So completely was Jesus bent upon saving sinners by the sacrifice of Himself—that He created the tree upon which He was to die, and nurtured from infancy, the men who were to nail Him to the accursed wood!

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Christ took your cup of grief, your cup of the curse, pressed it to his lips, drank it to its dregs—then filled it with His sweet, pardoning, sympathizing love, and gave it back for you to drink, and to drink forever!

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It is because we have such shallow views of God's love—that we have such defective views of God's dealings. We blindly interpret the symbols of His providence—because we so imperfectly read the engravings of His heart!

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Christian! God is near at hand whenever you approach Him in prayer. Oh, comforting truth! You have a God at hand . . .
to listen to the softest breath of prayer,
to listen to every confession of sin,
to listen to every cry of need,
to listen to every utterance of sorrow,
to listen to every wail of woe,
to listen to every appeal for counsel, strength, and support!

Arise, O my soul! and give yourself to prayer—for God is near at hand to hear and answer you!

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Seasons vary, circumstances change, feelings fluctuate, friendships cool, friends die—but Christ is ever the same!

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Christ's boundless grace, confronts our deep necessities. Christ's promised presence, confronts our sad and gloomy loneliness. Jesus thus filled with grace so overflowing, with love so tender, with sympathy so exquisite, with power so illimitable, with resources so boundless, with a nature so changeless—stands before us and says to each trembling heart, 'Fear not!'

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Prayer is the pulse of the renewed soul—and the constancy of its beat is the test and measure of the spiritual life!

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Unaccompanied by the power of the Holy Spirit--the Bible is inactive, inoperative; a mere dead letter!

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The everlasting covenant which God has made with Jesus, and through Jesus with all His beloved people, individually—is a strong ground of consolation amidst . . .
the tremblings of human hope,
the fluctuations of creature things, and
the instability of all that earth calls good.

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Behold in faith the sinless, spotless Lamb of God as having already borne that weight, as having suffered for those sins, as having died for those transgressions—and accept the precious truth that it was God's eternal love that laid them all on Jesus, and that nothing is left for you to do but to believe in Jesus, that He saves to the uttermost, all who come unto God by Him.

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You are not called to believe in your love to God—but in God's love to you! Do not argue, "I cannot love God! I have striven to my uttermost to do so—but have failed in all my endeavors, until in despair I have abandoned the thought and relinquished the attempt!" Be it so—no effort of your own can strike a spark of love to God from your heart. Nor does God demand the task at your hands. All that He requires of you is faith in His love, as embodied and expressed in Jesus Christ to poor sinners.

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It is in the successive stages of his experience, that the believer sees more distinctly, and adores more profoundly, and grasps more firmly—the finished righteousness of Christ. And what is the school in which he learns his nothingness, his poverty, his utter destitution? The school of deep and sanctified affliction. In no other school is it learned, and under no other teacher but God. Here his high thoughts are brought low, and the Lord alone is exalted.

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If God has laid your sins upon the Son of His love, you may rest assured that He will never lay them a second time upon you. If Christ has borne them and atoned for them to Divine justice, they never again can be found.

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Do not be content with the old anointing. It is essential to a more holy and happy life, that you seek to be anointed with new oil. Do not be satisfied with past experiences. Seek to have a new revelation of Christ to your soul. Seek the renewed application of His precious blood to your conscience. Oh, seek the fresh oil!

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There is poetry and beauty in real sympathy; but there is more—yet there is action. The noblest and most powerful form of sympathy is not merely the responsive tear, the echoed sigh, the answering look—it is the embodiment of the sentiment in actual help.

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The death of Jesus was . . .
the opening and the emptying of the full heart of God;
the outgushing of that ocean of infinite mercy that heaved and panted and longed for an outlet;
God showing how he could love a poor, guilty sinner!