, and languor of love in many of the saints.
The points of light in which God in Christ may be regarded as the believer's PORTION were many and inviting. The writer trusts his pages will afford at least some faint reflection of "the unsearchable riches of Christ," to which the weakest, the obscurest Christ-believing, Christ-loving soul may prefer a personal claim, and say, "All is mine, for I am Christ's, and Christ is God's!"
THE LORD MY PORTION
"The Lord is my portion, says my soul; therefore I will hope in Him." Lam_3:24
It is our great privilege, beloved, that we live in a portionless world. This is both our distinctive badge and our Christian charter. When God parceled out the land of Canaan among the tribes of Israel, He made an exception in the tribe of Levi, to whom He said, "You shall have no inheritance in the land, neither shall you have any part among them;" assigning as His reason, "I am your share and your inheritance." The gospel teaching of this is obvious and significant. As the Lord's true priesthood, this world is not our portion, nor earth our rest. It may have required some painful discipline, and no small measure of faith, on the part of the devout Levite, as he gazed upon the fertile meadows, the watered plains, and the vine-clad hills of the Promised Land, before he was made willing to relinquish it all for Him who is invisible--and it needs no little teaching and discipline of our God, and no little faith on our part, before we are led to give up the world, the creature, self, and all, for Christ--satisfied to have the Lord alone as our Portion, and heaven only as our inheritance.
But the Lord will not put His people off with anything unworthy of Him to give, or them to accept. He has set them apart for Himself, and Himself apart for them. "All believers are the Lord's CLERGY; and as they are His portion, so He is theirs." (Leighton.) "The Lord's portion is His people, Israel is the lot of His inheritance." "The Lord is my portion, says my soul." His love to us was so great, that when He could give no greater proof of that love, He gave HIMSELF. Nothing more could have expressed the yearnings of His heart, nothing less could have satisfied the desires of ours.
And oh, what a Portion is God! All that He is and all that He has is ours! Every attribute of His being is over us, every perfection of His nature encircles us, every pulse of His heart beats for us, every glance of His eye smiles upon us. We dwell in God, and God dwells in us. It is not the world which is our portion, but HE who made, upholds and governs the world. It is not the creature who is our portion, but the Lord of angels and the Creator of men. Infinite portion! illimitable power! immeasurable grace! boundless love! all-satisfying good! all, all is ours!
And what a Portion, O my soul, is Christ! A divine Christ, a redeeming Christ, a full Christ, a sympathizing, ever-present, ever-precious, ever-loving Christ.
'Lord, I bless You for the discipline that brought me to realize what a divine, all-satisfying Portion I have in Yourself. You took from me an earthly portion, only to enrich me with a Heavenly one. You removed from me the human prop upon which I too fondly and idolatrously leaned, that I might learn what Christ was, as my soul's all-sufficient, all-satisfying, and everlasting Portion. I can now admire the wisdom and adore the love that blasted my gourds and emptied me from vessel to vessel, that, rising superior to the broken staff, the drooping flower, and the failing spring of creature good, I might claim my portion as a true spiritual Levite in Yourself alone.'
Believer in Jesus! make the most of your portion. It is all-sufficient for all your need. God has, perhaps, made you poor in this world, that you might be rich in faith and an heir of that kingdom of glory, the New Jerusalem, He has prepared for you--whose foundations are precious stones, whose walls are jasper, whose gates are pearls, whose streets are pure gold, and through which softly flows the river of the water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and the Lamb, in the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river is the tree of life, bearing twelve manner of fruit, and yielding her fruit every month. All this awaits you! Hope in the Lord, hope in adversity, hope in trial, hope against hope, for God in Christ is your present and eternal Portion. "The Lord is my Portion, says my soul; therefore I will HOPE in Him."
THE LORD MY HUSBAND
"The Lord is my portion, says my soul"
"For your Maker is your husband--the Lord Almighty is his name--the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth." Isa_54:5
How many--appropriate to our circumstances, and endearing to our hearts--are the titles and relations of God! Is there one more sacred or precious to the Christian widow than this--"Your Maker is your HUSBAND." The Lord brings us into a gracious and experimental acquaintance with Himself by the circumstances in which He places us. Just as we learn certain lessons in certain schools, so we learn the relationships which the Lord sustains to us in the positions in life to which those divine relations are the most appropriate. Thus, He may have written you a widow, a "widow indeed," that He might stand to you in a new and more endeared relation--even as you stand to Him in a new and more dependent character--the relation of a HUSBAND--the character of a widow. As such He is your portion. Your bereavement is so crushing, your grief so profound, your desolation so vast, your loss so irreparable, the pen shrinks from even the attempt to describe it. The strong and beautiful staff is broken, the earthly counselor is perished, the tongue is mute that blessed you, the bosom cold that pillowed you, the eye dim that smiled upon you, and the whole landscape of life is draped in wintry coldness and gloom.
But the Lord is your Portion. "For your Maker is your husband--the Lord Almighty is his name." Divorced by death from an earthly husband, you are united more especially and closely to a Divine and heavenly Husband--even to God in Christ, who stands now in a new and more endeared relation to you, as you have now a new and more sacred claim upon Him. The widow is an object of His especial regard. No being has He more closely fenced, none for whom He has discovered more tender care. Listen to some of His touching injunctions respecting you. "You shall not afflict the WIDOW." "Plead for the WIDOW." "He will establish the border of the WIDOW." "He relieves the fatherless and the WIDOW." Such is the divine Portion, under whose sheltering wing you have now come to rest. "Your Maker is your HUSBAND." All, and infinitely more, that the fondest, most powerful, and faithful husband ever was, the Lord is to you. Let Him, as none other can, fill the vacant place. He can make even your solitary and desolate heart sing for joy. Espouse Christ afresh. Renew your 'first love' to Him, the love of your earliest union.
