Every Eye # 4 (and others)

Every Eye # 4 (and others)

What will be the sight of that city pictured to us in the Revelation in such glowing words - but whose true glory and beauty no heart of mortal man has ever yet conceived?

Christian rejoice! This sight is for you! This hope is for you! Unworthy in your own eyes; oft lamenting your own infirmities, your lack of love, your failings in the Master's service - yet your eyes shall see and your heart shall overflow with the joys which are at God's right hand.

"Every eye shall see Him!"

Then let your eye now ever be toward Him. Watch, lest your eye be turned aside. Let it never be found "beholding vanity." Let it not be accustomed to delight itself in the unwholesome sights of the theater, or the vain display of self-adornment, or in that which only ministers to the gratification of pride and self-indulgence. Let not your eye shoot forth glances of envy, passion, covetousness, or any unholy thought or desire. Let it not slumber in carnal ease and selfish sloth, while souls are perishing around.

Nay, let your eye be upward, seeking daily aid and grace from above. Be ever looking unto Jesus as your great Pattern and Exemplar, and also as the Fountainhead of all supplies of wisdom, strength, and consolation.

But more than this. Let your eye look around to see the needs and miseries of mankind. Then, with a heart of sympathy and a tongue of love, go forth to cheer and help your brothers and sisters in their distress, and to guide the wanderer back to the fold.

As the good Samaritan looked on the man who had fallen among thieves, and then in self-denying pity stretched out his hand to help, to heal, and to save him - so be it your happy privilege to minister, whenever you can, to the child of sorrow and of need. Let not your "eye affect your heart" - and then spare neither time, nor trouble, nor toil, nor means to raise the fallen, to  comfort the mourning, or to save the lost.

Then with double joy shall your eye behold the coming King, and shall receive from His lips a double reward, that inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of His brethren, you have done it unto Him.

You shall rise! my dust, you shall arise,
Not always closed your eyes;
Your life's first Giver
Will give you life forever.
Ah, praise His name!

Then as they who dream, we shall arise,
With Jesus to the skies,
And find that morrow,
The weary pilgrim's sorrow,
All past and gone!

Then within the holiest I tread,
By my Redeemer led,
Through Heaven soaring,
His holy name adoring,
Eternally!

~George Everard~

(The End)
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The Martyr's Crown

The saints of old were beaten, tried,
Condemned and even crucified.
These martyr men beat no retreat
When flames were licking at their feet.
They saw the tyrants' brandished steel,
But still they offered no appeal.
They struck no bargain for their lives,
For their children or their wives;
All slowly roasted in the flames
While angels wrote each of their names
Within a book God calls His own,
To be proclaimed before His throne.
Then we shall know of their renown
When each receives his martyr's crown,
When God shall say to them, "Well done -
You ran the race, pressed on, and won
When in that race men said "insane!"
But now I gladly own your name.
Now you are home - "come dwell with Me
In joy through all eternity."

~Leonard Ravenhill~