Daily Devotionals

Music For the Soul

Devotional: May 5th

JESUS THE FORERUNNER

Within the veil, whither as a forerunner Jesus entered for us, having become a High Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek - Hebrews 6:20

Christ’s resurrection is the only solid proof of a future life. Christ’s present resurrection life is the power by partaking in which, "though we were dead, yet shall we live." He has trodden that path, too, before us. He has entered into the great prison-house into which the generations of men have been hounded and hurried, and where they lie in their graves, as in their narrow cells; He has entered there. With one blow He has driven the gates from their hinges, and has passed out, and no soul can any longer be shut in as for ever into that ruined and opened prison. Like Samson, He has taken the gates which from of old barred its entrance, and borne them on His strong shoulders to the city on the hill. And now death’s darts are blunted, his fetters are broken, and his gaol has its doors wide open. And there is nothing for him to do now but to fall upon his sword and to kill himself, for the prisoners are gone. " Oh, death! I will be thy plague; oh, grave! I will be thy destruction." " The breaker has gone up before us "; therefore it is not possible that we should be holden of the impotent chains that He has broken.

The Forerunner is for us entered, passed through the heavens, and entered into the holiest of all. We are too closely knit to Him, if we love Him and trust Him, to make it possible that we shall be where He is not, or that He shall be where we are not. Where He has gone we shall go - in Heaven, blessed be His Name! He will still be the leader of our progress and the captain at the head of our march. For He crowns all His other work by this, that, having broken the prison-house of our sins, and opened for us the way to God, and been the leader and the captain of our march through all the pilgrimage of life, and the opener of the gate of the grave, for our joyful resurrection, and the opener of the gate of Heaven for our triumphal entrance, He will still, as the Lamb that is in the midst of the Throne, go before us, and lead us into green pastures and by the still waters; and this shall be the description of the growing blessedness and power of the saints’ life above, " These are they which follow the Lamb whither soever He goeth."

This Master, Christ, works in front of His men. The farmer that goes first among all the sowers, and heads the line of reapers in the yellowing harvest-field, may well have diligent servants. Our Master went forth, weeping, bearing precious seed, and has left it in our hands to sow in all furrows. Our master is the Lord of the harvest, and has borne the heat of the day before His servants. Let it be our life’s work to show forth Christ’s praise. Let the very atmosphere in which we move and have our being be prayer. Let two great currents set ever through our days, which two, like the great movements in the ocean of the air, are but the upper and under halves of the one movement - that beneath with constant energy of desires rushing in from the cold poles to be warmed and expanded at the tropics, where the all-moving sun pours his direct rays; that above charged with rich gifts from the Lord of light, glowing with heat drawn from Him, and made diffusive by His touch, spreading itself out, beneficent and life bringing into all colder lands, swathing the world in soft, warm folds, and turning the polar ice into sweet waters.