Bread From Heaven # 2

Bread From Heaven # 2

Christ is also the satisfaction of the human intellect.

"In Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." Is not the knowledge of the High and Holy One, who inhabits eternity - the very highest that can be attained? It may be interesting to find history in the earth's strata, or in the changes that take place in a language, or to discover the laws that regulate mind or matter - but is it not something far beyond this to learn, though it can be but a little, of the ways and works of the Creator, of the mind of Him in whom we live and move and have our being?

And where can we gain this but in Christ, in His Person as the Incarnate Son, in His holy and loving character, in the salvation which He accomplished and in which all the Divine perfections were so marvelously exhibited? Where can we gain it but in that revelation made through Him, as the Great Prophet of His Church, and which points to Him as the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and End of all! All this cannot fail to impart, the more it is studied, the truest satisfaction to the believing soul.

"This is what the LORD says: Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight," declares the LORD!" (Jeremiah 9:23-24).

Jesus Christ is the truest satisfaction of the deepest affection of which the heart of man is capable. Every person needs a heart on which he can repose. Yet where on earth can be found one upon which it is wise or safe to lean all our weight? The warmest human love has its limit, however sweet the consolation it may afford. It may fail us through the instability that is inherent in man, or it may fail through the separation that one day must take place. Even on the morning when the dream of years may be fulfilled, one sentence, "until death us do part," comes in to tell of a parting at last.

But who can trust too implicitly to the love and faithfulness of Christ? Where is the "limit" to that love which many waters cannot quench, which has a height and depth and breadth and length that none can scan or comprehend? What circumstances shall arise that will lead Him to forsake His own redeemed people? Infinite in its measure, eternal in its duration, the love of Christ never fails!

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord!" (Romans 8:38-39).

I need You, precious Jesus! I need a friend like Thee;
A Friend to soothe and sympathize, a Friend to care for me:
I need the heart of Jesus, to feel each anxious care,
To tell my every need, and all my sorrow share!

Is any reader looking hither and thither for that which will still the restless desires of the soul? If you will ...

seek it in a round of gaiety and dissipation;
seek it in the accumulation of wealth;
seek it in anything that is of wealth;
seek it in anything that is of earth -
then soul-famine, soul-starvation will be the sure result. There will be within a fearful void, a deep of wretchedness that no words will be able to express.

But on the other hand there is that peace, that hidden manna of heavenly consolation in the Friend of sinners, that can satisfy to the very utmost. Only ponder that which is revealed of Him, only by faith take hold of His promise, and cleave fast to Him - and your confidence will not be disappointed.

A young Brahmin, a teacher of English in a school at Santipore in India, became very restless and uneasy in mind. He scarcely knew why it was, but he felt something was lacking, and something was wrong. For many months he wandered from shrine to shrine, seeking peace but finding it not. He came back to Santipore, but soon again left it on the same errand. To him it was not Santipore, the city of peace, as the word expresses, but the city of untold distress.

He came one day upon a strange missionary, who was preaching Christ to a crowd of hearers. Rammoy longed for peace, but he hated the Prince of peace, so he stood up and opposed the missionary. The servant of Christ bore with him with all meekness, reasoned with him, and finally lent him a copy of the New Testament. The entrance of the Word gave light. He read, pondered, wondered, believed. Thus he expressed the consolation that it brought to him. "I gazed upon the Cross of Christ, and as I gazed, the ponderous load fell off my heart!" At Calcutta a few months afterward, together with his young wife, he was admitted into the Church of Christ.

Such is the peace, the heart-satisfying rest, which the anxious soul may find in Jesus. And it is the Holy Spirit working faith in Christ, leading the inquirer to take His promises and confide in them, by which the blessing is brought near.

It has been already implied, but it needs to  be plainly stated, that only by faith can anyone feed on the Bread of Life. Again and again does our Lord repeat it, that to come to Him and believe in Him is the means whereby the soul is satisfied, and whereby eternal life is obtained. Since then He tells us in another verse that unless we eat His flesh, and drink His blood, we have no life in us, He must still refer to faith in Himself as the means of doing this.

Hence the great importance of the Holy Communion. Christ has appointed it for this very purpose, that by the remembrance of His dying love our faith in Him may be quickened. It is a time when we may look for the Holy Spirit to draw our thoughts and desires heavenward, and kindle a flame of hope and love.

Look down in love, and from above
With Your Spirit satisfy
You have sought me, You have bought me,
And Your purchase, Lord, am I.
Let me find Thee - let me find Thee
Here on earth, and there on high.

No other prayer to You I bear,
O my Lord, but only this,
To show Your grace, to see Your face,
And to know Your people's bliss.
Let me find Thee - let me find Thee,
Thee to find is blessedness!

~George Everard~

(The End)