Praise God—it is almost Sunday again. We *get* to go back to church! In or-der to help get us ready, here is Richard Sibbes, from his, "The Bruised Reed" classic. . . .
“Justification Leads to Sanctification . . ."1. The first and chief ground of our comfort is that Christ as a priest offered Himself as a sacrifice to His Father for us. The guilty soul flies first to Christ crucified, made a curse for us. . . .
"2. In the course of our life, after we are in a state of grace, if we are overtak-en with any sin, we must remember to have recourse first to Christ's mercy to pardon us, and then to the promise of His Spirit to govern us.
"3. And when we feel ourselves cold in affection and duty, the best way to overcome this is to warm ourselves at this fire of His love and mercy in giving Himself for us.
"4. Again, remember this, that Christ rules us by a spirit of love, from a sense of His love, whereby His commandments are easy to us. He leads us by His free Spirit, a Spirit of liberty. . . . The constraint that He lays upon His subjects is that of love. He draws us sweetly with the cords of love. . . . Christ's Spirit must likewise subdue our hearts, and sanctify them to love Him, without which all motives would be ineffectual."
