June 30

Morning

And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them. — John 17:22

Behold the superlative liberality of the Lord Jesus, for He has given us His all. Although a pittance of His possessions would have made a universe of angels rich beyond all thought—yet He was not content until He had given us all that He had. It would have been surprising grace—if He had allowed us to eat the crumbs of His bounty beneath the table of His mercy; but He will do nothing by halves, He makes us sit with Him and share the feast! Had He given us some small pension from His royal coffers, we would have had cause to love Him eternally; but no—He will have His bride as rich as Himself, and He will not have a glory or a grace in which she shall not share. He has not been content with less than making us joint-heirs with Himself, so that we might have equal possessions. He has emptied all His estate into the coffers of the Church, and has all things common with His redeemed.

There is not one room in His house, the key of which He will withhold from His people. He gives them full liberty to take all that He has to be their own. He loves them to take freely of His treasure, and appropriate as much as they can possibly carry. The boundless fullness of His all-sufficiency is as free to the believer—as the air he breathes. Christ has put the flagon of His love and grace to the believer’s lip, and bidden him drink on forever; for could he drain it, he is welcome to do so, and as he cannot exhaust it, he is bidden to drink abundantly, for it is all his own! What truer proof of fellowship can heaven or earth afford?

“When I stand before the throne
Dressed in beauty not my own;
When I see You as You are,
Love You with unsinning heart;
Then, Lord, shall I fully know—
Not until then—how much I owe!”

Evening

Ah Lord God, behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee. — Jer 32:17

At the very time when the Chaldeans surrounded Jerusalem, and when the sword, famine and pestilence had desolated the land, Jeremiah was commanded by God to purchase a field, and have the deed of transfer legally sealed and witnessed. This was a strange purchase for a rational man to make. Prudence could not justify it, for it was buying with scarcely a probability that the person purchasing could ever enjoy the possession. But it was enough for Jeremiah that his God had bidden him, for well he knew that God will be justified of all His children.

He reasoned thus, “Ah, Lord God! You can make this plot of ground of use to me; You can rid this land of these oppressors; You can make me yet sit under my vine and my fig-tree in the heritage which I have bought; for You did make the heavens and the earth, and there is nothing too hard for You.”

This gave a majesty to the early saints, that they dared to do at God’s command, things which carnal reason would condemn. Whether it is a Noah who is to build a ship on dry land, an Abraham who is to offer up his only son, or a Moses who is to despise the treasures of Egypt, or a Joshua who is to besiege Jericho seven days, using no weapons but the blasts of rams’ horns—they all act upon God’s command, contrary to the dictates of carnal reason; and the Lord gives them a rich reward as the result of their obedient faith. Would to God we had in the religion of these modern times, a more potent infusion of this heroic faith in God. If we would venture more upon the naked promise of God, we would enter a world of wonders to which as yet we are strangers. Let Jeremiah’s place of confidence be ours—nothing is too hard for the God who created the heavens and the earth!