Morning & Evening Devotional Reading–

December 10– Morning

 by C. H. Spurgeon, revised and edited by W. C. Neff

“So, we will ever be with the Lord.” 

—I Thessalonians 4:17

Even the sweetest visits from Christ are so short and transitory! One moment our eyes see him, and we rejoice with unspeakable joy and fullness of glory, but then, just a while later, we don’t see him because our beloved Lord withdraws himself from us. Like a young deer, he leaps over the mountains and is gone.

Oh, how sweet that day will be when we will not behold him at a distance but see him face to face– when he will no longer be a traveler staying with us only for a night but will eternally hold us close to himself in all of his glory.

In heaven there will be no interruptions from our daily concerns or sins; no weeping will dim our eyes; no earthly business will distract our happy thoughts. We will have nothing to hinder us from gazing forever on the Sun of Righteousness with unwearied eyes. If we consider it sweet to see him now and then, how sweet it will be to gaze on that blessed face forever without a cloud in the sky, never having to turn one’s eyes away to look on a tired and condemned world!

O happy Day, when will you dawn? Rise, O unsetting sun! The pleasures of our senses may leave us soon, but our eternal joys will have only just begun. If dying is to enter into uninterrupted communion with Jesus, then death is indeed gain, and the black drop is swallowed up in a sea of victory, for we will ever be with the Lord. [M&E]