LORD, OPEN OUR EYES!

Our natural blindness and self-deception is manifested by our wrong estimate of ourselves. Pride and self-righteousness lead us as the Pharisees to "trust in ourselves that we are righteous and despise others." The Lord Jesus Christ issues this command in Revelation 3:18 "anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see." Christ charges them with not being able to see what they think they see. He says "anoint" that you might see! He charges them with being haughty and self-righteous because they say "I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing." Do we imagine ourselves rich and increased with knowledge, faithfulness, understanding, and good works, seeing not our poverty and need? He who knows the heart makes this true evaluation: "Thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." But that is not all. He says "and knowest not!" Now we know that no one rightly sees or understands or obeys God apart from the anointing work of the Spirit of God. But here Christ lays the responsibility upon us and commands "you anoint." What is the "eyesalve" that He commands us to apply? What will enable us to see God as He really is, we as we really are and the remedy for our poverty and need? It is the Word of God! The Word of God, the Gospel, is the instrument by which the Spirit of God enlightens our understanding, causes us to see the impurity of our hearts and nature, the faultiness of our righteousness, and our inability to do good. It is by the gospel that we see our state so as to look to Christ as all our salvation and acceptance before God. And it is by the Word that we see our present condition as believers. Was it not the Word of the Gospel that showed us our lost state and then revealed Christ to us? The Word will always declare our unchanging state before God in Christ and it also will reveal our present condition and experience. Pride and self-sufficiency always causes our hearts to deceive us. "Anoint your eyes with eyesalve!" Hear the preached Word, read the Word and obey the Word. Christ says, "I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear."

Gary Shepard

"Love not the world, nor the things that are in the world." The believers loves relatives and friends in the world, he loves and pities all people of the world, he loves the blessings of fellowship and the good things that God gives to us and enables us to enjoy in the world; but he does not love the world nor the things of the world ABOVE GOD AND CHRIST. He doesn't take satisfaction nor contentment in them, nor make idols of them, nor prefer them to heavenly and spiritual things! His citizenship and interests are in the kingdom of God. His true family is the family of God, and he knows that the fashion of this world passes away. He prefers nothing and no one in this world to Christ.

If a man's affections and interests are set upon the world, the things of the world, and the companionship of worldly people, it is clearly evident that he does not have the love of God in him. No man can serve two masters. (II Tim. 2:19; Luke 14:25-33)

Henry Mahan

The book of life, or decree of election, is the marriage-register of the saints; in which their everlasting espousal to Christ stands indelibly recorded by the pen of God's free and eternal love. AS the gold of which money is made is the king's property ever before it is struck into coin, and before it visibly bears the royal image and superscription; so the unregenerate elect are God's own heritage, though they do not appear to be such, until the Holy Spirit has made them pass through the mint of effectual calling, and actually stamped them into current coin for the kingdom of Heaven. The elect are betrothed to Christ from everlasting in the covenant of grace; they are actually married to Him, and join hands with Him, in conversion; but they are not taken home to the bridegroom’s house until death dismisses them from the body.

Augustus Toplady

A naked sinner can be clothed, but a sinner covered with his own righteousness must be stripped. This is always true. We must be stripped of all that has to do with self or we cannot be clothed with that which pertains to God. We are called to live by faith; we can see nothing with the eye of sense. The Lord Jesus has gone up on high, and we are told to wait patiently for His appearing. God's Word carried home to the heart in the power of the Holy Spirit is the basis of confidence in all things: temporal and spiritual, present and future. He tells us of Christ's completed sacrifice. We by grace believe and commit our souls to the efficacy thereof, and we know we shall never be disappointed.

Scott Richardson

THE MAN AT GOD’S RIGHT HAND

We lift the eyes of faith above

And there behold the Man

The One who sits upon His throne

The Man at God's right hand.

The Man at God's right hand.

He took our sins upon Himself

The guilt that none can stand.

And in His body brought their end.

The Man at God's right hand.

The Man at God's right hand.

He is the Lord our Righteousness

Who rules Emmanuel's Land;

And there He intercedes for me,

The Man at God's right hand.

The Man at God's right hand.

One day before the Holy Throne

In body I shall stand.

Eternally accepted in,

The Man at God's right hand.

The Man at God's right hand.

Gary Shepard