Trace nothing but love in the removal of a human object so dear; and know that love--divine, tender, unchangeable love--will guard, guide, and comfort you until wedded hearts, sundered by death, shall meet to renew a fellowship of love in the glorified presence of Jesus never to be sundered more.
Blessed Jesus! heavenly Husband! let me now be united only and forever to You! Give me Your Spirit to seal the sacred union. Enable me, as enjoined in the word, "to trust in God, and to continue in supplication and prayer night and day, to lodge strangers, to wash the saints' feet, to relieve the afflicted, and diligently to follow every good work" (1Ti_5:5, 1Ti_5:10). And thus striving by Your grace to glorify You in the solemn character of a God-fearing, God-trusting widow, enable me to rejoice in You as my portion--my Husband--believing that You will shield me in temptation, supply me in need, comfort me in sorrow, be with me in death, and give me a place at the marriage-supper of the Lamb.
In addition to the loneliness of widowhood, there may be the heavy charge and anxious responsibility of the parent. Your children, are half orphans--fatherless. Be it so. You have now a double claim on God's care and provision; and that claim, offered in the prayer of faith, He will acknowledge. His promise is--and on that promise you must rely--"Leave your FATHERLESS CHILDREN, I will preserve them alive--and let your widows trust in me." God will now be, in its fullest sense, your children's Father. He will preserve them alive; in other words, He will provide for the life that now is, and will make them partakers of the life that is to come in the sovereignty of His grace. Have faith in God! He never yet broke a promise to a saint--He never will to you!
THE LORD MY BROTHER
"The Lord is my portion, says my soul"
"Whoever does God's will is My brother." Mar_3:35
Precious portion this--Christ our BROTHER! If our religion bears this divine stamp of reality--the doing God's will--then, not only are all the saints of God our brethren, but all are Christ's brethren, He standing in the relation to all of the Elder Brother--"the FIRST-BORN among many brethren." The Elder Brother under the law was clothed with peculiar and great privileges. Not only to him belonged the birthright, but he was invested with great power, was entitled to a double share of the patrimony, and, what was of great importance, he was the priest of the family, discharging all the duties and offices of religion. Now all this, and much more, is Jesus our Elder Brother. To Him belongs every attraction that wins our admiration, every perfection that awakens our love, every quality that fits Him to discharge the high and peculiar duties and obligations of a brother. My soul, recall some of them, that you may possess a higher estimate of the worth and preciousness of this your Portion--the Lord your Brother; and learn to love Him more intensely, to trust Him more implicitly, and serve Him more faithfully.
As our Brother, Christ partakes of our human nature. He could not be our brother, nor feel a brother's love, nor discharge a brother's duties, were He not "bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh." Thus we read, "Forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same--therefore in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His BRETHREN." Sweet truth, O my soul! Jesus your Portion took into union with His divine your own veritable nature, and wears it still, that, from the highest throne in glory, a stream of human sympathy might continuously flow down, blending with every trial, temptation, need, and sorrow of the lowest disciple on earth.
This suggests another and a touching view of our Elder Brother. Jesus was educated in the school of suffering and sorrow. The personal experience of sorrow is essential to true sympathy. "If one member suffer, all the members suffer with it," just because all belong to one suffering body, of which Christ, the "Man of sorrows," is the one Head. My soul, make much of the sinless humanity of Jesus your Brother. He has sent your affliction that in it He, by sympathy, may be afflicted. He has unsealed your fount of tears that, in compassion, His might flow in the same channel with yours.
He wants you to know Him more intimately; and as there is not so strong and sure a test of real friendship and affection and relationship as adversity, so He sends the discipline of sorrow that we might prove His love, test His friendship, and know Him more experimentally and blessedly as our Brother born for adversity. O my soul! repair to Him as such. Is your earthly brother's house closed against you? the door of this Brother is ever open night and day. Come when, come how, come with what you may, never forget Christ, your Brother, is an open door. Aim only, aim constantly, to do God's will from the heart, for Jesus has said, "Whoever does the will of God is my brother."
It is no little or dubious evidence that Christ is our Brother--if we love Christ's brethren. If this is lacking we may justly question the reality of our fraternal relation to Christ. "By this we know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." Herein do we establish our relation by our likeness to the Elder Brother. Christ loves all His brethren alike. And if I love them--not because they are of my creed, or of my Church--but because they are Christ's brethren, then do I evidence my relation to the one and true Christian Brotherhood.
Lord, You are gone before us,
Our mansions to prepare,
In sympathy a BROTHER,
A Father in Your care.
No power in You is lacking,
Nor lacking is Your will;
Whatever our vessels measure,
Your love will ever fill.
THE LORD MY HOPE
"The Lord is my portion, says my soul"
"The Lord Jesus Christ, who is our hope."--1 Timothy 1:1
What a precious possession of the believing soul, springing from the Lord as his Portion, is hope. Rob the poor worldling of his--though it be but earth-bound, and fading as a midsummer's evening sun--and you have plunged him in the dark and deep abyss of despondency and despair. Man without hope is the most miserable being in the universe. But with the hope of the Christian glowing in his heart--a hope of which God is the Giver, Jesus the Foundation, the Spirit the Author, and heaven the goal--and there lives not among the happy, a happier being than he. Thus the believer is "saved by hope." Look, my soul, for a moment at this inestimable part of your portion, and learn more thoroughly in what it consists--what the sweet soothing it imparts, the holy obligations it imposes, and the splendid revelations it anticipates and unveils to faith's far-seeing eye. HOW does the believing soul arrive at the possession of Christ as its hope?
The first step is to relinquish every other. A hope of heaven built upon obedience to the law, upon our personal merits, upon anything of good that we fancy we are or can do, is a false hope; and, persisted in, will most assuredly make its deluded and unhappy possessor lamentably and eternally ashamed. Hope, too, springing from church privileges, religious ordinances, charitable gifts and pious duties, is equally fallacious and fatal.
