August 2017 Communion Meditation

Excerpt from Matthew Henry’s Communicant’s Companion, pp. 208-211

Here we must be delighting in God, and solacing [comforting] ourselves in His favour. If we had not a Christ to hope in, being guilty and corrupt, we could not have a God to rejoice in; but, having an Advocate with the Father, so good a plea as Christ dying, and so good a Pleader as Christ interceding, we may not only “come boldly to the throne of grace, but may sit down under the shadow of it with delight, and behold the beauty of the Lord.” That God who is love, and the God of love, here shows us His “marvelous loving-kindness; causeth His goodness to pass before us; proclaims His name gracious and merciful.” Here He gives us His love, and thereby invites us to give Him ours. It is a love-feast, the love of Christ is here commemorated, the love of God here offered.

Let it be a pleasure to thee to think, “that there is a God, and that He is such a one as He hath revealed Himself to be.” The being and attributes of God are a terror to those that are unjustified and unsanctified; nothing can be more so: they are willing to believe “there is no God, or that He is altogether such a one as themselves,” because they heartily wish there were none, or one that they could be at peace with, and yet continue their league with sin: but to those who, through grace, partake of a divine nature themselves, nothing is more agreeable, nothing more acceptable, than the thoughts of God’s nature and infinite perfections. Delight thyself, therefore, in thinking that there is an infinite and eternal Spirit, who is self-existent and self-sufficient, the best of beings, and the first of causes; the highest of powers, and the richest and kindest of friends and benefactors; the fountain of being and fountain of bliss; the “Father of lights, the Father of mercies.” Love to think of Him whom thou canst not see, and yet canst not but know; who is not far from thee, and yet between thee and Him there is an infinite, awful distance. Let these thoughts be thy nourishment and refreshment.

Let it be a pleasure to thee to think of “the obligations thou liest under to this God as the Creator.” He that is the former of my body, and the Father of my spirit, in whom I live, and move, and have my being, is upon that account my rightful owner, my sovereign ruler, whom I am bound to serve. Because He made me, and not I myself, therefore I am not mine own, but His. Please thyself, my soul, with this thought, that thou art not thine own, but His that made thee; nor left to thine own will, but bound up to His; not made for thyself, but designed to be to Him for a name and a praise.