Wisdom for the Weekend [2]

"Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles." (Matthew 12:18)

And shall God love [Christ] and delight in him, and shall not our soul delight in Christ? ... Does Christ delight in us, and God delight in Christ, and shall not we delight in Christ that delights in us, and in whom God delights? In I Cor. 16:22, the apostle is bold to pronounce a bitter curse ... upon him that loves not the Lord Christ Jesus, a most bitter curse.

Christ shall [became] a servant to do our work for us, to suffer for us, to bear the burden of our sins upon the tree, to become our husband, to bestow his riches upon us, to raise us to the same condition with himself... God loves and delights in him for the work of salvation and redemption by his blood, and shall not we love and embrace him for his love which is for our good? What good has God by it but only the glory of his mercy, in saving our souls through Christ? Therefore if God love him for the good he does to us, much more should we love him for the fruit of it that we receive ourselves.

It should shame us therefore when we find dullness and coldness upon us, that we can hear of anything better than of Christ; and arguments concerning Christ are cold to us. Alas! Where is our love, and joy, and delight; and when we can make no better but a carnal use of the incarnation and other benefits by Christ? We should therefore desire God to shed the love of Christ into our hearts more and more, that we may feel in our souls the love that he bears to us, and may love God and Christ again, for that that he has done for us.

Richard Sibbes, A Description of Christ