December 17, Morning

C. H. Spurgeon · Modern retelling

"I remember thee." — Jeremiah 2:2 · KJV

Let us note that Christ delights to think on His Church, and to look on her beauty. As the bird returns often to its nest, and the traveler hastens to his home, so the mind continually pursues the object of its choice. We cannot look too often on the face we love; we always desire to have our precious things in our sight. It is even so with our Lord Jesus. From all eternity "His delights were with the sons of men"; His thoughts rolled onward to the time when His elect should be born into the world, and He viewed them in the mirror of His foreknowledge. "In Thy book," He says, "all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them." When the world was set on its pillars, He was there, and He set the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel. Many a time before His incarnation He came down to this lower earth in the likeness of a man: on the plains of Mamre, by the brook of Jabbok, beneath the walls of Jericho, and in the fiery furnace of Babylon, the Son of Man visited His people. Because His soul delighted in them, He could not rest away from them, for His heart longed after them. Never were they absent from His heart, for He had written their names on His hands and graven them on His side. As the breastplate bearing the names of the tribes of Israel was the most brilliant ornament worn by the high priest, so the names of Christ's elect were His most precious jewels, glittering on His heart. We may often forget to meditate on the perfections of our Lord, but He never ceases to remember us. Let us chide ourselves for past forgetfulness, and pray for grace ever to bear Him in fondest remembrance. Lord, paint on the eyeballs of my soul the image of Your Son.