Emmanuel Imemeba

Emmanuel Imemba

“And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being,” Acts 17: 26-28 NKJV.

   We received news today that Pastor Emmanuel Imemba of Aba, Nigeria has gone to sleep in the Lord. A call from somewhere, with a strange country code, had come in last week but I didn’t return it until this morning. Harriet spoke with Emmanuel’s daughter Victoria this morning and in this way we got the news. I had suspected briefly before that the call was about his passing, he had been ill for some time, and so it didn’t come to me as a complete surprise. It seems that we hear of more and more deaths these days. I thanked the Lord and was glad that we had been able to help Pastor Imemba with some money for his medical treatments and that we hadn’t missed the opportunities and appointments that God gave us to help him. Kappy immediately saddened; she has such a soft and feeling heart. After the call we prayed and she said that the prayer helped her. As this day has grown older I’ve thought about Pastor Imemba many times. 

   I first got a letter from him in Lodi about 1996 and I wrote him back. We developed a friendship via letters until I visited Nigeria in 2003 at his invitation. I’ve since learned that African pastors try to connect with Westerners. Pastor Imemba, though about 10 years older than I am, hoped, and he must have prayed, to connect with someone. That someone in God’s plan was me. Our common tie was prison ministry. I must have been very naïve but we trusted the Lord and off I flew to Lagos, Nigeria where Pastor Imemba met me at the International Airport. I can’t forget Diana Ross singing via recording on the airport intercom; I felt a bit confused…was I in Harlem, Southside Chicago, or East LA? I wouldn’t have thought that ‘Baby Love’ would welcome me to Africa for my first time. He had a large color photo of me on his office wall and all of his relatives and friends had to come to meet the white man from America, his friend. 

   All in God’s appointment we got along well. I was blessed for 2 weeks to serve, preach and teach, counsel and evangelize and help plant a church. The Lord enabled me to minister in the local prison and more fully befriend Emmanuel. The thought has come to me often today that this was a necessary part of God’s surpassingly great plan for Emmanuel, the people of Aba…and me. Had another than Emmanuel met me in Africa, my first visit could well have been very different and perhaps the final one. He was taking care of all of his kids; his wife wasn’t around for some reason. He was very kind and very patient, a virtue that many Africans possess, and he kept hosting me and taking me to the meetings and the people for ministry, though many times this wasn’t easy for him. 

   And the Lord blessed the visit and ministry. There were professions of faith made and as a result of the visit I had a taste of African missions and could tell Kappy about all of it and encourage her about how Africa really is and that I thought that we could do missions, that I really believed that we should do missions in Africa. Emmanuel graciously took me to Lagos on a very long return bus ride as he looked out for my safety and welfare. And he had to make the very long bus ride back to Aba from Lagos afterwards. The church grew numerically and physically and Pastor Imemba continued at his work of providing, mostly alone, financially for the church’s building and welfare. 

   I felt joy many times over the years to think that a church was worshipping God in Nigeria and that I had a hand in planting it. It grew to perhaps 50 people, maybe up to about 80. I’ve prayed for Pastor Imemba daily for some time and now I will have to remember to take his name off of the prayer list. He doesn’t need prayer now because this son of Africa, my brother, has come to his preappointed end at his preappointed time.

   I’m comforted by the thought that Emmanuel is glorified and that God has blessed me to meet and know this Christian brother and fellow minister. It’s really amazing to me that the Lord took me half way around the world to meet and serve with Emmanuel and that this was necessary in His plan for Emmanuel’s good, for my good and for the good of countless people in Nigeria and perhaps around the world. We are truly one blood, Emmanuel showed me that, and though we differ in many interesting ways we are all men of one blood on the face of planet Earth. 

   Sometimes I marvel at the diversity and yet essential one-ness of all peoples on the globe. At heart we are all sons of Adam and in need of God’s forgiveness found only through the blood of His dear Son Jesus. Emmanuel’s preappointed home was Nigeria and mine is now Uganda and wonderfully in God’s grace, here in my dwelling in Africa, I can bring the good news of God’s love, eternal salvation, forgiveness of sin and abundant and joyful life to my neighbors. As Emmanuel’s heart beat to the song of groping after and finding God and rejoicing in God through Christ and in preaching the gospel so that others might know the heart song of salvation, my heart, too, beats to that drum. 

