Morning    “This do in remembrance of me.”     1 Corinthians 11:24

It seems then, that Christians may forget Christ! There could be no need for

this loving exhortation, if there were not a fearful supposition that our

memories might prove treacherous. Nor is this a bare supposition: it is, alas!

too well confirmed in our experience, not as a possibility, but as a lamentable

fact. It appears almost impossible that those who have been redeemed by the

blood of the dying Lamb, and loved with an everlasting love by the eternal Son

of God, should forget that gracious Saviour; but, if startling to the ear, it

is, alas! too apparent to the eye to allow us to deny the crime. Forget him who

never forgot us! Forget him who poured his blood forth for our sins! Forget

him who loved us even to the death! Can it be possible? Yes, it is not only

possible, but conscience confesses that it is too sadly a fault with all of us,

that we suffer him to be as a wayfaring man tarrying but for a night. He whom we

should make the abiding tenant of our memories is but a visitor therein. The

cross where one would think that memory would linger, and unmindfulness would be

an unknown intruder, is desecrated by the feet of forgetfulness. Does not your

conscience say that this is true? Do you not find yourselves forgetful of Jesus?

Some creature steals away your heart, and you are unmindful of him upon whom

your affection ought to be set. Some earthly business engrosses

your attention when you should fix your eye steadily upon the cross. It is the

incessant turmoil of the world, the constant attraction of earthly things which

takes away the soul from Christ. While memory too well preserves a poisonous

weed, it suffereth the rose of Sharon to wither. Let us charge ourselves to bind

a heavenly forget-me-not about our hearts for Jesus our Beloved, and, whatever

else we let slip, let us hold fast to him.

 

Evening    “Blessed is he that watcheth.”     Revelation 16:15

“We die daily,” said the apostle. This was the life of the early Christians;

they went everywhere with their lives in their hands. We are not in this day

called to pass through the same fearful persecutions: if we were, the Lord would

give us grace to bear the test; but the tests of Christian life, at the present

moment, though outwardly not so terrible, are yet more likely to overcome us

than even those of the fiery age. We have to bear the sneer of the world–that

is little; its blandishments, its soft words, its oily speeches, its fawning,

its hypocrisy, are far worse. Our danger is lest we grow rich and become proud,

lest we give ourselves up to the fashions of this present evil world,

and lose our faith. Or if wealth be not the trial, worldly care is quite as

mischievous. If we cannot be torn in pieces by the roaring lion, if we may be

hugged to death by the bear, the devil little cares which it is, so long as he

destroys our love to Christ, and our confidence in him. I fear me that the

Christian church is far more likely to lose her integrity in these soft and

silken days than in those rougher times. We must be awake now, for we traverse

the enchanted ground, and are most likely to fall asleep to our own undoing,

unless our faith in Jesus be a reality, and our love to Jesus a vehement flame.

Many in these days of easy profession are likely to prove tares, and not

wheat; hypocrites with fair masks on their faces, but not the true-born

children of the living God. Christian, do not think that these are times in

which you can dispense with watchfulness or with holy ardour; you need these

things more than ever, and may God the eternal Spirit display his omnipotence in

you, that you may be able to say, in all these softer things, as well as in the

rougher, “We are more than conquerors through him that loved us.”