Charles Spurgeon's MORNING & EVENING

MORNING:
    
      "I will give thee for a covenant of the people."  
              -- Isaiah 49:8

Jesus Christ is himself the sum and substance of the covenant, and as
one of its gifts. He is the property of every believer. Believer, canst
thou estimate what thou hast gotten in Christ? "In him dwelleth all the
fulness of the Godhead bodily." Consider that word "God" and its
infinity, and then meditate upon "perfect man" and all his beauty; for
all that Christ, as God and man, ever had, or can have, is thine-out of
pure free favour, passed over to thee to be thine entailed property
forever. Our blessed Jesus, as God, is omniscient, omnipresent,
omnipotent. Will it not console you to know that all these great and
glorious attributes are altogether yours? Has he power? That power is
yours to support and strengthen you, to overcome your enemies, and to
preserve you even to the end. Has he love? Well, there is not a drop of
love in his heart which is not yours; you may dive into the immense
ocean of his love, and you may say of it all, "It is mine." Hath he
justice? It may seem a stern attribute, but even that is yours, for he
will by his justice see to it that all which is promised to you in the
covenant of grace shall be most certainly secured to you. And all that
he has as perfect man is yours. As a perfect man the Father's delight
was upon him. He stood accepted by the Most High. O believer, God's
acceptance of Christ is thine acceptance; for knowest thou not that the
love which the Father set on a perfect Christ, he sets on thee now? For
all that Christ did is thine. That perfect righteousness which Jesus
wrought out, when through his stainless life he kept the law and made
it honourable, is thine, and is imputed to thee. Christ is in the
covenant.

"My God, I am thine-what a comfort divine!
What a blessing to know that the Saviour is mine!
In the heavenly Lamb thrice happy I am,
And my heart it doth dance at the sound of his name."



EVENING:
    
      "The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way
      of the Lord, make his paths straight."  
              -- Luke 3:4

The voice crying in the wilderness demanded a way for the Lord, a way
prepared, and a way prepared in the wilderness. I would be attentive to
the Master's proclamation, and give him a road into my heart, cast up
by gracious operations, through the desert of my nature. The four
directions in the text must have my serious attention.

Every valley must be exalted. Low and grovelling thoughts of God must
be given up; doubting and despairing must be removed; and self-seeking
and carnal delights must be forsaken. Across these deep valleys a
glorious causeway of grace must be raised.

Every mountain and hill shall be laid low. Proud creature-sufficiency,
and boastful self-righteousness, must be levelled, to make a highway
for the King of kings. Divine fellowship is never vouchsafed to
haughty, highminded sinners. The Lord hath respect unto the lowly, and
visits the contrite in heart, but the lofty are an abomination unto
him. My soul, beseech the Holy Spirit to set thee right in this
respect.

The crooked shall be made straight. The wavering heart must have a
straight path of decision for God and holiness marked out for it.
Double-minded men are strangers to the God of truth. My soul, take heed
that thou be in all things honest and true, as in the sight of the
heart-searching God.

The rough places shall be made smooth. Stumbling-blocks of sin must be
removed, and thorns and briers of rebellion must be uprooted. So great
a visitor must not find miry ways and stony places when he comes to
honour his favoured ones with his company. Oh that this evening the
Lord may find in my heart a highway made ready by his grace, that he
may make a triumphal progress through the utmost bounds of my soul,
from the beginning of this year even to the end of it.