   Praise God! The God who is near us and who is not far from any of us, the God that all men and brothers live in, reveals Himself to the heart that will trust in His Son, Love incarnate, who gave Himself for us. I rejoice in that God, the true and living God, the God of all men, who has loved me before the creation of the world and who in His absolute sovereignty has determined before the worlds were that all things are for my good and that Emmanuel and I were to be friends and true brothers and ministers of the gospel together because of the blood that was shed for us before the beginning of time. 

   I thank the Lord that Pastor Imemba has gone to glory and that his works will follow him. The light of the new day has dawned upon Emmanuel. And I am once again blessed by my Lord in His appointments for me.

Pastor Imemba and his kids, Aba, Nigeria 2003

REFLECTIONS

Part 2-“Seven Supernatural Virtues in Christ’s Blood

5. Christ’s blood cools the heart. First, it cools the heart of sin. The heart naturally is full of distempered heat. It must be hot, being set on fire of hell. It burns in lust and passion. Christ’s blood allays this heart and quenches the inflammation of sin. Second, it cools the heat of conscience. In time of desertion, conscience burns with the heat of God’s displeasure. Now, Christ’s blood, being sprinkled upon the conscience, cools and purifies it. And, in this sense, Christ is compared to a river of water (Isaiah 32:2). When the heart burns and is in agony, Christ’s blood is like water to the fire. It has a cooling, refreshing virtue in it.

6. Christ’s blood comforts the soul. It is good against fainting fits. Christ’s blood is better than wine. Though wine cheers the heart of a man who is well, yet it will not cheer his heart when he has a fit of the stone or when the pangs of death are upon him. But Christ’s blood will cheer the heart at such a time. It is best in affliction. It cures the trembling of the heart.

A conscience sprinkled with Christ’s blood can, like the nightingale, sing with a thorn at its breast. The blood of Christ can make a prison become a palace. It turned the martyr’s flames into beds of roses. Christ’s blood gives comfort at the hour of death. As a holy man once said on his deathbed when they brought him a cordial, “No cordial like the blood of Christ!”

7. Christ’s blood procures heaven. Israel passed through the Red Sea to Canaan. So, through the red sea of Christ’s blood, we enter into the heavenly Canaan. “Having boldness therefore to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus” (Hebrews 10:19). Our sins shut heaven; Christ’s blood is the key which opens the gate of paradise for us. Hence it is that Theodoret calls the cross the tree of salvation because that blood which trickled down the cross distils salvation. Well, then, may we prize the blood of Christ and, with Paul, determine to know nothing but Christ crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2). King’s crowns are only crosses, but the cross of Christ is the only crown.

BRANCH 3. Does Christ offer His body and blood to us in the Supper? Then with what solemn preparation should we come to so sacred an ordinance! It is not enough to do what God has appointed, but as He has appointed. “Prepare your hearts unto the Lord” (1 Samuel 7:3). The musician first puts his instrument in tune before he plays. The heart must be prepared and put in tune before it goes to meet with God in this solemn ordinance of the sacrament. Take heed of rashness and irreverence. If we do not come prepared, we do not drink but spill Christ’s blood. “Whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 11:27). “That is,” said Theophylact, “he shall be judged a shedder of Christ’s blood.” We read of a wine cup of fury in God’s hand (Jeremiah 25:15). He that comes unprepared for the Lord’s Supper turns the cup in the sacrament into a cup of fury.

Oh, with what reverence and devotion should we address ourselves to these holy mysteries! The saints are called “prepared vessels” (Romans 9:23). If ever these vessels should be prepared, it is when they are to hold the precious body and blood of Christ. The sinner who is damned is first prepared. Men do not go to hell without some kind of preparation. “Vessels fitted for destruction” (Romans 9:22). If those vessels are prepared which are filled with wrath, much more are those to be prepared who are to receive Christ in the sacrament. Let us dress ourselves by a Scripture glass before we come to the Lord’s Table and, with the Lamb’s wife, make ourselves ready.”

-From Thomas Watson’s (1620 – 1686) ‘The Mystery of the Lord’s Supper’ based on Matthew 26: 26-28  Printed by Soli Deo Gloria Publications  Morgan, PA  1997 Pages 150-152

REFLECTIONS

Part 2-“Seven Supernatural Virtues in Christ’s Blood

5. Christ’s blood cools the heart. First, it cools the heart of sin. The heart naturally is full of distempered heat. It must be hot, being set on fire of hell. It burns in lust and passion. Christ’s blood allays this heart and quenches the inflammation of sin. Second, it cools the heat of conscience. In time of desertion, conscience burns with the heat of God’s displeasure. Now, Christ’s blood, being sprinkled upon the conscience, cools and purifies it. And, in this sense, Christ is compared to a river of water (Isaiah 32:2). When the heart burns and is in agony, Christ’s blood is like water to the fire. It has a cooling, refreshing virtue in it.