But you, O believer, have not so learned Christ, if so be you have been taught by Him the truth as it is in Jesus. The Holy Spirit has written the sentence of death upon yourself, and upon all the dead works springing from self; and fleeing as from a plague-tainted garment out of your own righteousness, you have run into Christ, and enfolding yourself by faith in His righteousness, wrought by His obedience and dyed in His blood, you are justified and saved. Accepted in Him you are "beautiful as Tirzah, and all your garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made you glad." And now you have a "good hope through grace," and "peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Then let us raise loud and high the thanksgiving anthem, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fades not away."
Look well to it that the lamp of your Christian hope is constantly trimmed and brightly burning. The golden oil that feeds the lamp is drawn from Jesus Christ, and the hand that trims the flame is faith. Despond not if at times the sun of your hope--to change the figure--is for a moment shaded, or is partially eclipsed. Built upon, and springing from Jesus Christ, it cannot entirely expire, since He Himself is our hope. Corruption within may strive to weaken it, adversity without may seem to shake it, temptations from concealed sources may fearfully assail it, nevertheless, your hope shall not perish from the Lord, but, built upon Christ, nourished by Christ, kept by Christ, and looking forward to being with and enjoying Christ forever, like a fine setting sun it shall grow larger and brighter as it descends, until dissolving into heaven's eternal effulgence it is lost in the full fruition of glory.
With such a hope as Christ, how strong and solemn the obligation to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live godly, righteously, and soberly in this present evil world. How humbly and submissively should we bow to all our Father's afflictive discipline, since He has given us His beloved Son to dwell in our hearts "the hope of glory." Thus "every man that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as He is pure." Cheer up, then, disconsolate one!
THE LORD MY HELPER
"The Lord is my portion, says my soul"
That is why we can say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper, so I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?" Hebrews 13:6
The believer is as helpless in himself as he is portionless in the world; and both lessons are only learned by experience--the one, in the school of the soul's nothingness; the other, in the school of earth's insufficiency. Hallowed teaching this which leads to such blessed results! But the lesson of our spiritual helplessness is not once learned, and learned for all time. Oh no! It is a daily, hourly lesson, learned in every event and incident of our life, yet never completed until we pass to the wider sphere, the sublimer studies, the higher, nobler attainments of glory.
Oh, what divine studies await our enlarged faculties! what sublime revelations, our complete holiness! what an ocean of bliss, our hearts perfected in the love to God! But the present is the time of our spiritual education for heaven, and the great truth God is teaching us--by the deeper knowledge of ourselves, by all our mental infirmities and moral delinquencies, the discipline of trial, temptation, and sorrow--is, "Without Me you can do nothing."
"I was brought low," says David, "and He helped me." See how God teaches us. There is first the soul's down-casting before the Lord's uplifting. Oh, how low may we be brought! Low in our spiritual life, low in the graces of the Spirit, low in Christian evidences, low in mind, body, and estate; nevertheless, we have experienced the truth of God's Word, "When men are cast down, then you shall say, There is lifting up." O my soul! is the Lord, by His hidden teaching, or by His afflictive dispensations, mowing you down, and bringing you low? It is but bringing you to testify, with the psalmist, "I was brought low, and HE helped me." But look at our Helper!
Our Helper is DIVINE. "HE helped me." "The Lord is my helper." The Lord Jesus is all-sufficient as our Helper. "I have laid help," says the Father, speaking of the Son, "upon One that is mighty." The Father required help in the redemption of His chosen Church. He found it in His co-equal and co-eternal Son, in whom met all the divine and human requisites for the salvation of His elect. The help, too, the Father laid upon the Son, was help also for us. Therefore the Lord Jesus is our Helper--all-powerful, all-loving, all-pitying, yes, all-sufficient for all the needs we bring.
Our help is OPPORTUNE. It comes just at the moment we need it, and not a moment sooner. Our down-casting is the time of His uplifting. His help, also, is in His own time. The Lord is never before His time, and never after it, in His gracious interventions in our behalf. Wait, then, His time, O my soul! His time is best. "Blessed are all those who wait for Him."
His help, also, is EFFECTUAL. Human help fails to reach our case. The Lord's help is never baffled--it never falls short of our need, urgent, desperate though that need may be. Trust, then, the Lord, O my soul! for "He has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper; I will not fear what man shall do unto me."
But now, as to the nature of the help we need. Each believer walks, for the most part, in his own way, the Lord leading him by a path peculiar to Himself--a path in which he can observe no footprints but Christ's, and indeed a path so narrow as to admit as his companion Christ only. Is your need temporal? all the resources of heaven and earth are Christ's, and He who fed five thousand with a few loaves will not leave you, His beloved child, unnoticed and unsupplied. Cry importunately, "Lord, help me!" until He helps. Is your need spiritual? 'all fullness' dwells in Jesus. And whether your need be the pardon of sin, or the sense of acceptance in Christ, or grace to conquer some powerful, besetting infirmity, or support and comfort in present sorrow, or guidance in some trying perplexity, or deliverance in behalf of one you love--still cry, "Lord, help me!" and your prayer will not be in vain, so that you may boldly say, "THE LORD IS MY HELPER, I WILL NOT FEAR."
THE LORD MY REFINER
"The Lord is my portion, says my soul"
"He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver."--Malachi 3:3
This is one of the essential appointments of our Lord in His mediatorial mission--the office and work of a Refiner and Purifier of His Church. Redemption involved more than deliverance from the guilt and condemnation of sin; it equally secured our emancipation from sin's tyranny and power--our sanctification as well as our salvation, a fitness for, equally as a title to, glory. It was not enough that Christ should purchase the "Field"--the world--for the sake of the "Pearl"--the Church; but having found the precious jewel, it is His purpose to mold it into a coronet of beauty, wearing it Himself until 'the end comes' when He shall have delivered up the kingdom to His Father, and then shall His redeemed Church be a "crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of our God."
