Evening, May 9, edited from Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening

“Come, my beloved, let us go out into the country … Let us see whether the vine has budded.” — Song of Solomon 7:11-12

The church was about to engage in earnest labor, and desired her Lord’s company in it. She does not say, “I will go,” but “let us go.” It is a blessing, working when Jesus is at our side! It is the business of God’s people to be trimmers of God’s vines. Like our first parents, we are put into the garden of the Lord for usefulness; let us therefore go forth into the field. Observe that the church, when she is in her right state of mind, desires to enjoy communion with Christ in all her many labors. Some imagine that they can have fellowship with him when they do not serve Christ actively; they are mistaken. It is doubtless very easy to squander away our inward life in outward exercises, and come to complain with the spouse, “They made me keeper of the vineyards; but my own vineyard have I not kept;” but there is no reason why this should be the case except from our own foolishness and neglect. It is certainly the case that a professing believer may do nothing, and yet grow quite as lifeless in spiritual things as those who are most busy. Mary was not praised for sitting still; but for her sitting at Jesus’ feet. Even so, Christians are not to be praised for neglecting duties under the pretense of having secret fellowship with Jesus: it is not sitting, but sitting at Jesus’ feet which is commendable. Do not think that activity is in itself an evil; it is a great blessing, and a method of receiving grace to us. Paul felt to be allowed to preach was grace given to him; and every form of Christian service may become a personal blessing to those engaged in it. Those who have the most fellowship with Christ are not recluses or hermits, who have much time to spare, but unfaltering laborers who are toiling for Jesus, and who, in their toil, have him side by side with them, so that they are workers together with God. Let us remember then, in anything we have to do for Jesus, that we can do it, and should do it in close communion with him.