6. Christ’s blood comforts the soul. It is good against fainting fits. Christ’s blood is better than wine. Though wine cheers the heart of a man who is well, yet it will not cheer his heart when he has a fit of the stone or when the pangs of death are upon him. But Christ’s blood will cheer the heart at such a time. It is best in affliction. It cures the trembling of the heart.

A conscience sprinkled with Christ’s blood can, like the nightingale, sing with a thorn at its breast. The blood of Christ can make a prison become a palace. It turned the martyr’s flames into beds of roses. Christ’s blood gives comfort at the hour of death. As a holy man once said on his deathbed when they brought him a cordial, “No cordial like the blood of Christ!”

7. Christ’s blood procures heaven. Israel passed through the Red Sea to Canaan. So, through the red sea of Christ’s blood, we enter into the heavenly Canaan. “Having boldness therefore to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus” (Hebrews 10:19). Our sins shut heaven; Christ’s blood is the key which opens the gate of paradise for us. Hence it is that Theodoret calls the cross the tree of salvation because that blood which trickled down the cross distils salvation. Well, then, may we prize the blood of Christ and, with Paul, determine to know nothing but Christ crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2). King’s crowns are only crosses, but the cross of Christ is the only crown.

BRANCH 3. Does Christ offer His body and blood to us in the Supper? Then with what solemn preparation should we come to so sacred an ordinance! It is not enough to do what God has appointed, but as He has appointed. “Prepare your hearts unto the Lord” (1 Samuel 7:3). The musician first puts his instrument in tune before he plays. The heart must be prepared and put in tune before it goes to meet with God in this solemn ordinance of the sacrament. Take heed of rashness and irreverence. If we do not come prepared, we do not drink but spill Christ’s blood. “Whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 11:27). “That is,” said Theophylact, “he shall be judged a shedder of Christ’s blood.” We read of a wine cup of fury in God’s hand (Jeremiah 25:15). He that comes unprepared for the Lord’s Supper turns the cup in the sacrament into a cup of fury.

Oh, with what reverence and devotion should we address ourselves to these holy mysteries! The saints are called “prepared vessels” (Romans 9:23). If ever these vessels should be prepared, it is when they are to hold the precious body and blood of Christ. The sinner who is damned is first prepared. Men do not go to hell without some kind of preparation. “Vessels fitted for destruction” (Romans 9:22). If those vessels are prepared which are filled with wrath, much more are those to be prepared who are to receive Christ in the sacrament. Let us dress ourselves by a Scripture glass before we come to the Lord’s Table and, with the Lamb’s wife, make ourselves ready.”

-From Thomas Watson’s (1620 – 1686) ‘The Mystery of the Lord’s Supper’ based on Matthew 26: 26-28  Printed by Soli Deo Gloria Publications  Morgan, PA  1997 Pages 150-152

REFLECTIONS

“Seven Supernatural Virtues in Christ’s Blood

That we may set the higher value upon the blood of Christ, I shall show you seven rare supernatural virtues in it:

1. It is a reconciling blood. “You that were sometime alienated, and enemies, yet now hath He reconciled through death” (Colossians 1:21). Christ’s blood is the blood of atonement. Nay, it is not only a sacrifice but a propitiation (1 John 2:2), which denotes a bringing us into favor with God. It is one thing for a traitor to be pardoned, and another thing to be brought into favor. Sin rent us off from God; Christ’s blood cements us to God. If we had had as much grace as the angels, it could not have wrought our reconciliation. If we had offered up millions of holocausts and sacrifices, if we had wept rivers of tears, this could never have appeased an angry Deity. Only Christ’s blood ingratiates us into God’s favor and makes Him look upon us with a smiling aspect. When Christ died, the veil of the temple was rent. This was not without a mystery, to show that through Christ’s blood the veil of our sins is rent which interposed between God and us.

2. Christ’s blood is a quickening blood. “Whoso drinketh my blood, hath eternal life” (John 6:54). It both begets life and prevents death. “The life of a thing is in the blood.” (Leviticus 17:11). Sure enough, the life of our soul is in the blood of Christ. When we contract deadness of heart, and are like wine that has lost the spirits, Christ’s blood has an elevating power; it puts vivacity into us, making us quick and lively in our motion. “They shall mount up on wings as eagles” (Isaiah 40:31).