It is a consolatory thought that our refining is in the hands of Jesus--the hands that were pierced for us on the cross. Lord, let me ever fall in Your hands, whether You correct, or rebuke, or slay, and not in the hands of man, for very many and very tender are Your mercies. My soul! your Refiner and Purifier is Jesus. Jesus shapes all your trials; Jesus sends all your afflictions; Jesus mingles all your sorrows; Jesus shapes and balances all the clouds of your pilgrimage; Jesus prepares and heats the furnace that refines you as silver and purifies you as gold. Then, O my soul, tremble not at the knife that wounds you, at the flame that scorches you, at the cloud that shades you, at the billows that surge above you--Jesus is in it all, and you are as safe as though you had reached the blissful climate where the vine needs no pruning, and the ore no purifying, where the sky is never darkened, and upon whose golden sands no storms of adversity ever blow or waves of sorrow ever break.
And, O my soul, what deep need is there for this refining and purifying of your Lord. What inward corruption, what carnality, what worldliness, what self-seeking, what creature idolatry, what God-dishonoring unbelief, imperatively demand the searching, burning, purifying fires of Christ's furnace! And this is the end of all--to take away your sin, and to make you a partaker of the Divine holiness.
And mark the Refiner's position. "He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver." It would be fatal to his purpose did the smelter and refiner leave his post while the liquid mass was fusing and seething in the furnace. But there he patiently sits, watching and tempering the flame, and removing the refuse and the dross as it floats upon the surface of the molten ore. So Christ sits as a Refiner; and with an eye that never slumbers, and with a patience that never wearies, and with a love that never chills, and with a faithfulness that never falters, watches and controls the process that purifies our hearts, burnishes our graces, sanctifies our nature, and impresses more vividly His own image of loveliness upon our soul. If He places you in the fire, He will bring you through the fire, "that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ." But sweet and soothing is the truth that the believer is not alone in the fire. The Refiner is with us as with the three children passing through the burning furnace kindled by the king. The Lord will have us polished stones; and as some believers are more rusty and some more alloyed than others, they need a rougher file and a hotter furnace. This may account for the great severity of trial through which some of the Lord's precious jewels are called to pass. Not less dear to His heart are they for this; it is said God had one Son without corruption, but no son without correction; for "though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered." Look up, my soul, your Portion is your Refiner. Be still, humble, submissive. The knife is in a Father's hand, the flame is under a Savior's control.
THE LORD MY HEALER
"The Lord is my portion, says my soul"
"And He healed those who had need of healing."--Luke 9:11
How mercifully and marvelously is the Lord Jesus suited to the every condition of our sinful, fallen humanity. Take the present illustration. Sin is a deadly wound, a raging malady of the soul. Jesus is revealed as the Great Healer, His blood the sovereign remedy. His own gracious words teach this. "The whole need not a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." What joyful news is here! It is as though a royal proclamation had gone forth throughout a plague-smitten city that a sovereign remedy had been discovered and an infallible physician provided, and that whoever were willing to avail themselves of the provision, would be freely and effectually healed.
Such is the royal announcement of the gospel to this sin-stricken world. What joyful tidings, O my soul, are here! Spiritually convinced of the fatal sting of the old serpent the devil; mournfully conscious of the deadly virus coursing its way through your whole being, paralyzing every faculty, and tainting every thought, feeling, and action; how welcome the gospel message that there is balm in Gilead and a Physician there, and that Jesus heals all those who have need of healing! All this is the provision of the Father's love. One in nature, the Father and the Son are one in the grand remedy provided for the healing of the soul, so that in bringing my case, desperate though it may be, to Christ, I have the divine warrant for believing that I shall be healed. "In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent His only-begotten Son into the world that we might LIVE through Him."
And what does the Lord heal? The Word of God shall answer. "He heals ALL our diseases." Can He heal bodily disease? Infallibly, effectually, instantly. When He was here on earth, evil spirits that none could cast out, fled at His word; diseases that none could cure, vanished at His touch. He does so now. His compassion, power, and willingness are the same. Sick and suffering saint! if it is for the glory of God and for your best good, Jesus can rebuke your disease and restore you to health again. But, if it pleases Him to continue your sickness, suffering, and languor, it is because in His higher prerogative of your spiritual Physician, He would promote thereby the health of your soul. Then, Lord, if this sickness, pain, and weakness are Your means to promote my sanctification and fitness for heaven, my will shall be lost in Your will, and Your will and my will shall be one.
Jesus is the Great Healer of all our spiritual diseases. He loves to undertake the care of the sin-sick soul, and never lost one who betook itself to His cross. Come with your spiritual disease, O my soul; it may have baffled every physician and distanced every remedy--Jesus and His Atonement can cure it. "He heals all your diseases." He binds up the broken heart, heals our backslidings, restores our wanderings, revives our declensions; and when faith droops through trial, and the spirit faints in adversity, and love chills through temptation, Jesus the Healer comes, and by the fresh application of His blood, and by the renewed communication of His grace, and by the quickening energy of His word, He heals us.
Beware, O my soul, of any healing but Christ's, and of any remedy but His blood. Watch against a false healing of your wound. None but Christ, and nothing short of the blood of Christ. Take your case, as it is, to Him. Go to no minister, to no church, to no rite, to no duty, but go at once to Jesus and His blood, and cry--believingly, importunately cry--"Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed." Oh, what a loving, gentle, skillful healer is Jesus! With not a frown of displeasure, with not a look of coldness, with not a word of upbraiding, will He cure you. He heals sin's worst malady, cures man's incurables, and never loses a patient who seeks His saving touch. "Lord, be merciful unto me--heal my soul, for I have sinned against You."
THE LORD MY DELIVERER
"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."
"Who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us." 2 Corinthians 1:10
It was a needful and precious petition the Lord Jesus taught His disciples--and which we require daily to offer--"DELIVER us from evil." We are in constant need of deliverance, exposed, as we are, to continued, varied, and potent evils, visible and invisible, temporal and spiritual, to evade and overcome which we have no native power, and can therefore hope for no self-deliverance.
