Evening
Time: 8:02 PM PST
"That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith." --Ephesians 3:17
Beyond measure it is desirable that we, as believers, should have the person
of Jesus constantly before us, to inflame our love towards Him, and to increase
our knowledge of Him. I would to God that my readers were all entered as
diligent scholars in Jesus' college, students of Corpus Christi, or the body of
Christ, resolved to attain unto a good degree in the learning of the cross. But
to have Jesus ever near, the heart must be full of Him, welling up with His
love, even to overrunning; hence the apostle prays "that Christ may dwell in
your hearts." See how near he would have Jesus to be! You cannot get a
subject closer to you than to have it in the heart itself. "That He may
dwell"; not that He may call upon you sometimes, as a casual visitor enters
into a house and tarries for a night, but that He may dwell; that Jesus
may become the Lord and Tenant of your inmost being, never more to go out.
Observe the words--that He may dwell in your heart, that best room of
the house of manhood; not in your thoughts alone, but in your affections; not
merely in the mind's meditations, but in the heart's emotions. We should pant
after love to Christ of a most abiding character, not a love that flames up and
then dies out into the darkness of a few embers, but a constant flame, fed by
sacred fuel, like the fire upon the altar which never went out. This cannot be
accomplished except by faith. Faith must be strong, or love will not be fervent;
the root of the flower must be healthy, or we cannot expect the bloom to be
sweet. Faith is the lily's root, and love is the lily's bloom. Now, reader,
Jesus cannot be in your heart's love except you have a firm hold of Him by your
heart's faith; and, therefore, pray that you may always trust Christ in order
that you may always love Him. If love be cold, be sure that faith is drooping.