3. Christ’s blood is a cleansing blood. “How much more shall the blood of Christ purge your conscience!” (Hebrews 9:14). As the merit of Christ’s blood pacifies God, so the virtue of it purifies us. It is the king of heaven’s bath. It is a laver to wash in. It washes crimson sinner milk white. “The blood of Jesus cleanseth us from all our sin” (1 John 1:7). The Word of God is a looking glass to show us our spots, and the blood of Christ is a fountain to wash them away (Zechariah 13:1).

But this blood will not wash if it is mingled with anything. If new go to mingle anything with Christ’s blood, either the merits of saints or the prayers of angels, it will not wash. Let Christ’s blood be pure and unmixed, and there is no spot that it will wash away. It purged out Noah’s drunkenness and Lot’s incest. Indeed, there is one spot so black that Christ’s blood does not wash away, and that is the sin against the Holy Ghost. Not but there is virtue enough in Christ’s blood to wash it away, but he who has sinned this sin will not be washed. He condemns Christ’s blood and tramples it under foot (Hebrews 10:29).

4. Christ’s blood is a softening blood. There is nothing so hard but may be softened by this blood. It will soften a stone. Water will soften the earth, but it will not soften a stone; but Christ’s blood mollifies a stone. It softens a heart of stone. It turns a flint into a spring. The heart, which before was like a piece hewn out of a rock, being steeped in Christ’s blood, becomes soft and the waters of repentance flow from it. How was the jailer’s heart dissolved and made tender when the blood of sprinkling was upon it! “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30). His heart was now like melting wax. God might set what seal and impression He would upon it.”

-From Thomas Watson’s (1620 – 1686) ‘The Mystery of the Lord’s Supper’ based on Matthew 26: 26-28  Printed by Soli Deo Gloria Publications  Morgan, PA  1997 Pages 148-150

REFLECTIONS

“This do in remembrance of Me.” 1 Corinthians 11:24

“The Duty To Partake Of The Lord’s Supper

IV. In the next place are to be considered the persons obliged, and those are the Church of Christ, as far as by scriptural qualifications they are capacitated to participation therein, who are:

1. Those who can discern the Lord’s body in this supper. The lack of this the Apostle gives as the reason of unworthily receiving it, and tells us that they eat damnation to themselves (1 Corinthians 11:29). Now, there are two ways wherein the Lord’s body may be said to be discerned in this supper:

(1) When the understanding is spiritually enlightened to perceive the true nature and ends (purpose) of this supper. And thereby the understanding is enabled to see a greater difference between this and our ordinary meals; for he who shall, for lack of knowledge therein, come to this table with no better preparation, or to no other intents, than when he goes to his own table, certainly perverts the ends of the institution and profanes the ordinance; and therefore he cannot help but incur the great displeasure of God for so doing.

(2) But there is another way of discerning the Lord’s body in this supper, and that is by spiritual taste and relish. For the palate does not have a greater ability of discerning the different relish in the variety of meats man feeds on than the soul of man that has its spiritual senses exercised has in tasting the things of God and judging the different sweetnesses thereof. This is the spiritual faculty that Jesus Christ speaks of when He tells Peter that he savored not the things that are of God, but those that are of men. (Matthew 16:23). Now, this you must well observe, you who partake of this supper, whether you relish the love of the Lord Jesus in His dying for sinners, and for you in particular. Is this great love of Christ sweet to your souls, sweeter than honey or the honeycomb? Can you admire the heights and depths of this love, and wonder that the Son of God should take a body to be bruised, wounded, and slain for the vilest of sinners, among whom you reckon yourself as one? Do you find this love of His for you drawing your hearts to a love of Him, and a readiness to part with all for Him? This is, indeed, to discern the Lord’s body in this supper; and, by this, you are enabled to see a vast difference between this supper and all the feasts of fat things that ever you were at in all your lives. If it is so with you, then you are qualified for this supper, and are, by Christ’s command, obliged to partake thereof.

2. Those who have fellowship with God in Christ are those whom Christ has obliged, by His command, to partake of this supper.

