Excerpt from Maurice R. Smith's "The Welsh Revival - Longing And Preparation," accessed 12/1/2013 from http://sentinellenehemie.free.fr/mrsmith1_gb.html:

At the outset of the Welsh Revival Joseph Jenkins was the pastor of New Quay (pronounced "key") Church in Cardiganshire. He was deeply concerned about the spiritual state of the young people in his church and had begun spending prolonged times in prayer for them. He was concerned that his youth group had become more social than Christian. One Sunday morning in February of 1904 he challenged the 60 youths in his Christian Endeavour movement. "What does Jesus Christ mean to you?" he asked. The question was embarrassing to them. There was a prolonged silence. One boy eventually spoke up and said, "Jesus Christ is the hope of the world." Jenkins responded, "Never mind the world. What does Jesus Christ mean to you?" Finally, young Florie Evans, who had been converted by Jenkins only two weeks before, testified to the cold youth meeting, "I love the Lord Jesus with all my heart." This simple statement of personal faith deeply moved the Christian Endeavour movement. The effect was startling, and resulted in an overpowering sense of God’s presence in the church. The fire of revival had been lit. The young people soon began visiting other local churches carrying the fire and sharing the blessing.

As we anticipate celebrating Christmas and count down the weeks to Christmas, many of us may light candles that symbolize love, peace, joy, hope, etc. We may hear sermons preached on those themes – including the truth that Jesus Christ is the hope of the world (see Matthew 12:21; Romans 15:12). But what do these words mean to you? Have you tasted and savored their sweetness in your heart? What does Jesus Christ mean to you?  Has the person of Jesus Christ become a living reality to you? Have you supped with the Beloved (Rev. 3:20) and become "drunk with love" (Songs 5:1)? Has the Holy Spirit put these truths of Scripture into your mind and written them on your heart – or are they lifeless words on the written page:  cold, empty, external constructs that have never warmed, delighted, rejoiced, and filled your soul to overflowing with a holy intoxication?

Hebrews 8:6 But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.

7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second.

8 For finding fault with them, he saith,
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah:

9 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.

10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord;
I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:

11 And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.

12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.

13 In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.

Is your hope a lively hope?

. . .

 Or, is your hope, for all intents and purposes, a dead hope?

"Religious knowledge is not, alas, at all the same as spiritual life, and it is not infrequently found in an unnatural separation from it." ~ K. Moody Stuart in "Brownlow North: His Life and Work" (London: Banner of Truth, reprinted 1961; 1st edition 1878), 51.

I Peter 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, 5 Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

It is a cold, lifeless thing to speak of spiritual things upon mere report: but they that speak of them as their own, as having share and interest in them, and some experience of their sweetness, their discourse of them is enlivened with firm belief, and ardent affection, they cannot mention them, but their hearts are straight taken with such gladness, as they are forced to vent in praises. Thus our Apostle here [Peter], and St. Paul, and often elsewhere, when they considered these things wherewith they were about to comfort the godly to whom they wrote, they were suddenly elevated with the joy of them, and broke forth into thanksgiving; so teaching us, by their example, what real joy there is in the consolations of the Gospel, and what praise is due from all the saints to the God of those consolations. This is such an inheritance, that the very thoughts and hopes of it are able to sweeten the greatest griefs and afflictions. What then shall the possession of it be, wherein there shall be no rupture, nor the least drop of any grief at all? The main subject of these verses is, that which is the main comfort that supports the spirits of the godly in all conditions. ~ Robert Leighton's (1611-1684) "Commentary on First Peter" (Grand Rapids: Kregel,1972), 28.

Psalm 36:7 How excellent is thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings. 8 They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures.

Scripture quotations are taken from the KJV.

Related:

“The honeycomb I lift!” ~ Will you join me? I Samuel 14:24-30
“The Christian should not just believe the truth, and know it…” | the Father’s assurance
come sinners, make consideration of Israel’s Consolation ~letter 132 on assurance & fighting for joy

An excerpt from Samuel Rutherford's (1600-1661) Letter CXXII... ¹

. . .

In that our Lord took your husband to Himself, I know it was that He might make room for Himself. He cutteth off your love to the creature, that ye might learn that God only is the right owner of your love. Sorrow, loss, sadness, death, are the worst of things that are, except sin. But Christ knoweth well what to make of them, and can put His own in the cross’s common, so that we shall be obliged to affliction, and thank God who taught us to make our acquaintance with such a rough companion, who can hale us to Christ. You must learn to make your evils your great good; and to spin comforts, peace, joy, communion with Christ, out of your troubles, which are Christ’s wooers, sent to speak for you to Himself. It is easy to get good words, and a comfortable message from our Lord, even from such rough serjeants as divers temptations. Thanks to God for crosses! When we count and reckon our losses in seeking God, we find that godliness is great gain. Great partners of a shipful of gold are glad to see the ship come to the harbour;—surely we, and our Lord Jesus together, have a shipful of gold coming home, and our gold is in that ship. Some are so in love, or, rather, in lust, with this life, that they sell their part of the ship for a little thing. I would counsel you to buy hope, but sell it not, and give not away your crosses for nothing. The inside of Christ’s cross is white and joyful, and the far-end of the black cross is a fair and glorious heaven of ease. And seeing Christ hath fastened heaven to the far-end of the cross, and He will not loose the knot Himself, and none else can (for when Christ casteth a knot, all the world cannot loose it), let us then count it exceeding joy when we fall into divers temptations.

