June 4

Morning

But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, — Titus 3:4 BSB

How sweet it is to see the Savior communing with His beloved people! Nothing can be more delightful than, by the Holy Spirit, to be led into this field of joy. Let your mind think for a moment about the history of the Redeemer’s love, and countless acts of affection will come to mind. All of them have one purpose: to weave our hearts into Christ’s, to intertwine the thoughts and emotions of the renewed soul with the mind of Jesus.

When we meditate on this amazing love and see the glorious Redeemer blessing His church with all His eternal wealth, our souls might well faint with joy. Who can endure such a weight of love? Even the small glimpses the Holy Spirit sometimes gives us are more than our souls can contain. How overwhelming must a full view of it be! When our souls are able to understand all the Savior’s gifts, have the wisdom to appreciate them fully, and have time to reflect on them—such as in the world to come—we will then commune with Jesus in a much closer way than we do now. But who can even begin to imagine the sweetness of such fellowship? It must be one of the things that “eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the heart of man,” but which God has prepared for those who love Him. Oh, to open the doors of our Savior’s storehouses and see all the blessings He has stored up for us! Such love will overwhelm us.

By faith, we see dim reflections of His limitless treasures, but when we actually see these heavenly things with our own eyes, how deep will our fellowship with Him be! Until that day, let us save our highest praises for Jesus, our loving Lord, whose love for us is beyond anything we can imagine.

Evening

By common confession, the mystery of godliness is great: He appeared in the flesh, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was proclaimed among the nations, was believed in throughout the world, was taken up in glory. — 1 Tim 3:16 BSB

We have seen our beloved Lord during His time on earth, humiliated and burdened with sorrow, for He was “despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.” The one whose brightness is like the morning wore the garments of grief every day—shame was His covering, and reproach was His robe. But now, since He has triumphed over all the powers of darkness on the cross, our faith sees our King returning in glory, His garments stained with victory. How glorious He must have been to the angels when a cloud received Him out of sight and He ascended into heaven!

Now He wears the glory He had with God before the world began, along with another glory He earned through His victory over sin, death, and hell. As the victor, He wears a crown of triumph. Listen to the song rising in heaven! It’s a new and sweeter song: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, for He has redeemed us to God by His blood!” Jesus wears the glory of an Intercessor who will never fail, a Prince who can never be defeated, a Conqueror who has vanquished every foe, and a Lord who has won the hearts of all His people. Jesus now wears all the glory that heaven can give Him, all that ten thousand times ten thousand angels can bestow upon Him.

Even with all our imagination, we cannot fully comprehend His greatness. But there will be an even greater revelation of His glory when He returns from heaven with power and all His holy angels. “Then He will sit on His glorious throne.” Oh, the splendor of that glory! It will captivate the hearts of His people. But even then, that’s not the end—His praise will continue throughout eternity: “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever!”

Reader, if you want to rejoice in Christ’s glory in the future, He must be glorious to you now. Is He?