This is another qualification which the Apostle gives us in 1 Corinthians 10:18-21 where, discoursing of the nature of divine and likewise of diabolical sacrifices, and of the reason for the priest’s and people’s eating some part thereof, he also shows the reason for our partaking of the Lord’s Table which, though it is not properly a sacrifice that is there offered, yet holds some resemblance to the sacrifices of the law and to the people’s eating thereof, inasmuch as it is a commemoration of that one sacrifice which Christ offered up to the Father for our sins; of the benefits of which one sacrifice those who commune at the Lord’s Table as effectually partake as if Christ was offered up as often as you eat and drink… Thus, the Apostle, having illustrated the meaning of eating the Jewish and the Gentile sacrifice, proceeds to accommodate those notions to that of the Lord’s Table in in verse 21: “Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils; ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s Table, and of the table of the devils.” You cannot serve two such contrary masters as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus, and devils also; for, if you eat of the idols’ feasts, you thereby declare that you own the devils as gods; and then, coming to the Lord’s Table, you thereby declare that you acknowledge only the true God to be your God in and through Jesus Christ, your Sacrifice and Mediator, which practices are very absurd and contradictory.

The conclusion is this: those who partake of the Lord’s Table are such who from the heart take the God of that Christ whose death is remembered in that supper to be their God, and who believe that God is really reconciled to them by that sacrifice; and they declare, likewise, hereby that they will worship and serve this God in this Christ, and Him only. Now, if any of you are engaged to God in this spirit, you have fellowship with Him, and you are those who have the right to partake of this supper.”

-From the Puritan Thomas Wadsworth’s It Is Every Christian’s Indispensable Duty To Partake of the Lord’s Supper from The Puritan’s on the Lord’s Supper  Published by Soli Deo Gloria Publications  Morgan, PA 1997  Pages 63-67.

REFLECTIONS

CHRIST’S LOVE TO US

“Even as the Father hath loved Me, I also have loved you: abide ye in My love.-John xv. 9 R.V.

“In intercourse between friends and relations everything depends on their love to each other. Of what value is abundance of riches, if love is lacking between husband and wife, or parents and children? And in our religion, of what value is all knowledge and zeal in God’s work, without the knowledge and experience of Christ’s love? (See 1 Cor. Xiii. 1-3.) O Christians, the one thing needful in the inner chamber is to know by experience how much Christ loves you, and to learn how you may abide and continue in that love.

Think of what Christ says: “As the Father hath loved Me,”-what a Divine, everlasting, wonderful love! “Even so have I loved you.” It was the same love with which He had loved the Father and that He always bore in His heart, which He now gave into the hearts of His disciples. He yearns that this everlasting love should rest upon us, and work within us, that we may abide in it every day. What a blessed life! Christ desires every disciple to live in the power of the self-same love of God that He Himself experienced. My brother, do you realize that in your fellowship with Christ in secret or in public, you are surrounded by and kept in this heavenly love. The Christ with whom you desire fellowship longs unspeakably to fill you with His love.

Read from time to time what God’s Word says about the love of Christ. Meditate on the words, and let them sink into your heart. Sooner or later you will begin to realize: The greatest happiness of my life is that I am beloved of the Lord Jesus. I may live in fellowship with Him all the day long.

Let your heart continually say: His love to me is unspeakable, He will keep me abiding in His love.”

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OUR LOVE TO CHRIST

“Jesus Christ, Whom having not seen, ye love: in Whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice greatly with joy unspeakable and full of glory.”-1 Pet. i.8. R.V.

“What a wonderful description of the Christian life! People who had never see Christ, and yet truly loved Him and believed on Him, so that their hearts were filled with unspeakable joy. Such is the life of a Christian who really loves the Lord.

We have seen that the chief attribute of the Father and of the Son, is love to each other and love to man. This should be the chief characteristics of the true Christian. The love of God and the love of Christ is shed abroad in his heart, and becomes a well of living water, flowing forth as love to the Lord Jesus.

This love is not merely a blessed feeling. It is an active principle. It takes pleasure in doing the will of the beloved Lord. It is joy to keep His commandments. The love of Christ to us was shown by His death on the cross, our love must be exhibited in in unselfish, self-sacrificing lives. Oh that we understood this: In the Christian life love to Christ is everything!

Great love will beget great faith. Faith in His love to us, faith in the powerful revelations of His love in our hearts, faith that He through His love will work all His good pleasure in us.

The wings of faith and love will lift us up to heaven, and we shall be filled with joy unspeakable. The joy of the Christian is an indispensable witness to the world of the power of Christ to change hearts, and fill them with heavenly love and gladness.”

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LOVE TO THE BRETHREN

“A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another, even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.”-John xiii. 34; xv. 12.

“The Lord Jesus told His disciples that as the Father had loved Him, even so He loved them. And now, following His example, we must love one another, with the same love. “By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if ye have love to one another” (John xiii. 35). He had prayed: “That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me” (John xvii. 21). If we exhibit the love that was in God towards Christ, and Christ to us, the world will be obliged to confess that our Christianity is genuine and from above.

