Morning & Evening Devotional Reading–

November 4– Evening

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

“In Your light [O Lord,] we see light.”

—Psalm 36:9

No lips can tell the love of Christ to the heart until Jesus himself speaks within. All descriptions fall flat unless the Holy Spirit fills them with life and power. Until our Immanuel reveals himself within, the soul does not see him. In the darkness we can turn on lamps to light your way, but no one can turn on the sun. It must reveal itself, and only by its own power can its blaze be seen.

The same is true of Christ. Jesus himself said to Peter, “Blessed are you, Simon Son-of-John, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you.” You can educate mere flesh and blood however you wish; you can train mental faculties to the highest degree; but none of these can reveal Christ. The Spirit of God must come with power and overshadow a man with his wings, and then in that mysterious holy of holies the Lord Jesus must display himself to the sanctified eye in a way that he does not to the blind sons of men.

Christ must provide his own mirror. His glories cannot be seen in the fogged mirror of this world. They can only see him without form or beauty, like a gnarly root pulled from dry ground. He is rejected by the vain and despised by the proud. Only where the Spirit has touched the eye with healing ointment, enlivened the heart with divine life, and educated the soul’s pallet to a heavenly taste– only there is he understood. “To you that believe he is precious;” he is the chief cornerstone and the Rock of your salvation! But to others he is “a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence.”

Happy are those to whom our Lord reveals himself, for he promises to make his home with them. O Jesus, our Lord, our heart is open; come to us, and never leave. Show yourself to us now! Favor us with a glimpse of your all-conquering charms. [M&E]