“It is the
Lord’s kindness that He will take the scum
off us in the
fire. Who knoweth how needful winnowing
is to us, and
what dross we must want ere we enter into
the kingdom
of God? So narrow is the entry to heaven,
that our
knots, our bunches and lumps of pride, and selflove,
and
idol-love, and world-love must be hammered off
us, that we
may throng in, stooping low, and creeping
through that
narrow and thorny entry.
O, what owe I
to the file, to the hammer, to the
furnace of my
Lord Jesus!
Why should I
start at the plough of my Lord, that
maketh deep
furrows on my soul? I know He is no idle
husbandman,
He purposeth a crop.
Crosses are
proclaimed as common accidents to all
the saints,
and in them standeth a part of our communion
with Christ.
How sweet a
thing were it for us to learn to make
our burdens
light by framing our hearts to the burden, and
making our
Lord’s will a law.
It is not the
sunny side of Christ that we must look
to, and we
must not forsake Him for want of that; but must
set our face
against what may befall us, in following on,
till He and
we through the briers and bushes on the dry
ground. Our
soft nature would be borne through the
troubles of
this miserable life in Christ’s arms. And it is
His wisdom,
who knoweth our mould, that His bairns go
wet-shod and
cold-footed to heaven.
There is
nothing but perfect garden-flowers in
heaven, and
the best plenishing that is there is Christ.
It is not a
smooth and easy way, neither will your
weather be fair
and pleasant; but whosoever saw the
invisible God
and the fair city, makes no reckoning of
losses or
crosses. In ye must be, cost you what it will; stand
not for a
price, and for all that ye have, to win the castle;
the rights of
it are won to you, and it is disponed to you,
in your Lord
Jesus’s Testament; and see what a fair legacy
your dying
Friend, Christ, hath left you: and there wanteth
nothing but
possession.
O! men’s
souls have no wings, and therefore night
and day they
keep their nest and are not acquaint with
Christ.
What can I
say of Him?
Let us go and
see.
I have
little, little of Him; yet I long for more.”
-Samuel Rutherford 1600-1661
From The Loveliness of Christ
Published by Community Christian Ministries Moscow, ID USA Pages 10, 11.
