He Has Done All Things Well

“He has done all things well.” Mark 7:37

Yes, from first to last—from our cradle to our grave— from the earliest pang of sin’s conviction to the last thrill of sin’s forgiveness—from earth to heaven—this will be our testimony in all the way the Lord our God has led us in the wilderness—He has done all things well. In providence and in grace—in every truth of His Word—in every lesson of His love—in every stroke of His rod—in every sunbeam that has shone—in every cloud that has shaded—in every element that has sweetened—in every ingredient that has embittered—in all that has been mysterious, inscrutable, painful, and humiliating—in all that He gave—in all that He took away—this testimony is His just due, and this our grateful acknowledgment through time and through eternity—He has done all things well.

Has He converted us through grace by a way we had thought the most improbable? Has He torn up all our earthly hopes by the roots? Has He thwarted our schemes, frustrated our plans, disappointed our expectations? Has He taught us in the most difficult schools, by a most severe discipline, and lessons most humbling to our nature? Has He withered our strength by sickness? reduced us to poverty by loss? crushed our heart by bereavement? And have we been tempted to exclaim, “All these things are against me?”

Ah! no! faith will yet obtain the ascendancy, and sweetly sing—”I know in all things that befell, My Jesus has done all things well.” Beloved, it must be so, for Jesus can do nothing wrong. Study the way of His providence and grace with the microscopic eye of faith—view them in every light, examine them in their minutest detail, as you would the petal of a flower, or the wing of an insect—and, oh, what wonders, what beauty, what marvelous adaptation would you observe in all the varied dealings with you of your glorious Lord. He has done all things well.

Octavius Winslow, Christ’s Sympathy to Weary Pilgrims

All He Requires is Your Emptiness

Jesus has all the treasures of the everlasting covenant, all the fullness of the Godhead, all the resources of the universe in His keeping, and at His disposal!

He, with whom is all this strength and beauty, is your Brother! Are you not better and dearer to Him than these? He has loved and chosen you from all eternity, ransomed you with His blood, and inhabited you by His Spirit. Why, then, these fears? Why this distrust? All He requires of you is to bring to His fullness your emptiness—to His sympathy your grief—to His unerring wisdom your confusion—and to His sheltering wing your temptations and trials. Spread your case before Him in humble confidence of a child. Listen to His words—”I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.

~Octavius Winslow, Christ’s Sympathy to Weary Pilgrims

Never Changing

 

All beings change but God. All things change but heaven…Our circumstance may change. Our relations and friends may depart one by one. Our souls in a single day pass through many fluctuations of spiritual feeling. But He who chose us to be His own, and who has kept us to the present moment, is our covenant God and Father forever and ever, and will never throw us off and cast us away. “For this God is our God for ever and ever: he will be our guide even unto death.”

~Octavius Winslow, Christ’s Sympathy to weary Pilgrims

Change seems to be one of the themes of every New Year. Many things have changed in our lives throughout this year; many things will be changing as we live through another year. Yet, in all these changes there is something that never changes.  We know that Christ’s love and promise to save will be as strong for his children has it has always been and will always be. We can look, through this truth, upon all the changes which have happen and will happen and see them with hope and courage.

Do Not Rest Where You Are

But do not rest, do not be satisfied with your present limited experience of Christ’s love. It is so marvelously great. This ocean of love is so fathomless, boundless, and inexhaustible, you may plunge, with all your infirmities, sins, and sorrows, into its fullness, exclaiming, “O the depth!” The well is deep! Drink abundantly, O beloved!

~Octavious Winslow, Christ’s Sympathy to Weary Pilgrims.

God’s Holiness Demonstrated

The most significant and appalling demonstration of God’s holiness that the universe ever beheld , infinitely distancing ever other, is the suffering and death of His only and beloved Son! The cross of Calvary exhibits God’s hatred and punishment of sin in a way and to an extent which the annihilation of millions of worlds, swept from the face of the universe by the broom of His wrath, could never have done!

…Go, my soul, to Calvary, and learn how holy God is, and what a monstrous thing sin is, and how imperiously, solemnly, and holiy bound Jehovah is to punish it either in the person of the sinner, or in the person of the Surety. Never was the Son of God dearer to the Father than at the very moment that the sword of divine justice, flaming and flashing, pierced to its hilt His holy heart!

~Octavius Winslow