Bulletin 9.15.24

Blessed is he who understands what it is to love Jesus and to despise himself for Jesus' sake. You must surrender all other lovers for His love, for Jesus desires to be loved alone and above all things. The love of creatures is deceptive and unstable; the love of Jesus is faithful and enduring. Whoever clings to any creature will fall with its falling, but he who holds to Jesus shall stand firm forever. Love Him, therefore, and keep Him as your friend, for when all others desert you, He will not abandon you nor allow you to perish at the last. Whether you wish it or not, you must, in the end, be parted from them all."

— Thomas A. Kempis, The Imitation of Christ (Page 75)

"When we shall come home and enter to the possession of our Brother's fair kingdom, and when our heads shall find the weight of the eternal crown of glory, and when we shall look back to pains and sufferings; then shall we see life and sorrow to be less than one step or stride from a prison to glory; and that our little inch of time - suffering is not worthy of our first night's welcome home to heaven."

— Samuel Rutherford, The Loveliness of Christ (Page 19)

Hebrews 3.1-6 

Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession; He was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was in all His house. For He has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, by just so much as the builder of the house has more honor than the house. For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God. Now Moses was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken later; but Christ was faithful as a Son over His house -- whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end. 

(Prayer)