The Pilgrim Path---Proverbs 23: 26 (8—14—20)

“My son, give me your heart, and let your eyes observe my ways.”

WHAT A GIFT

From Saint Jerome (347—420)

The LORD wants you, yourself---“a living sacrifice, acceptable to God” (Rom. 12: 1). He wants you, not your money. As He tutored Israel through many plagues and hardships, so now He chastens you, sending you troubles of various kinds. “For whom the LORD loves He chastens; He scourges every son He receives” (Hebrews 12: 6). The poor widow threw two copper coins into the moneybox; yet because she threw in everything she had, Scripture testifies of her that she excelled all the wealthy in offering gifts to God. These gifts are not measured by weight, but by the generosity of spirit with which they are given. You may have spent your money in helping multitudes of people, and some of your neighbors may have cause to rejoice in your gift; but there are even more who have received nothing from your hands…

However, if you will give yourself to the LORD, resolving to follow the Savior in the fullness of apostolic virtue, you will realize where you have been until now---trailing behind in the rear of Christ’s army. I admit you scored a mighty triumph of faith, when reverence for Christ dried the tears of fatherly affection on your cheeks, after you had scarcely begun to mourn your dead daughters. Yet Abraham’s victory was greater. Willing to slay his only son, whom God had said would inherit the world, Abraham didn’t stop trusting that Isaac, after death, would live once more…So I would have you offer the LORD something a thief can’t take from you…Offer to God what no enemy can seize, no tyrant steal---yourself---which will go with you into the grave, and then to the heavenly kingdom and the joys of Paradise!

From John Flavel: What is a Christian, but one dedicated to the LORD? Blessed exchange! Christ says, “All I have is yours,” and we say: “Though my person is vile, and not worthy of being accepted, but such as it is, it is yours. My soul with every faculty; my body, and every member of it; my gifts, time, and all my talents are yours.”

“If we are not Christ’s, whose are we? Our own.” John Duncan

“Christ is a well of life, but who knoweth how deep it is to the bottom?” Samuel Rutherford

O the deep, deep love of Jesus,

Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free!

Rolling as a mighty ocean

In its fullness over me,

Underneath me, all around me,

Is the current of Thy love;

Leading onward, leading homeward

To my glorious rest above.

Samuel Trevor Francis (1834—1925)

The LORD guide and keep You All, Pastor Jason