With the new year opening upon
us, as we turn over a fresh leaf in the book of history, is it not well to
challenge our hearts and ask where this new date finds us, and what is really
before us?

 

The Lord Jesus Christ is not only
the Dayspring and Morning Star, but, blessed be His name, He is the Sun of the
one eternal day. The clearer and brighter He is before our hearts, the greater
the ease with which we retire from all down here. All that is eternal and
unfailing is on His side; all below and around us is in reality but sunset; the
brightness and beauty are gradually but surely fading. If our poor eyes are
turned there they are only on what is sinking below the horizon. But when they
are fixed, like those of the martyr Stephen, on Jesus in the glory of God, how
different it all is; then the outline, beautiful beyond all conception, of the
eternal realities, unfolds itself before us.

 

There is one great and blessed
fact which stands out to the eye of faith thus fixed on the nearing, heavenly
sunrise:it is the blessed establishment of communication between the heart and
its absent Object. This is effected by the Holy Spirit, the heavenly
messenger and glorifier of Jesus, who conveys to the soul the sense and comfort
of His love and His blessed thoughts about us. Thus are we really invigorated
and revived. We live, then, with Himself in all the calm and rest of that
blessed region of satisfied desire, and in the peace and power of it we are
carried through the raging storms around us.

 

May our hearts turn more than
ever to Christ and to the heavenly realm during this new year. May we be more
intently looking up to, as well as abiding in, Him who came and died and rose
again, and sits at God’s right hand for us. And may we be always looking
forward to that blessed moment when His shout shall be heard by all His own,
raised or changed, who shall follow Him into the Father’s house, and there
share His heavenly bliss and joys for ever and ever.

 

FRAGMENT

There with unwearied gaze,

Our eyes on Him we’ll rest,

And satisfy with endless praise

A heart supremely blest.                                                                                                J.N.
Darby