Luke 8:56

REFLECTIONS

Behold! ye poor and afflicted of the Lord's tried ones, how Jesus, the Son of God, when he humbled himself to be made man, condescended to have his wants supplied by the bounty of his people. Oh! how hath he dignified the path of honest poverty by his bright example! Never, then, forget what Paul was commanded to tell the church: Ye know, said he, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ; that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye, through his poverty, might be made rich. Blessed Lord! while I read thy sweet parable of the sower, oh for grace to discover that the pure seed of thy Gospel is sown in my heart, by thy sovereign power: and, from the fallow ground of my poor heart being turned up, and planted with thy grace, the fruit of thy righteousness may, in thee, and through thee, be brought forth an hundred fold. Enable me to embark with thee, thou dearest Lord, in the roughest sea, never being alarmed as long as God-incarnate is with me in the storm; who guides the helm of all my affairs, and will rebuke both wind and tide. And blessed be my God, my Saviour, my Holy One! Jesus, the Son of God, hath dispossessed the enemy from my heart; and now let me, as this poor Gadarene, sit at the feet of Jesus, cloathed in my Lord's robe of righteousness, and in my right mind. Yea, Lord, if, like the poor woman, deeply and long diseased, or even as the ruler's daughter, dead, Jesus can and will recover. He saith himself, I am the resurrection and the life. He that liveth and believeth in me, shall never die. Amen,