THE READING OF SCRIPTURE AND PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE

^[p. 46] THE READING OF SCRIPTURE AND PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE

I think that there is often a measure of happiness derived from the reading of scripture which after all is not permanent. Often interesting communications gladden us, great and beautiful realities charm us, but this is not the renewal of the sense of His personal affection. Nothing really binds us to Him but the sense of His love which passeth knowledge, and it is thus only that we are filled unto the fulness of God. He is the fulness of God, and thus love is only known in conscious union with Him. It could not be known until then. Until Rebekah came to Isaac she could not know his love. One quarter of an hour sitting under His shadow with great delight effects more for the Christian than hours spent over the word. The word tells you what you are to get. It is Christ by the Spirit who gives us everything. The word addresses your conscience, then you pray, and then the Spirit works in you accordingly. Saints as a rule, know a great deal more of the Bible than they know of Christ. It is more the knowledge of the sayings of a Person than of the Person Himself, as one might read a biography. It is an immense difference when the Person is known; you value His sayings because Himself is everything to you. It is the Person that forms you and not His words, though the Person communicates His mind by His words.

I have been deeply interested in the resource there is in personal love to the Lord, when His death has removed everything between me and Him; my heart is welded to Him. If you could remove the air between two pieces of marble, you could not disunite them, so thoroughly would they be welded together. How blessed!