KenH
Well-Known Member
"Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord." 2 Peter 1:2
Our daily, hourly desire and prayer should be to have spiritual discoveries of Christ; to see him by the eye of faith; to enter into his glorious Person and finished work; to realize his presence, taste his love, and know him and the power of his resurrection. This is what Paul so earnestly labored after, (Philippians 3:7-11), and for the excellency of this knowledge he suffered the loss of all things, and counted them but dung that he might win Christ. To know him as our Surety and Sin-bearer, our Advocate and Intercessor, our Friend, Husband, and Brother, and to understand our saving interest in him, and our union with him, why this is bliss itself. To feel our place in his heart and see our name on his breast, to touch our memorial in the palms of his hands--what can surpass the blessedness of such a certain knowledge as this?
Through this spiritual, experimental knowledge of him, grace flows. As a watercourse opening upon a river bank brings down its irrigating stream into the parched meadow, so a knowledge of Christ opens up a channel through which the grace that is in him flows into the barren, parched soul. Thus, as through grace alone we know him, so every fresh communication of grace not only makes him better known, but flows in through and deepens that very channel of knowledge.
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Our Savior's blood speaks peace to a guilty conscience; his voice says peace to the winds and waves of the surging heart; his legacy, bestowed at the last supper, was, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you," (John 14:27). His promise to us all during that final discourse was, "that in me ye might have peace." (John 16:33), and as the Prince of peace at God's right hand he is able to fill us with "all joy and peace in believing," (Romans 15:13), for his kingdom is "righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit." (Romans 14:17).
- excerpts from J.C. Philpot's Through Baca's Vale, October 2
Our daily, hourly desire and prayer should be to have spiritual discoveries of Christ; to see him by the eye of faith; to enter into his glorious Person and finished work; to realize his presence, taste his love, and know him and the power of his resurrection. This is what Paul so earnestly labored after, (Philippians 3:7-11), and for the excellency of this knowledge he suffered the loss of all things, and counted them but dung that he might win Christ. To know him as our Surety and Sin-bearer, our Advocate and Intercessor, our Friend, Husband, and Brother, and to understand our saving interest in him, and our union with him, why this is bliss itself. To feel our place in his heart and see our name on his breast, to touch our memorial in the palms of his hands--what can surpass the blessedness of such a certain knowledge as this?
Through this spiritual, experimental knowledge of him, grace flows. As a watercourse opening upon a river bank brings down its irrigating stream into the parched meadow, so a knowledge of Christ opens up a channel through which the grace that is in him flows into the barren, parched soul. Thus, as through grace alone we know him, so every fresh communication of grace not only makes him better known, but flows in through and deepens that very channel of knowledge.
...
Our Savior's blood speaks peace to a guilty conscience; his voice says peace to the winds and waves of the surging heart; his legacy, bestowed at the last supper, was, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you," (John 14:27). His promise to us all during that final discourse was, "that in me ye might have peace." (John 16:33), and as the Prince of peace at God's right hand he is able to fill us with "all joy and peace in believing," (Romans 15:13), for his kingdom is "righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit." (Romans 14:17).
- excerpts from J.C. Philpot's Through Baca's Vale, October 2