Morning  “They shall sing in the ways of the Lord.” / Psalm 138:5

The time when Christians begin to sing in the ways of the Lord is when they  first lose their burden at the foot of the Cross. Not even the songs of the  angels seem so sweet as the first song of rapture which gushes from the inmost  soul of the forgiven child of God. You know how John Bunyan describes it. He  says when poor Pilgrim lost his burden at the Cross, he gave three great  leaps, and went on his way singing–

“Blest Cross! blest Sepulchre! blest rather be

The Man that there was put to shame for me!”

Believer, do you recollect the day when your fetters fell off? Do you remember  the place when Jesus met you, and said, “I have loved thee with an everlasting  love; I have blotted out as a cloud thy transgressions, and as a thick cloud  thy sins; they shall not be mentioned against thee any more forever.” Oh! what  a sweet season is that when Jesus takes away the pain of sin. When the Lord  first pardoned my sin, I was so joyous that I could scarce refrain from  dancing. I thought on my road home from the house where I had been set at  liberty, that I must tell the stones in the street the story of my  deliverance. So full was my soul of joy, that I wanted to tell every  snow-flake that was falling from heaven of the wondrous love of Jesus, who had  blotted out the sins of one of the chief of rebels. But it is not only at the  commencement of the Christian life that believers have reason for song; as  long as they live they discover cause to sing in the ways of the Lord, and  their experience of his constant lovingkindness leads them to say, “I will  bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.” See  to it, brother, that thou magnifiest the Lord this day.

“Long as we tread this desert land,    New mercies shall new songs demand.”

Evening  “Thy love to me was wonderful.” / 2 Samuel 1:26

Come, dear readers, let each one of us speak for himself of the wonderful  love, not of Jonathan, but of Jesus. We will not relate what we have been  told, but the things which we have tasted and handled-of the love of Christ.  Thy love to me, O Jesus, was wonderful when I was a stranger wandering far  from thee, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. Thy love  restrained me from committing the sin which is unto death, and withheld me  from self-destruction. Thy love held back the axe when Justice said, “Cut it  down! why cumbereth it the ground?” Thy love drew me into the wilderness,  stripped me there, and made me feel the guilt of my sin, and the burden of  mine iniquity. Thy love spake thus comfortably to me when, I was sore  dismayed–“Come unto me, and I will give thee rest.” Oh, how matchless thy  love when, in a moment, thou didst wash my sins away, and make my polluted  soul, which was crimson with the blood of my nativity, and black with the  grime of my transgressions, to be white as the driven snow, and pure as the  finest wool. How thou didst commend thy love when thou didst whisper in my  ears, “I am thine and thou art mine.” Kind were those accents when thou  saidst, “The Father himself loveth you.” And sweet the moments, passing sweet,  when thou declaredst to me “the love of the Spirit.” Never shall my soul  forget those chambers of fellowship where thou has unveiled thyself to me. Had  Moses his cleft in the rock, where he saw the train, the back parts of his  God? We, too, have had our clefts in the rock, where we have seen the full  splendours of the Godhead in the person of Christ. Did David remember the  tracks of the wild goat, the land of Jordan and the Hermonites? We, too, can  remember spots to memory dear, equal to these in blessedness. Precious Lord  Jesus, give us a fresh draught of thy wondrous love to begin the month with.  Amen.