But who is our true Deliverer? It is He who is our Portion, who taught us thus to pray, and who is Himself our Great Deliverer. Let us take the THREE TENSES employed by the apostle in the words at the head of this meditation, as illustrating the Lord's great deliverance of His people.
And first, there is the Lord's PAST deliverance. "Who deliverED us from so great a death." Jesus stooped from the throne of Deity to the cross of a condemned felon, to deliver us from 'so great a death,' and from the bitter pains and pangs of the 'second death,' the death that is eternal. A sin-offering for our sins, accursed with our curse, condemned by our condemnation, and dying our death, the precious blood streaming from His torn side and bursting heart made a full atonement for our vast and countless offences, effacing every syllable of the indictment that was against us, and blotting out every stain of sin that was upon us--thus having delivered us from so great a death. My soul! avail yourself of this wondrous deliverance, this perfect redemption, this free pardon; and by the application of the atoning blood to your conscience, walk in the happy enjoyment of all the blessings of a charter of salvation and celestial citizenship which Christ's deliverance makes yours.
Second, there is a PRESENT deliverance. "And He DOES deliver." In addition to the canceling of all past offences, Christ's deliverance involves our present emancipation from an unrenewed nature. To pardon our guilt and to leave us the servants of sin and the slaves of Satan would be a species of refined cruelty with which God could never be charged. Our present deliverance, then, is freedom from spiritual death, by which we become living souls, and thus we are now delivered from so great a death, and can join the apostle in "giving thanks unto the Father who has delivered us from the power of darkness, and has translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son." Yes! Jesus delivers now.
Are you in any present difficulty or sorrow, need or temptation? Christ can deliver you, and deliver you now. Cry mightily to Him. He has power to deliver, fullness to supply, and a loving, sympathizing heart to comfort. Your perplexity cannot baffle His wisdom, your needs cannot exhaust His resources, your sorrow cannot distance His sympathy. He who has delivered you out of six troubles will not forsake you in the seventh. O my soul! live upon a present Savior, rejoice in a present salvation, and do not forget that God in Christ is a very present help in every time of need.
Third, He who has delivered, who does deliver, will yet deliver us in all the FUTURE of our history. Faith acquires strength for the present by a remembrance of the past deliverances of God; and from the experience of the present, it looks forward with confidence to the future--"In whom we trust that He will yet deliver us." Then, O my soul, be not over-anxious about your future. God is faithful, Jesus is unchangeable, and all that the Lord your Portion has been He is now, and He will be in all future trouble, sickness, and death--an all-sufficient, all-loving, all-faithful deliverer, never leaving nor forsaking you, until He has "delivered you out of the miseries of this sinful world, having your perfect consummation and bliss in body and soul in His eternal and everlasting kingdom." "Call upon Me in the day of trouble--I will DELIVER you, and you shall glorify Me."
THE LORD MY MASTER
"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."
"You call me 'Master' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am." John 13:13
Emancipated from the slavery of Satan, the believer becomes the servant of Christ, and his highest honor that, henceforth, Christ is his Master. What a blissful exchange--the liberty of the child, for the bondage of the slave; the service of holiness, for the wages of unrighteousness; Christ his Master, for Satan his despot; and Canaan, with its vine-clad hills and sunny plains, its flowing rivers and spicy breezes, for the furnaces, the brick kilns, and the darkness of Egypt!
All this divine grace accomplishes--for, by the grace of God, we are what we are--and all this is involved in the relation which the Lord our portion sustains to us as our Master. It is clear that our Lord did not refuse to acknowledge the relation, but accepted and approved it. Not therefore as an empty title, but as a profoundly significant appellation, He recognized and commended it on the part of His disciples. Equally does it belong to us to claim Him as our Master, and diligently to inquire what are the privileges, duties, and blessings flowing to us from this high and sacred relation.
As our Master, we belong to the school of Christ. In other words, we are His disciples or learners. Plato had his school, and Pythagoras his, and proud were the disciples of each to be recognized as claiming either the one or the other as their master. Christ is our Master. He is divine, His school unearthly, His disciples spiritual, His doctrine and His teaching from above. My soul! in this sense--the highest, and holiest, and most solemn--call no man master except Christ.
There are many in this infidel and ritualistic age who set themselves up as heads of 'schools of religious thought' and teachers of theological doctrines, followed by multitudes of unreflecting and deluded admirers, but whose doctrines and practice, if faithful to Christ, we must ignore and shun as the garment saturated with the plague. Test the spirits by God's revealed word, for many false teachers are gone forth, denying the Lord Jesus, while yet presumptuously assuming the badge of His religion, and falsely wearing the livery of His Church. My soul! sit only at Jesus' feet, and drink of the pure wine of the gospel as it sweetly flows from His grace-anointed lips.
As our Master, we are bound to obey His commands. "If you love me, keep my commandments." And truly, Lord, Your commands are not arbitrary and grievous, but Your yoke is easy and Your burden is light; and in wearing the one and in bearing the other there is a present and great reward. "Your ways are ways of pleasantness, and all Your paths are peace."
Sweet and pleasant is His service. It blends the lowliest act with the highest honor, the most binding obligation with the most perfect freedom, the severest self-denial with the most exquisite enjoyment, the poorest offering with the richest reward. O my soul, in laboring for Christ you are serving a good, a loving, a faithful Master; and however obscure your sphere and humble your employment, His grace will aid you, His blessing will further you, and He will at the last day publicly and gratefully acknowledge and richly reward the cup of cold water given, and the box of fragrant ointment broken, in His name and for His glory.
As our Master, we His servants are to imitate Him. "The servant is not greater than his lord. If I, your Lord and Master have washed your feet, you ought also to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you." Lord! may I so closely walk with You, so faithfully serve You, and so truly resemble You, that in the servant, the world may trace the image of the Master, whose I am and whom I serve, and glorify Your great and precious Name.
