If our fellowship be with the Father and His dear Son, we shall know from the character of our Father what are His wishes. Errors in judgment spring more or less from lack of fellowship with Him. Acquaintance with His heart of love will enlarge ours.
We have access to God with boldness and confidence through Jesus, the Son of the Father. Do we tell out our tale at the throne of grace? Fellowship signifies the opening the heart on both sides, and that without reserve.
Christ
Christ twice passed the angels by. He sank far below them in His humiliation; He rose far above them in His exaltation.
If Christ be the life and beauty of our days of sunshine, so is He the brother born for our adversity; and His love shall gild and strike through the darkest cloud. Having been once a sufferer, He communes with His suffering members, and instructs us to put our trials into a just balance; to call our affliction light and momentary. (2 Cor. 4:17.18.)
Resting wholly on Christ; ceasing wholly from the works of the flesh—is the secret of abiding in Him.
Growing acquaintance with Christ makes Him more and more precious to our souls. If Christ were anything less than unsearchable, He could not satisfy us—could neither fill the heart, nor give peace to the conscience.
The strength of love is shown in great things; the tenderness of love in little things. Christ showed the strength of His love on the cross by dying and bearing the curse for us; the tenderness of His love when He said, “Behold My mother!” “Children, have ye any meat?” “Woman, why weepest thou?”
There was an immeasurable difference between the state of Christ on the cross when He said, under the terrors of the Judge, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?“ and when He said,”Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit.”
“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5); and since the humble mind, so hard of attainment, must needs go before honour from God, let us be thankful for all God’s discipline, however bitter, without which pride will not stoop, nor vain man come to knowledge of himself.