This is what actually happened. The Greeks and Romans, Jews and heathen, hated each other. Among all the nations of the world there was hardly a thought of love to each other. The very idea of self-sacrificing was a strange one. When the heathen saw that Christians from different nations, under the powerful working of the Holy Spirit, became one, and loved one another, even to the point of self-sacrifice in time of plague or illness-they were amazed and said: “Behold how these people love one another!”

Amongst professing Christians there is a certain oneness of belief and feeling of brotherhood, but Christ’s heavenly love is often lacking, and we do not bear one another’s burdens, or love others heartily.

Pray that you may love your fellow-believers with the same love with which Christ loved you. If we abide in Christ’s love, and let that love fill our hearts, supernatural power will be given us to take all God’s children unto our hearts in love. As close as is the bond of love between the Father and the Son, between Christ and His followers, so close must the bond of love be between all God’s children.”

-Andrew Murray (1828-1917) Found in God’s Best Secrets  Daily Devotional Meditations  Printed by Zondervan Publishing House   Grand Rapids, MI  1979  January 13, 14, 15 Devotions.

REFLECTIONS

Christ's Love And Blessing

Matthew 28:16-20

“Three times we find the apostle saying, ‘Thou knowest that I love thee.’ Once we are told that he said, ‘Thou knowest all things.’ Once we have the touching remark made that he was ‘grieved to be asked the third time’. We need not doubt that our Lord, like a skillful physician, stirred up this grief intentionally. He intended to prick the apostle’s conscience and to teach him a solemn lesson. If it was grievous to the disciple to be questioned, how much more grievous must it have been to the Master to be denied! 

The answer that the humbled apostle gave is the one account that the true servant of Christ in every age can give of his religion. Such a one may be weak and fearful and ignorant and unstable and failing in many things, but at any rate he is real and sincere. Ask him whether he is converted, whether he is a believer, whether he has grace, whether he is justified, whether he is sanctified, whether he is elect, whether he is a child of God-ask him any of these questions and he may perhaps reply that he really does not know! But ask him whether he loves Christ and he will reply, ‘I do.’ He may add that he does not love him as much as he ought to do, but he will not say that he does not love him at all. The rule will be found true with very few exceptions. Wherever there is true grace, there will be a consciousness of love towards Christ.

What, after all, is the great secret of loving Christ? It is an inward sense of having received from Him pardon and forgiveness of sins. Those love much who feel much forgiven. He that has come to Christ with his sins and tasted the blessedness of free and full absolution, he is the man whose heart will be full of love towards his Saviour. The more we realize that Christ has suffered for us and paid our debt to God and that we are washed and justified through His blood, the more we shall love Him for having loved us and given Himself for us.”

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Luke 24:50-53

“Our Lord left the disciples in a remarkable manner (vv. 50-51). He left them in the very act of blessing. We cannot doubt for a moment that there was a meaning in the circumstance. It was intended to remind the disciples of all that Jesus had brought with Him when He came into the world. It was intended to assure them of what He would do after He left the world. He had come on earth to bless and not to curse, and blessing He departed. He came in love and not in anger, and in love He went away. He came not as a condemning Judge but as a compassionate Friend, and as a Friend He returned to His Father. He had been a Saviour full of blessings to His little flock while He had been with them. He would have them know this even after He was taken away.

Forever let souls lean on the gracious heart of Jesus, if we know anything of true religion. We shall never find a heart more tender, more loving, more patient, more compassionate and more kind. To talk of the Virgin Mary as being more compassionate than Christ is a proof of miserable ignorance. To flee to the saints for comfort when we may flee to Christ is an act of mingled stupidity and blasphemy and a robbery of Christ’s crown. Gracious was our Lord Jesus when He lived among His weak disciples, gracious in the very season of His agony on the cross, gracious when He rose again and gathered His sheep around Him, gracious in the manner of His departure from this world. It was a departure in the very act of blessing! Gracious we may be assured He is at the right hand of God. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb. 13:8), a Saviour ever ready to bless, abounding in blessings.

There is something very touching in the fact that our Lord’s ascension took place close to Bethany. It was a small village bordering on the Mount of Olives. But it was the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus.”

-From J.C. Ryle’s (1816-1900) Expository Thoughts; Found in Daily Readings From All Four Gospels  Published by Evangelical Press  Auburn, MA  2001  December 25 and 27 Devotions.