"Lord, if You Your grace impart,
Poor in spirit, meek in heart,
I shall as my Master be,
Rooted in humility."
THE LORD MY SERVANT
"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."
"For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves." Luke 22:27
It is with the profoundest modesty and humility the pen traces the heading of this meditation! The Lord of life and glory, the Creator of all beings, the Maker of all worlds--our Servant! astounding truth! amazing condescension! fathomless grace! But, vast though it be, it is our privilege to receive this truth. Incredible as it may appear, we are bound to believe it, because He has Himself declared it. "I am among you as he that SERVES." Agreeable with this is the teaching of His apostle. "Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God--but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a SERVANT." My soul, you have been contemplating the Lord your portion in the character of a Master--now sit at His feet and study Him in the office of a Servant. Listen to His language. "For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves."
In what an impressive light does this office place His greatness. It is only the truly great who can really descend. As the sun appears larger and more resplendent at its setting, so Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, never appeared more like Himself as when He touched at its lowest point the horizon of our humanity; as when He veiled the God in the man, the King in the subject, the Master in the servant, and then stooped to "wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded." O my soul, let this wondrous spectacle heighten your admiration and intensify your love.
It was the Divinity of your Lord which stamped every word He spoke with a meaning so impressive, and which invested every act He performed with a grandeur so sublime. Learn from this that you are never more truly great as when you are serving Him in His saints--condescending, in imitation of Him, to men of low estate. No saint of God is too base, no service too lowly, to awaken your love, rouse your sympathy, and engage your service. Think it not above your dignity and position to leave your palatial abode and visit the humble cottage of a poor, aged, suffering saint, and in some humble and loving act become the servant of that 'royal priest,' that 'king's daughter,' that child of God, stricken with suffering, battling with poverty, and, more than all, his soul perhaps conflicting with spiritual doubt, darkness, and temptation. Oh, what a privilege to serve that sick, suffering, sorrowing one whom Jesus loves; and in so doing catch the chimes of His voice as they sweetly fall upon the ear--"Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, you have done it unto Me."
And still Jesus is serving us. He is among us, and by a thousand kind and condescending acts is ministering to us. He is giving us grace to conquer sin, supplying us with strength to overcome the wicked one, administering comfort in all our sorrows, condescending to our lowly affairs, alleviating our sickness, adjusting our perplexities, mitigating our sufferings, soothing our griefs, and making the hearts of others kind, loving and sympathizing towards us. Oh yes, Jesus makes all our beds in sickness, invisibly and noiselessly moves about our chamber, watches with the most wakeful, tender vigilance around our couch, and in a thousand gentle ways administers to our comfort.
If such the Savior's service for us, what, O my soul, is your service for Him? Are you laying yourself out for Christ, consecrating your substance, talent, influence, time, willingly, unreservedly to the Lord? Then listen to His cheering words--"If any man serves me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be--if any man serves me, him will my Father honor." Then comes the final service of Jesus--"Blessed are those servants whose master finds them watching when He comes. I tell you the truth, He will dress Himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and serve them." Luke 12:37
THE LORD MY TEACHER
"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."
"You are a teacher come from God."--John 3:2
We cannot dispense with any one mediatorial office of Christ, least of all with His office as a PROPHET, or, TEACHER. He came to make known Salvation. Before He could officiate at His altar as Priest, or sit upon His throne as King, He must reveal God's plan of redemption as a Prophet.
Look, O my soul, at one or two of the qualifications of Jesus as your Teacher. He is a DIVINE Teacher, a "Teacher come from God," to make Him known, to reveal the mind and to unveil the heart of the Father. His own words are, "All things are delivered unto me of my Father, and no man knows the Son but the Father; neither knows any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will REVEAL Him." Oh, what a blessed Revealer of God is Jesus! He lifts the veil and shows me the Father as no planet in its glory could, as no mountain in its magnitude could, as no flower in its beauty could--no, not the greatest, most sublime, and loveliest object in nature could. "He that has seen me, has seen the Father."
He is also a HUMAN Teacher. We could not learn from angels. Our dulness would weary their patience, our waywardness would exhaust their love, our questions would baffle their knowledge. Our Teacher must be like ourselves, human. "And because he is human, he (the Old Testament high priest) is able to deal gently with the people, though they are ignorant and wayward. For he is subject to the same weaknesses they have."
He must be gentle, long-suffering, and infinite in knowledge. Such is Jesus. Oh, with what unfaltering love and unwearied patience--bearing with our dullness, indifference, and ingratitude--does Jesus teach us the precious things of His Word, and the yet more glorious and precious things of Himself. "Lord, I would humbly learn from You, and of You, what You are, and what Your truth is--never, never leaving Your feet."
And what does Jesus teach us? He teaches the plague of our own heart, the exceeding sinfulness of sin, the hatefulness and nothingness of self, the emptiness of the creature, and the insufficiency of the world. He makes us acquainted with the heart and character of our Father--His thoughts of peace, His purposes of grace, and designs of mercy. He reveals to us His own glory and beauty, fullness and preciousness. In a word, He teaches every spiritual truth and holy lesson essential to the completeness of our education for a heaven of perfect knowledge, purity, and love.
And how does Jesus teach us? He teaches by the illumination of the Spirit, by the letter of the Word, by the dispensations of His providence, and by the communications of His grace--yes, by all the events and circumstances, joys and sorrows, lights and shadows of our solemn and chequered life. He is teaching you, O my soul, more of your own nothingness and of His all-sufficiency, by one hallowed sorrow, by one fiery temptation, than, perhaps, you have ever learned in all your previous history--for "who teaches like Him?" Oh, what a university in the believer's training for heaven is Jesus' school of affliction! The astronomer only efficiently and practically acquires a knowledge of his sublime science when the sun has set, and the sable robe of night drapes every object in ebony gloom. Thus we, the students of a diviner, sublimer, and holier science--"the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ"--become the most spiritual and experimental in our attainments, when the sun of earthly good has set, and the starless night of weeping and of woe shuts every 'creature object' from our view. Blessed Teacher! You have often taught me in the deepest darkness of adversity, more than I ever learned in the brightest sunshine of prosperity!
