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February 1

Morning

They shall sing in the ways of the Lord. — Ps 138:5

The time when Christians begin to sing in the ways of the Lord—is when they first lose their burden at the foot of the Cross. Not even the songs of the angels seem so sweet, as the first song of rapture which gushes from the inmost soul of the forgiven child of God! You know how John Bunyan describes it. He says when poor Pilgrim lost his burden at the Cross, he gave three great leaps, and went on his way singing, “Blessed Cross! blessed Sepulcher! blessed rather be the man who there was put to shame for me!”

Believer, do you recollect the day when your fetters fell off? Do you remember the place when Jesus met you, and said, “I have loved you with an everlasting love! I have blotted out as a cloud your transgressions, and as a thick cloud your sins—they shall not be mentioned against you any more forever!” Oh! what a sweet season is that—when Jesus takes away the pain of sin!

When the Lord first pardoned my sin, I was so joyous that I could scarcely refrain from dancing. I thought on my road home from the house where I had been set at liberty, that I must tell the stones in the street the story of my deliverance. So full was my soul of joy, that I wanted to tell every snow-flake that was falling from heaven—of the wondrous love of Jesus, who had blotted out the sins of one of the chief of rebels!

But it is not only at the commencement of the Christian life that believers have reason for song; as long as they live they discover cause to sing in the ways of the Lord, and their experience of His constant loving-kindness leads them to say, “I will bless the Lord at all times: His praise shall continually be in my mouth.” See to it, brother, that you magnify the Lord this day.

“As long as we tread this desert land,
New mercies shall new songs demand.”


Evening

Thy love to me was wonderful. — 2 Sam 1:26

Come, dear readers, let each one of us speak for himself of the wonderful love, not of Jonathan but of Jesus. We will not relate what we have been told but the things which we have tasted and handled of the love of Christ.

“Your love to me, O Jesus, was wonderful when I was a stranger wandering far from You, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. Your love restrained me from committing the sin which is unto death, and withheld me from self-destruction. Your love held back the axe when Justice said, “Cut it down! why does it cumber the ground?” Your love drew me into the wilderness, stripped me there, and made me feel the guilt of my sin, and the burden of my iniquity. Your love spoke thus comfortably to me, when I was sore dismayed, ‘Come unto Me and I will give you rest.’ Oh, how matchless was Your love when, in a moment, You washed my sins away, and made my polluted soul, which was crimson with the blood of my nativity, and black with the grime of my transgressions, to be white as the newly fallen snow, and pure as the finest wool. How You commended Your love—when You whispered in my ears, ‘I am yours and you are Mine!’ Kind were those accents when You said, ‘The Father Himself loves you!’ And sweet were the moments, when You manifested to me, ‘the love of the Spirit.’ Never shall my soul forget those chambers of fellowship where You have unveiled Yourself to me!”

Had Moses his cleft in the rock, where he saw the back parts of his God? We, too, have had our clefts in the rock, where we have seen the full splendors of the Godhead in the person of Christ. Did David remember the tracks of the wild goat, the land of Jordan and the Hermonites? We, too, can remember spots to memory dear, equal to these in blessedness. Precious Lord Jesus—give us a fresh draught of Your wondrous love, to begin the month with. Amen.


Morning and Evening - February 1

Public domain content taken from Morning and Evening by Charles H. Spurgeon.


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