What is it in the human soul that causes it to forget His redeemer in the first breathe of the closing of His Bible? How tragic it is that our hearts immediately wander away just minutes after closing a prayer. Frailty. Such is the condition and always will be in this journey toward the Celestial city. What a sad state of affairs in one moment to be so immersed in the magnitude of soul-drowning sweetness of His glory, and in the next moment have little or none at all of the evidence of the mind and heart of Christ.

Indeed, what a wonder it is that a man can witness to a measure the inexpressible riches of the majesty of Christ and yet in his next waking moment have his affections redirected so quickly to mere trifles. Entertainment, the busyness of the day, the mere preoccupancy to vain and selfish endeavors that profit not the soul anything.

A tragedy it is if nothing else! To sit in witness to the manifold glory of the infinitely Holy One and yet have our mind and affections unfettered to such indescribable realities. Oh that Christ Himself may truly be formed in us [Gal 4:19]—in me and my failing soul.

Let us labor—Labor! dear heart to put off the putrid old man, and to be renewed in the spirit of our minds, and put on the new man, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness [Eph 4:22-24].

Let us devote the travailing of our souls not to the millions of insignificant pitfalls in thoughts and activities that rob us of fire that would so inflame our souls, rather, let us cast ourselves—moment by moment, thought after thought, action after action—to Him who made all things well.

And perhaps soon in this Pilgrim’s journey, if the Lord wills, we would discover and finally experience what it truly means when the Word of the living God speaks these words:

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”—Galatians 2:20

“…that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”—Philippians 1:20,21

Surely His inexhaustible grace, His ineffable Holiness can entertain us as no worldly show can.

Surely the unsurpassable reality of His awesome beauty and majesty can consume all our affections as no temporal entity can ever do.

Surely, surely, He must be enough. More than enough.

Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.

Sorrowing I shall be in spirit,
Till released from flesh and sin,
Yet from what I do inherit,
Here Thy praises I’ll begin;
Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Here by Thy great help I’ve come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.

Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood;
How His kindness yet pursues me
Mortal tongue can never tell,
Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me
I cannot proclaim it well.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothed then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.

—Robert Robinson