Thus recommending you to the tender mercy and grace of our Lord, I rest, your loving brother,

Aberdeen.
S. R.

Holy and loving Father, thank You that You know our frame, and You remember we are dust. Have pity upon Your children – we are poor and we are needy! Pour out of your unsearchable riches in Christ Jesus grace upon grace, and comfort upon comfort through Your blessed Holy Spirit, so that our eyes might be opened to see crosses as Christ's wooers, and we might give thanks to You for crosses, count it exceeding joy when we fall into divers temptations, and bless Your name both when You give and when You take away –– that we might be more than conquerors through You who love us with an everlasting love for Christ Jesus' sake!

¹ Source: "Letters of Samuel Rutherford with a Sketch of His Life and Biographical Notices of His Correspondents" by the Rev. Andrew A. Bonar, D.D., 1891 edition (Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson, & Ferrier).

HT for the text:  http://www.portagepub.com/products/caa/sr-letters.html / © 2006, 2007 Portage Publications, Inc., Colorado Springs, Colorado. www.PortagePub.com. Portage Publications believes the underlying text in this document is in the public domain. Permission is hereby granted to copy and distribute this document and/or its contents in any medium for any non-commercial purpose without fee or royalty, provided that the document is not altered and that this copyright notice is included. Please visit www.PortagePub.com/revenue.html if you would like to support this project with a voluntary contribution, or to obtain information about commercial licensing.

To read more about Samuel Rutherford, please see Andrew Bonar's "Sketch of Samuel Rutherford," preceding Rutherford's letters in the "Letters of Samuel Rutherford..."

Related:

don’t waste your new year ~ teach us, satisfy us, make us glad (Psalm 90:12-15)
Herein is love … Vast as the ocean ~ And let him that is athirst come!
“you would begin by blowing out all his lamps…” ~ Edward Payson
the house of mourning (Ecc. 7) ~ grieving to the glory of God ~ “pleasing pain” (David Brainerd)
wives, your husband is not your Husband | letter 77 on assurance & joy
All things (even bad things) work together for good…
A Hymn for “Shelf” Times…”Lord, We Know That Thou Art Near Us”
“new foldings of love in Him… the many pound-weights of His love” ~ Rutherford

Image source: Vincent van Gogh's "Woman Mourning" found here /(PD-Art|PD-old-100)

(Letter 166 in my series of letters on assurance and fighting for joy)...

"Those to whom Christ is precious, will long that others should taste of that preciousness. Those who have buried all their anxieties and all their terrors in the sufficiency of the atonement, will long that the knowledge of a remedy so effectual should be carried around the globe."

~ Thomas Chalmers, quoted by Stuart Piggin and John Roxborogh in "The St. Andrews' Seven" by  (Banner of Truth Trust: Edinburgh, 1985), 44.

* * *

I praise You, O my God, for not letting me stop satisfied with the initial sip of grace You offered me thirty-one years ago, on November 5, 1982. O, Holy Father, I confess how I wandered about for over twenty years content with a cursory, superficial, distant, and clinical knowledge of You... Though Your light had shone in my heart, and though Your Gospel was no longer veiled – yet, like the blind man at Bethsaida, I was seeing men, as trees walking – I was still greatly oblivious to the glorious reality – the Summum Bonum:  that the Lord Jesus Christ died to bring me back to You – that I might sup with God ~ to experientially know and to taste Your preciousness! John 17:3  And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. 

John Newton's words reflect my own experience:

I cannot consider myself to have been a believer, (in the full sense of the word,) till a considerable time afterwards.

I confess though I knew You, yet my faith was weak and faint – and I knew it not! Like Martha, though I was occupied with many religious activities, my appetite for You was severely stunted. Like so many in the day of Your incarnation, though I had studied Your Word, I had not truly begun to learn what it meant to come to You to have life.

Thank You and praise You for demonstrating Your Fatherly love for me by chastening me:  bringing me to the end of myself and bringing me to my senses. Bless You, Abba, for graciously shaking up my soul in mid-life, for leading me through higher and higher waters, and through hotter and hotter fires – so I might not rest content until I found in Christ's atonement strong consolation for all my soul's anxieties and terrors, and until You worked "to break [my] schemes of worldly joy, that [I] might seek [my] all in Thee."¹ Thank You for bringing me teachers like Jonathan Edwards and Martyn Lloyd-Jones to help me begin to see my lukewarmness and to see "the great and glorious possibilities of the Christian life," so I might not stop satisfied with an abstract and detached knowledge of You, a so-called "life" devoid of the inner witness and blessed communion of the Holy Spirit. Bless You for showing me mercy, for choosing me and lifting me from the ash heap to bring me near to You so I might begin to taste of Your preciousness – to drink experientially the living waters and begin to know sensibly the happiness of communion with You, the only true God through the Lord Jesus Christ!  And now, having tasted and having received of Your fullness, keep me thirsting for even more of You, so I might receive of Your fullness grace upon grace upon grace upon grace ... !