"O Lord! give Your servant a lowly, meek, and teachable spirit, willing to learn any lesson or truth in any school or way Your infinite wisdom and love may appoint."
"Your way, not mine, O Lord,
However dark it be!
Lead me by Your own hand,
Choose out the path for me."
THE LORD MY EXAMPLE
"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."
"I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you."--John 13:15
In contending earnestly for the doctrine of the sacrificial nature of our Lord's atoning death, we may be in great danger of overlooking the fact that the whole life of Christ is constantly presented to us in the Scriptures as the model by which our own is to be molded. We needed a personal embodiment of the religion of the gospel--a perfect, peerless Example. In One only could we find it, even in Him whose gospel it was, and whose life was a pure and living reflection of the doctrines it taught, the precepts it inculcated, and the spirit it breathed. Let us, then, inquire briefly what are the arts of His holy life in which we may regard Him as imitable, and what the features of His character we may presume to transfer with humility and gratitude to ourselves.
We are to follow the example of Christ in His OBEDIENCE. "If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in His love." Behold the example! As He obeyed His Father with a loving and unreserved obedience, so must His disciples walk in obedience to all His commands, ordinances, and precepts, taking up His cross daily and so following Him.
Lord, let there be no reserves in my obedience to You, as there were none in Your obedience to Your Father; but like Your servant Caleb may I follow You fully, doing the will of God from the heart.
We must be conformed to the HOLINESS and PURITY of Christ. "As He which has called you is holy, so you be holy in all manner of life." "Every man that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as He (Christ) is pure." O Lord, I can only be truly happy as I am truly holy; and I can only be truly holy as I am walking even as You walked.
We must be conformed to the HUMILITY and MEEKNESS of Christ. "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me--for I am meek and lowly in heart." O Lord, never was there such a model of humility as Yours. Gladly would I transfer this lovely lineament of Your character and spirit to myself, and in heart and conduct walk humbly with God, and in lowliness and self-abnegation with my fellows.
We are to be conformed to the LOVE of Christ. "A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another, as I have loved you." Oh, how loving was Jesus! He was all love--nothing but love. He loved God supremely; He loved man self-sacrificingly. Love led Him to obey God, love constrained Him to die for us. Lord, mold me to this lovely example of love--that love to You, and love to the saints, and love to sinners may be the all-commanding, all-constraining principle of my life.
We are to follow the example of Christ's FORGIVENESS of injuries. "Forgiving one another, if any man has a quarrel against any--even as Christ forgave you, so also do you." How few there are, even among the followers of Jesus, who present a fair and full reflection of this trait of His character, this prominent fact of His life.
"Lord, let me be found among the few! Give me grace meekly to overlook an injury, silently to suffer a wrong, generously to forgive and forget the unkindness done, the sorrow inflicted, the debt incurred by my fellow-servant, even as You have forgiven and forgotten my transgressions, canceling all my sins and remitting all my debts against You."
Would you resemble Jesus? Then study Him closely, study Him constantly. Study not faint, imperfect copies, but study the Divine-human Original--study Jesus only. The most perfect copy may mislead you, Jesus cannot. Aim to be, not saint-like, but Christ-like; not man-like, but God-like. Less like yourself, more like Jesus. Sir Peter Lely, the great artist, made it a rule never to look at a bad picture, having found by experience that, when ever he did so, his pencil took a hint from it. Lord! prune, chisel, pencil my soul as You will; only make me a perfect copy of YOURSELF!
THE LORD MY BURDEN-BEARER
"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."
"Cast your burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain you."--Psalms 55:22
Wonderful words! Their sense is magical, their sound is music, their very utterance is repose! It is one of those flowers culled from the Lord's garden, pencilled with beauty and laden with perfume, which defies all human art to heighten the loveliness of the one, or to increase the sweetness of the other. And yet, as most flowers are more fragrant when crushed, and as the grape yields its sweetest juice when pressed, a simple exposition of these precious words, however gentle the pressure, may prove a spiritual fragrance and refreshment to some sin or trial-burdened child of God, whose glance may fall upon these pages.
The FITNESS of Jesus to be the Burden-Bearer of His people surely needs no proof to those who have studied His Word, and are in any measure acquainted with Him. He possesses all the essential qualifications for so demanding an office. What must be the overwhelming weight of all the sins, cares, trials, needs and wants, of His whole Church? What! a mere creature, a finite being, able to stand for one moment beneath the load! Preposterous idea! But our Burden-Bearer is equal in every respect of power, love, and sympathy, to sustain this mighty burden--the burden of God and the burden of the Church. "I have laid help upon one that is mighty," said Jehovah, and that 'help' involved all that the moral government of God demanded, and all that the necessities of the Church required in order to our salvation. Because He was essentially Divine, He was equal to the case. And now, O my soul, what is your burden? Remember the invitation is a personal one, and therefore includes every care and need, sin and sorrow, that you have. "Cast your burden on the Lord, and He shall sustain you."
Is SIN your burden? What a mighty sin-bearer is Jesus. "Jehovah has laid on Him the iniquities of us all." Then, cast this burden on Jesus. Though He bore it all once, He bears it all afresh in every sin we confess at His feet, and in every trace of guilt we bring to the renewed cleansing of His blood. Attempt not to carry your sin a single moment, or a single step--take it at once in penitence and faith to Jesus; confess it unreservedly, and wash afresh in the fountain still open and still accessible to you. "A person who has bathed all over does not need to wash, except for the feet, to be entirely clean."
Is TRIAL your burden, O my soul? Jesus is a 'tried stone,' and is, therefore, in all respects equal to yours. He has sent, or has permitted, this trial to befall you, that you might learn more of this precious tried stone. The Lord tests the faith of the righteous, that they might test His faithfulness. Test His wisdom to guide, test His strength to sustain, test His love to bring you through this trial, even as gold, to the glory of His great name.
