(With your Bible in your hand)
GIRD AND SERVE
“Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve Me… and afterward thou shalt eat and drink.” — Luk_17:8[PS1] .
THERE ARE TWO aspects of rural industry—agricultural, ploughing; pastoral, keeping the sheep. Between them they also cover our service to men for Christ’s sake. Some of us are engaged in ploughing. In the short wintry days, when the last leaves are failing from the trees, and the skies are covered by dense and dripping clouds, we go forth with our plough, or bearing precious seed. In loneliness, depression, and fear, we tread athwart the furrows, and return crying: “Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?” Or we are called to keep the flock, seeking the straying, defending the attacked, tenderly nursing the sick and weak. In either of these avocations we often become weary, and in that condition “come in from the field.”
When the spell of hard work is finished, how apt are we to relax! Surely, we think, we may give ourselves to the indulgence of natural and innocent appetite! But that is exactly what our Master does not intend, because He knows the subtle temptation of hours of ease. When we return from our labour, He does not say, “Go and sit down to meat,” but He meets us on the threshold, saying, “Make ready and serve Me, till I have eaten and drunken, and afterward thou shalt eat and drink.”
From this parable we are surely to infer that our Lord says in effect: “You have been working for Me, but I have missed you. You have been so engaged in guiding the plough through the heavy clay, or watching against the lion and bear, that you have forgotten Me, and have allowed the hours to pass without speaking to Me a single word, or listening for My voice.”
When Christ’s work is done, let us turn to our Lord Himself and minister to Him; prepare for Him a feast of faith and love and joy; of heart-melody and voice-music. After this we may eat and drink. He will even gird Himself, and come forth to serve us (Joh_13:4-14[PS2] ).
PRAYER
We desire, dear Lord, that Thou shouldest be more to us than Thy work. It is not enough for us to plough Thy fields or keep Thy sheep, we want to serve Thee most of all. Help us to keep Thee in view all day, and whatsoever our hands find to do, may we do it in love to Thyself. AMEN.
Morning
“I have chosen you out of the world.” — Joh_15:19[PS3]
Here is distinguishing grace and discriminating regard; for some are made the special objects of divine affection. Do not be afraid to dwell upon this high doctrine of election. When your mind is most heavy and depressed, you will find it to be a bottle of richest cordial. Those who doubt the doctrines of grace, or who cast them into the shade, miss the richest clusters of Eshcol[PS4] ; they lose the wines on the lees well refined, the fat things full of marrow. There is no balm in Gilead comparable to it. If the honey in Jonathan’s wood when but touched enlightened the eyes, this is honey which will enlighten your heart to love and learn the mysteries of the kingdom of God. Eat, and fear not a surfeit; live upon this choice dainty, and fear not that it will be too delicate a diet. Meat from the King’s table will hurt none of his courtiers. Desire to have your mind enlarged, that you may comprehend more and more the eternal, everlasting, discriminating love of God. When you have mounted as high as election, tarry on its sister mount, the covenant of grace. Covenant engagements are the munitions of stupendous rock behind which we lie entrenched; covenant engagements with the surety, Christ Jesus, are the quiet resting-places of trembling spirits.
“His oath, his covenant, his blood,
Support me in the raging flood;
When every earthly prop gives way,
This still is all my strength and stay.”
If Jesus undertook to bring me to glory, and if the Father promised that he would give me to the Son to be a part of the infinite reward of the travail of his soul; then, my soul, till God himself shall be unfaithful, till Jesus shall cease to be the truth, thou art safe. When David danced before the ark, he told Michal that election made him do so. Come, my soul, exult before the God of grace and leap for joy of heart.
Evening
“His head is as the most fine gold, his locks are bushy, and black as a raven.” — Son_5:11[PS5]
Comparisons all fail to set forth the Lord Jesus, but the spouse uses the best within her reach. By the head of Jesus we may understand his deity, “for the head of Christ is God” and then the ingot of purest gold is the best conceivable metaphor, but all too poor to describe one so precious, so pure, so dear, so glorious. Jesus is not a grain of gold, but a vast globe of it, a priceless mass of treasure such as earth and heaven cannot excel. The creatures are mere iron and clay, they all shall perish like wood, hay, and stubble, but the ever living Head of the creation of God shall shine on for ever and ever. In him is no mixture, nor smallest taint of alloy. He is for ever infinitely holy and altogether divine. The bushy locks depict his manly vigour. There is nothing effeminate in our Beloved. He is the manliest of men. Bold as a lion, laborious as an ox, swift as an eagle. Every conceivable and inconceivable beauty is to be found in him, though once he was despised and rejected of men.
“His head the finest gold;
With secret sweet perfume,
His curled locks hang all as black
As any raven’s plume.”
The glory of his head is not shorn away, he is eternally crowned with peerless majesty. The black hair indicates youthful freshness, for Jesus has the dew of his youth upon him. Others grow languid with age, but he is for ever a Priest as was Melchizedek; others come and go, but he abides as God upon his throne, world without end. We will behold him to-night and adore him. Angels are gazing upon him-his redeemed must not turn away their eyes from him. Where else is there such a Beloved? O for an hour’s fellowship with him! Away, ye intruding cares! Jesus draws me, and I run after him.
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[PS1]Luk 17:8 Will he not instead say to him, ‘Prepare something for me to eat, and appropriately clothe yourself [for service] and serve me while I eat and drink; then afterward you may eat and drink?’
[PS2]Joh 13:4 got up from supper, took off His [outer] robe, and taking a [servant’s] towel, He tied it around His waist.
Joh 13:5 Then He poured water into the basin and began washing the disciples’ feet and wiping them with the towel which was tied around His waist.
Joh 13:6 When He came to Simon Peter, he said to Him, “Lord, are You going to wash my feet?”
Joh 13:7 Jesus replied to him, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but you will [fully] understand it later.”
Joh 13:8 Peter said to Him, “You will never wash my feet!” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with Me [we can have nothing to do with each other].”
Joh 13:9 Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, [in that case, wash] not only my feet, but also my hands and my head!”
Joh 13:10 Jesus said to him, “Anyone who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, and is completely clean. And you [My disciples] are clean, but not all of you.”
Joh 13:11 For He knew who was going to betray Him; for that reason He said, “Not all of you are clean.”
Joh 13:12 So when He had washed their feet and put on His [outer] robe and reclined at the table again, He said to them, “Do you understand what I have done for you?
Joh 13:13 You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you are right in doing so, for that is who I am.
Joh 13:14 So if I, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet as well.
[PS3]Joh 15:19 If you belonged to the world, the world would love [you as] its own and would treat you with affection. But you are not of the world [you no longer belong to it], but I have chosen you out of the world. And because of this the world hates you.
[PS4]Num 13:23 Then they came to the Valley of Eshcol (cluster of grapes), and from there cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes; and they carried it on a pole between two of them, with some of pomegranates and the figs.
[PS5]Son 5:11 “His head is like [precious] gold, pure gold; His hair is [curly] like clusters of dates And black as a raven.
