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How emptying, humbling, and abasing!
Winslow's, "The Prophetical Glory of the Redeemer"
Cultivate frequent and devout contemplations
of the glory of Christ. Immense will be the
benefit accruing to your soul. The mind thus
preoccupied, filled, and expanded, will be
enabled to present a stronger resistance to
the ever advancing and insidious encroachments
of the world.
No place will be found for vain thoughts, and
no desire or time for carnal enjoyments.
Oh, how crucifying and sanctifying are
clear views of the glory of Emmanuel!
How emptying, humbling, and abasing!
With the patriarch, we then exclaim, "I abhor
myself, and repent in dust and ashes."
And with the prophet, "Woe is me! for I am
undone; because I am a man of unclean lips,
My eyes have seen the King."
And with the apostle, "As for me, God forbid
that I should boast about anything except the
cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of that
cross, my interest in this world died long ago,
and the world's interest in me is also long dead."
Oh, then, aim to get your mind filled with enlarged and
yet expanding views of the glory of the Redeemer.
Let it, in all the discoveries it affords of the Divine
mind and majesty, be the one subject of your
thoughts, the one theme of your conversation.
Place no limit to your knowledge of Christ.
Ever consider that you have but read the preface
to the volume; you have but touched the fringe
of the sea. Stretching far away beyond you, are
undiscovered beauties, and precious views, and
sparkling glories, each encouraging your advance,
inviting your research, and asking the homage of
your faith, the tribute of your love, and the
dedication of your life.
Go forward, then!
The glories that yet must be revealed to you in
a growing knowledge of Jesus, what imagination
can conceive, what pen can describe them?
"You shall see greater things than these,"
is the promise that bids you advance.
Jesus stands ready to unveil all the beauties of His
person; and to admit you into the very arcade of His
love. There is not a chamber of His heart that He will
not throw open to you; not a blessing that He will not
bestow upon you; not a glory that He will not show to you.
You shall see greater things than you have yet seen:
greater depths of sin in your fallen nature shall be
revealed; deeper sense of the cleansing efficacy of
the atoning blood shall be felt; clearer views of your
acceptance in the Beloved; greater discoveries of God's
love; and greater depths of grace and glory in Jesus
shall be enjoyed. Your communion with God shall be
closer, and more the fruit of adopting love in your heart;
your feet shall be as hinds' feet, and you shall walk
on your high places. Your "peace shall flow as a river,
and your righteousness as the waves of the sea."
Sorrow shall wound you less deeply;
affliction shall press you less heavily;
tribulation shall affect you less keenly;
all this, and infinitely more, will result
from your deeper knowledge of Jesus.
Ah, wonder not that the heaving, panting,
thirsting soul of the apostle exclaimed,
"Yes, everything else is worthless when compared
with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my
Lord. I have discarded everything else, counting it
all as garbage, so that I may have Christ.
I want to know Christ...." Philip. 3:8,10
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