Morning, November 8, edited from Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening

“Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.” — Colossians 2:6

The life of faith is represented as receiving–an act which implies the very opposite of anything like merit. It is simply the acceptance of a gift. As the earth drinks in the rain, as the sea receives the streams, as night accepts light from the stars, so we, giving nothing, share freely of the grace of God. Believers are not, by nature, wells, or streams; they are but reservoirs into which the living water flows. They are empty vessels into which God pours his salvation. The idea of receiving implies a sense of realization, us making the matter a reality. One cannot very well receive a shadow; we receive something substantial, and so it is in the life of faith. Christ becomes real to us. When we are without faith, Jesus is a mere name to us–a person who lived a long while ago, so long ago that his life is only history to us now! By an act of faith Jesus becomes a real person in the consciousness of our heart. But receiving also means grasping or getting possession of. The thing which I receive becomes my own: I receive to myself that which is given. When I receive Jesus, he becomes my Savior, so much mine that neither life nor death shall be able to rob me of him. All this is to receive Christ–to take him as God’s free gift; to grasp him in my heart, and to receive, to own him as mine.

Salvation may be described as the blind receiving sight, the deaf receiving hearing, the dead receiving life; but we have not only received these blessings, we have received Christ Jesus himself. It is true that he gave us life from the dead. He gave us the pardon from sin; he counted us righteous. These are all precious things, but we are not content with them; we have received Christ himself. The Son of God has been poured into us, and we have received him, and taken him for our own. How can our hearts encompass Jesus, for heaven itself cannot contain him!

 

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