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A mortal man reposing at the
feet of the Incarnate God!
(from "Go and Tell Jesus" by Octavius Winslow)
How many a believer in Jesus pursues his
Christian course with a sad countenance,
the reflection of a yet sadder heart, from
the consciousness of the indwelling evil of
his nature perpetually exhibiting itself in
flaws, and failure, and dereliction, to which
the eye of human affection is blind, but
which to his own inspection are real, palpable
and aggravated; not the less humiliating and
abhorrent because unknown and unsuspected
by all but himself.
The remedy, what is it? Going and telling Jesus!
Oh! If there be one view of this privilege more
precious, endearing, and sacred than another,
it is the liberty of admitting Jesus to the deepest
confidence of the heart, of unveiling to Him
thoughts, imaginations, and emotions, which
no inducement could persuade us to reveal to
our most dear and intimate friend.
Perhaps you have wandered far from God,
and that you have fallen by your iniquity;
that you have pierced afresh the bosom of
that Savior that has so often pillowed your
head in weakness and grief; yet, go and
tell Jesus! There is not in the universe a
being who can so understand and sympathize
with your case as He. Tell Him how your
affections have strayed; how your love has
chilled; how the spirit of prayer has waned in
your soul, and what ascendancy the world, the
creature, and self have obtained in your mind.
Bending beneath the cross, the eye reposing
in faith upon the Crucified, there is no heart
wandering, no mental emotion, no secret so
profound, no sorrow so delicate, no perplexity
so great, no guilt so aggravated which the lowly,
penitent heart may not fully and freely tell Jesus.
It is the oversight of this truth that produces
so much solitary grief in the minds of many of
the Lord's people. They forget what a Friend,
what a Brother, what a Confidant, what a
Savior they have in Jesus.
They refuse to go and tell Him all; and thus,
brooding over their failures and sins, nursing
in loneliness their trials and sorrows, their
"sore runs in the night, and their soul refuses
to be comforted."
There is not a thought, a feeling, or a
circumstance, with which you may not go
and tell Jesus. There is nothing that you
may not in the confidence of love, and in
the simplicity of faith, tell Jesus.
Go, and lose yourself in the love of Jesus!
Go, and hide in the wounds of Jesus!
Go, and wash in the blood of Jesus!
Go, and replenish from the fullness of Jesus!
Go, and recline upon the bosom of Jesus!
All the splendor of human philosophy, science,
and prowess, pales before the moral grandeur
which gathers, like a halo, around a mortal man
reposing at the feet of the Incarnate God;
unveiling his whole soul in all the childlike
confidence of a faith that grasps Jehovah!
The more frequently we go to Jesus, the more
intimately we shall know Him; and the more
intimately we know Him, the more ardently
shall we love, self denyingly serve, and closely
resemble Him. Language cannot describe how
growingly precious He will become to your soul;
how more intensely your heart's affections will
clasp and firmly entwine around Him, your whole
soul striving day by day to please and glorify
Him here, longing to be with Him that you might
see and enjoy Him hereafter forever.
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