"But the communications of divine favour and grace will satisfy, but never surfeit. A gracious soul, though still desiring more of God, never desires more than God. The gifts of Providence so far satisfy them that they are content with such things as they have. I have all, and abound, Phil. iv. 18." ~ Matthew Henry on Psalm 36:8.

And of Naphtali he said, O Naphtali, satisfied with favour, and full with the blessing of the LORD... Deuteronomy 33:23 (KJV)

Psalm 65
1  Praise is due to you, O God, in Zion,
and to you shall vows be performed.
2  O you who hears prayer,
to you shall all flesh come.
3  When iniquities prevail against me,
you atone for our transgressions.
4  Blessed is the one you choose and bring near,
to dwell in your courts!
We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house,
the holiness of your temple!
5  By awesome deeds you answer us with righteousness,
O God of our salvation,
the hope of all the ends of the earth
and of the farthest seas;

Ah, but my Redeemer, though I have been privileged to dwell in Your courts and to taste of Your supreme blessedness and all-surpassing satisfaction – hear now Your Word and Your exceeding great and precious promises – have You not written them? – "to You ALL flesh shall come" – and "WE shall be satisfied"? Can I be content with the blessedness of dwelling in Your courts and the satisfaction of Your goodness, for it is written that You are not just the hope of Karen, but You are the hope of all the ends of the earth and the farthest seas? Woe to me if lapse into ease here in Zion (Amos 6:1)! God forbid I be numbered among the complacent daughters (Isaiah 32:9-11)!

As I press on to finish the race set before me in the strength You provide, may I be used by You to help other souls to taste Your preciousness. Continue to pour out upon me the Spirit of grace and supplications, that I might be a faithful and alert watchman on the wall, pleading day and night for You to shine Your face again upon Your people, to pour down Your Spirit upon Your Church for her reviving, that we may comprehend the breadth, length, depth, and height of Your love that passes all understanding – for it is only as we begin to count You as precious will we long for other souls in all the nations, other sheep all around the globe  – including those in the olive tree (ethnic Israel ~ Romans 9-11), to come and taste of Your preciousness along with us. Surely, still there is room in Your courts for all who are thirsty!

Psalm 67
1  May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make his face to shine upon us, Selah
2  that your way may be known on earth,
your saving power among all nations.
3  Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let all the peoples praise you!
4  Let the nations be glad and sing for joy,
for you judge the peoples with equity
and guide the nations upon earth. Selah
5  Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let all the peoples praise you!
6  The earth has yielded its increase;
God, our God, shall bless us.
7  God shall bless us;
let all the ends of the earth fear him!

"Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of hattle. And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south. And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with thee. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark:  but it shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord, not day, nor night:  but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light. And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea:  in summer and in winter shall it be. And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one." (Zechariah 14:3-9, KJV)

How delightful to piety and to benevolence to have the divine assurance of a period of light awaiting the Church and the world! — the light of knowledge, and purity, and felicity, triumphing over, and chasing fully away the darkness of ignorance, unholiness, and misery! The glory of God is dear to piety; the happiness of men is dear to benevolence. Amidst all that may be strange and perplexing in the present position and aspects of the Church, amidst the partially cheering and the partially disheartening and alarming, let us still be looking onwards to the coming day, — when, amid the gathering shadows of the evening, "the Sun Of Righteousness" shall shine forth in unclouded splendour; — when "the light of that Sun shall be as the light of seven days." And, having drunk of the "living waters" ourselves, and experienced their life-giving virtue, let us seek, by every means in our power, to send them forth in all directions, for the revival of the Church at large, and for the healing and life of the nations. When blessed ourselves, it is that we may be a blessing. And while we open channels for these "waters of life" in heathen lands to water "the desolate heritages of the Gentiles," let us not overlook the sacred duty, of seeking a channel by which we may cause them to return to the land from which they originally flowed; that the people to whom we owe them may share with us in the joy! Meanwhile TO YOU "the Spirit and the bride say. Come. And let him that heareth say. Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely."

~ Ralph Wardlaw in Ralph Wardlaw’s “Lectures on the Prophecies of Zechariah” (Second Edition 1869, ed. by The Rev. J. S. Wardlaw; (Stoke-on-Trent: Tentmaker Publications, reprinted 2002 & 2007), 387, 403-404, boldface mine.

¹ From verse 7 of John Newton's "Prayer Answered by Crosses"  (I Asked The LORD That I Might Grow)

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God works through bad economies for good: A retrospective - my testimony
“I cannot consider myself to have been a believer (in the full sense of the word)”
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Reformation Day reflections ~ A.W. Tozer “the doctrine of justification by faith has … fallen into evil company…”
Advent # 5 WHY HAS JESUS COME? So we might draw near to God | Even a Vapor
Advent # 8: WHY HAS JESUS COME? “so that [we] might be WITH HIM” ~ Mark 3:14
Advent # 9 WHY HAS JESUS COME? Adoption: the highest privilege the gospel offers ~ J.I. Packer
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