Perhaps your burden is a DIFFICULTY which, like a huge stone, stands in your path, and which no human sagacity or power can remove. "Is anything too hard for me? says the Lord." He can unravel your perplexity, disentangle you from all your difficulties, and roll the stone from your path. Cast this burden upon Him. "My eyes are ever toward the Lord; for He shall pluck my feet out of the net."
Is NEED your burden? What need cannot the Lord supply? All the resources of Infinity are at His command. "The gold and the silver is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills," are the words with which He challenges your need, and would suppress your fear. Does He provide for the fowls of the air? then do you think that He will starve the children of His love?
But whatever your burden, cast it in the prayer of faith on the Lord. Peculiar and heavy though it may be, His strength and grace and love will sustain you. Encircled by His almighty arm, aided by prayer, upheld by the promises, strengthened by His grace, soothed by His sympathy, and comforted by His Spirit, you shall not sink, for it is written, "Cast your burden on the Lord, and He shall sustain you."
THE LORD MY SHEPHERD
"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."
"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want."--Psalms 23:1
The pastoral office of Jesus is in beautiful harmony with the existence of His Church under the similitude of a Flock. And there is scarcely any part of His mediatorial work which more essentially involves, or more clearly evidences, the twofold nature of our Lord as this. Fully to discharge the duties of the Shepherd of His Church, He must possess all the perfections of God, in equal balance with all the attributes of man. He must be divine to know, provide for, and keep His flock; He must be human to accomplish its salvation, and to sympathize with and aid its trials, infirmities, and temptations. Both these extremes of being--the Infinite and the finite--meet in Jehovah our Shepherd.
Our Lord is a loving Shepherd. But oh, what pen can describe the vastness of Christ's love to His sheep--His one fold? In proportion to our faith in the love of Christ to us will be the condition of our hearts towards Him. The Lord direct your heart, beloved--perhaps wounded by sin or shaded with sorrow--into the depths of this infinite ocean of divine love; that, filling the shallows, and tiding over the unsightly infirmities, failures, and sins of your Christian life, you may walk in its happy, holy influence. Oh, lose not sight of your Shepherd's love!
Christ is an atoning Shepherd. This was His own declaration. "I lay down my life for my sheep." These words will admit of no rational, intelligent interpretation other than that, having "loved us, He gave Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice unto God." And what should be the sanctifying influence of the Atonement of Jesus? Should not His death for sin, be our death to sin? How forcibly the apostle puts this truth--"Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous for good works."
Think, O my soul, of the power of your Shepherd. When David would prove his ability to confront the vaunting Goliath, he reminded Saul that he had slain both the lion and the bear which had invaded his father's flock. But Christ, our true David, the Lord our Shepherd, has overcome all our enemies--condemning sin, bruising Satan, conquering death and the grave--and has thereby proved His power to slay the lion and the bear of all our spiritual foes, ever prowling, ever watching, ever plotting to worry, wound, and, if possible, to destroy the sheep given to Him by His Father, and purchased with His own atoning and most precious blood. But, "They shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of His hands."
It is the especial province of the Shepherd to provide suitable and plentiful pasture for the sheep. This He most faithfully does. He provides the green pastures of His Word into which by His Spirit He leads us. Yet more, He has provided for us His flesh to eat and His blood to drink, figuratively, spiritually, believingly. Truly has He prepared a table of the richest and costliest provision in the wilderness, and before our enemies, at which He Himself presides, saying to each welcome guest, "Eat, O friends, drink, yes, drink abundantly, O beloved."
Sit down, O believer, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Why should you be lean and famished, even though a famine may prevail, when all the promises of God are yours, and all the provision of the gospel is yours, and all the supplies of the covenant are yours, and, above all, all the fullness of Jesus is yours? Among these divine meadows you may roam, feed, and lie down until the Shepherd calls you to richer pastures on high. Until then, keep close to the Shepherd's side--'Jesus only'--and feed with the sheep--the ONE Church of Christ, and do all you can to enlarge the flock and to spread the renown of the Shepherd who ransomed you with His own blood, who sought you in the cloudy and dark day, and, laying you upon His shoulder, bore you gently back to His fold.
THE LORD MY RESTORER
"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."
"He restores my soul."--Psalms 23:3
It is not the least important duty of the Shepherd--under which similitude our meditation yesterday viewed our blessed Lord--to go in quest of the stray ones of the flock. It would be an extraordinary exception indeed, were there none such--no silly lamb, no fickle sheep wandering from the fold. The religious history of the believer is a history of declension and revival, of departure and return, of his backsliding and of the Savior's restoring. The regenerate soul is bent upon backsliding from the Lord. The sun does not more naturally decline, nor the planets start off from their center, than does the believing heart wander from God.
"O Lord, how many and hidden are my soul's departures from You, You only know! How often my love chills, my faith droops, my zeal flags, and I grow weary, and am ready to halt in Your service. Mine is a sinful, roving heart, fickle to You as the changing wind; false to my vows as a broken bow. But You, O Lord, are my Shepherd, and You restore my soul; pitying my infirmity, knowing my wanderings, and tracking all my steps, You recover, heal, and pardon Your poor, silly sheep, prone to leave Your wounded, sheltering side in quest of that which can be found in Yourself alone."
He restores us gently. When He might justly commission some harsh messenger to awaken us from our reverie, and bring our sin to our remembrance, He sends a gentle Nathan to say to us, "You are the man"--some kind and loving messenger, filled with the 'meekness and gentleness of Christ,' to remind us of our backsliding, to deal with our sin, and to win and lead us back to the Savior, towards whom our love had chilled, and from whom our feet had strayed. Recall His own gentle dealing. Behold Him traversing mountain and valley in search of the one sheep that had wandered; nor resting until He