Happy New Year, everyone!
Here is some encouragement for our preparation of, and enjoyment of The Lord's Day. Remember: no church/no Christ; no Sunday/no church.This section comes from the Puritan Richard Sibbes' excellent book, entitled, "The Bruised Reed" . . .
"When we think of Joseph [of the OT], Daniel, John the Evangelist [who wrote the Gospel], we frame conceptions of them with delight, as of mild and sweet persons. Much more when we think of Christ, we should conceive of Him as a mirror of all meekness. . . .
"Whatever tenderness is displayed in a husband, father, brother, head—all of this is but a beam from Christ. These virtues are in Christ in the most eminent manner. . . . A father looks not so much at the blemishes of his child as at his own nature in him; so Christ finds matter of love from that which is His own in us. He sees His own nature in us. We are diseased, but yet His members. Who ever neglected his own members because they were sick or weak? . . . [Jesus] is love itself clothed with man's nature . . . "
