Morning, December 17
Charles Spurgeon · Morning and Evening: Daily Readings
Jeremiah 2:2
"I remember thee."
Jeremiah 2:2
Let us note that Christ delights to think upon his Church, and to look
upon her beauty. As the bird returneth often to its nest, and as the
wayfarer hastens to his home, so doth the mind continually pursue the
object of its choice. We cannot look too often upon that face which we
love; we desire always to have our precious things in our sight. It is
even so with our Lord Jesus. From all eternity "His delights were with
the sons of men;" his thoughts rolled onward to the time when his elect
should be born into the world; he viewed them in the mirror of his
foreknowledge. "In thy book," he says, "all my members were written,
which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of
them" (Ps. 139:16). When the world was set upon its pillars, he was
there, and he set the bounds of the people according to the number of
the children of Israel. Many a time before his incarnation, he
descended to this lower earth in the similitude of a man; on the plains
of Mamre (Gen. 18), by the brook of Jabbok (Gen. 32:24-30), beneath the
walls of Jericho (Jos. 5:13), and in the fiery furnace of Babylon (Dan.
3:19, 25), the Son of Man visited his people. Because his soul
delighted in them, he could not rest away from them, for his heart
longed after them. Never were they absent from his heart, for he had
written their names upon his hands, and graven them upon his side. As
the breastplate containing the names of the tribes of Israel was the
most brilliant ornament worn by the high priest, so the names of
Christ's elect were his most precious jewels, and glittered on his
heart. We may often forget to meditate upon the perfections of our
Lord, but he never ceases to remember us. Let us chide ourselves for
past forgetfulness, and pray for grace ever to bear him in fondest
remembrance. Lord, paint upon the eyeballs of my soul the image of thy
Son.