Evening, August 23
Charles Spurgeon · Morning and Evening: Daily Readings
Ephesians 3:17
"That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith."
Ephesians 3:17
Beyond measure it is desirable that we, as believers, should have the
person of Jesus constantly before us, to inflame our love towards him,
and to increase our knowledge of him. I would to God that my readers
were all entered as diligent scholars in Jesus' college, students of
Corpus Christi, or the body of Christ, resolved to attain unto a good
degree in the learning of the cross. But to have Jesus ever near, the
heart must be full of him, welling up with his love, even to
overrunning; hence the apostle prays "that Christ may dwell in your
hearts." See how near he would have Jesus to be! You cannot get a
subject closer to you than to have it in the heart itself. "That he may
dwell;" not that he may call upon you sometimes, as a casual visitor
enters into a house and tarries for a night, but that he may dwell;
that Jesus may become the Lord and Tenant of your inmost being, never
more to go out.
Observe the words--that he may dwell in your heart, that best room of
the house of manhood; not in your thoughts alone, but in your
affections; not merely in the mind's meditations, but in the heart's
emotions. We should pant after love to Christ of a most abiding
character, not a love that flames up and then dies out into the
darkness of a few embers, but a constant flame, fed by sacred fuel,
like the fire upon the altar which never went out. This cannot be
accomplished except by faith. Faith must be strong, or love will not be
fervent; the root of the flower must be healthy, or we cannot expect
the bloom to be sweet. Faith is the lily's root, and love is the lily's
bloom. Now, reader, Jesus cannot be in your heart's love except you
have a firm hold of him by your heart's faith; and, therefore, pray
that you may always trust Christ in order that you may always love him.
If love be cold, be sure that faith is drooping.