十二月十七日
我都记得。（耶2：2）
我们要注意，基督喜欢他的教会，幷愿看她的美丽。鸟儿怎样常常归窠，游子怎样急欲返家，主的心也这样继续寻求它所选择的对象。我们不能常常看我们所爱之人的脸，我们却愿把我们所宝贵的东西常常放在我们的眼前。我们的主耶稣也是如此。从亘古，他就喜悦世人；他在他的选民未生在世上以前就想到他们，他在他先见的镜子里看到了他们。经上说：“我未成形的体质，你的眼早已看见了。你所定的日子，我尚未度一日，你都写在你的册上了。”（诗139：16）地的根基还未建立之前，他“就照以色列人的数目，立定万民的疆界。”（申32：8）在他未成肉身之前，他已经多次成爲人形来到卑贱的世界上了；在幔利橡树那里（创18），在雅博渡口（创32：24—30），在耶利哥的城下（书5：13），在巴比伦烈火的窑中（但3：19，25），“人子”已经多次地向人显现了。因爲他的心喜悦他们，因他的心切慕他们，他就少不了他们。他们永远离不开他的心，因他把他们的名字写在他的手里，刻在他的身上。大祭司所戴最美的装饰便是有以色列十二支派名字的胸牌，基督所选之人的名字也是他所戴的贵重宝石，在他的心中晶莹放光。我们有时忘记思念我们主的完全，但他却时时不忘记我们。我们要爲过去的遗忘责备自己，幷求他施恩叫我们永远珍爱、记念他。神啊！愿你在我的瞳人中画上你儿子的形象。
December 17
“I remember thee.”—Jeremiah 2:2
Let us note that Christ
delights to think upon his Church, and to look upon her beauty. As the bird returneth
often to its nest, and as the wayfarer hastens to his home, so doth the mind
continually pursue the object of its choice. We cannot look too often upon that
face which we love; we desire always 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; 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” (Ps. 139:16). When the world was set upon its pillars, he was there,
and he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of
Israel. Many a time before his incarnation, he descended to this lower earth in
the similitude of a man; on the plains of Mamre (Gen. 18), by the brook of
Jabbok (Gen. 32:24-30), beneath the walls of Jericho (Jos. 5:13), and in the
fiery furnace of Babylon (Dan. 3:19, 25), 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 upon his hands, and graven them upon his side. As the
breastplate containing 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, and glittered on his heart. We may often forget to meditate
upon 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 upon the eyeballs of my soul the image of thy
Son.
