Daily Devotionals

Spiritual Treasury For The Children of God

Devotional: December 1st

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.-Solomon’s Song of Solomon 1:2.

Such is the familiar, loving language of chaste virgins espoused to Jesus. Love in the heart begets desires after tokens of affection from the object beloved. "Saw ye HIM whom my soul loveth?" asks the enquiring heart. "If ye have taken away HIM," says sorrowful Mary. "That I may know HIM," says affectionate Paul. "Let HIM kiss me," saith the church; as though all the world knew whom is meant or who is their beloved. Every heart that is blessed with the discovery of Jesus, will be excited with such desires after him. Here is a very short and abrupt request; "Let him kiss me," that will make me quite happy. My heart is simple, I have but one object in view. O, if Jesus will but favor me with a love-token all my fears vanish, my scruples are at an end, my doubts are all silenced; peace, happiness, and joy shall possess my mind. So the love-allured heart reasons and prays. But sometimes delays excite impatience, and promote jealousies, which issue in mourning surmises. "Hope deferred, makes the heart sick." "I fear Jesus doth not love me, or sure he would hear, and not delay affording me sweet evidences and pledges of love." But so Jesus proves the soul’s faith and stedfastness to him; so he draws out its importunity after him. "Whom having not seen, we love; and though now we see him not, yet believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory."- 1 Peter 1:8.

Such is the language of faith. Where revealed love is received in the heart, sensible tokens will be longed after and shall be enjoyed; nor can the believing heart rest satisfied, nor be truly happy without them; its cry is none but Christ, none but Christ! What are the smiles of the world if Jesus frowns? What is life itself without his presence and favor? His presence creates a paradise; nearness to him is heaven on earth; his cross is our glory; his kisses our comfort. "For thy love is better than wine." I have tasted both; I have felt the sweet effects of each. Experience has taught me, that as wine revives and cheers the heart, so doth love; I cannot live without love; I cannot be happy without a sense of it. I cannot be holy, I cannot serve cheerfully, or obey perfectly, nor conquer sin powerfully, but while love, thy love, O my beloved Jesus, inspires, enlivens, and influences my heavy, sluggish heart. Such sentiments possess loving, longing souls. O, this love is a precious plant! It springs not in nature’s garden; its original is divine; it comes from God. "For GOD is LOVE."- 1 John 4:8. Those who have obeyed the Father’s voice, "kiss my Son."- Psalms 2:12 -"Know that the love of Christ passeth knowledge."- Ephesians 3:19.

These all died in faith. Hebrews 11:13.

An officer in the Navy, who held me exceedingly in derision on account of religion, was taken dangerously ill. To my great surprise, he sent for me. I found him in distress of soul: spoke freely to him of our lost estate, of Christ’s love and salvation, and prayed with him. He wept sore: clapping his hands to his breast, he cried out, “O, my God! have I got a soul?” As though he had never known it before. Turning to the place where I kneeled, he said, “Where have I lived, that I never heard these things before? O I shall never forget what I have heard this night!” I visited him to his last moments, and trust he died in the faith, and hope to see him in glory. “Heaven is a house full of the miracles of Christ’s free-grace,” says one. There is the once idolatrous Manasseh; the murdering, adulterous David; the persecuting Saul; the Christ-denying Peter, etc. O my God, shall wretched I be there? Yes, if I die in the faith of Christ. My vileness, sinfulness, and unworthiness do but, as it were, qualify me for Christ and his free grace. Christ, by his free grace, qualifies me for heaven. See the nature of this faith. (1st.) It looks to precious promises. Though seen afar off; yet it brings assurance of their existence into the mind, and the soul embraces them. O Christian, when you complain of your faith, you forget the great and precious promises, which are the ground and support of it. (2d.) It not only eyes Christ in the promises, but it receives Christ, “In whom are all the promises, yea and amen, to the glory of God.” (2 Corinthians 1:20.) O when Christ dwells in the heart by faith!-What then? (3d.) We confess ourselves strangers and pilgrims in the earth. We see we have a heavenly inheritance: we are only passing through this world to it. This world is not our home. We are not of the world. Our hearts are above the world. Our souls long to be at home with our Father, God; our elder Brother, Christ; and our brethren in glory. For, (4th.) with Abraham, we see the day of Christ. He saw the first coming of Messiah, long before his advent. We see by faith his second coming, to take us to himself in glory: hence we rejoice. (5th.) Consider the comfort of living, and the joy of dying in this faith. It realizes heaven and glory to the soul. Hope is its constant attendant. By faith and hope in the promises, love springs up in the heart to the Promiser. Thus the sinner is fit for the enjoyment of God. Die when he may, he dies in faith-dies in the Lord, and shall live eternally with the Lord. “By grace ye are saved, through faith.” Ephesians 2:8.

‘Tis sweet to live by faith in Christ,

In peace with God above:

False hope and sin we do resist,

For faith does work by love.

Soon we must die-then we shall prove

The precious joy of faith,

Safely in everlasting love,

To breathe our latest breath.