Infinite Condescension by John
McDuff, 1864 How precious are your thoughts unto me, O God!
For this is what the High and Lofty One says, He who lives
forever, whose name is Holy. I live in a high and holy place,
but also with Him who is contrite and humble in spirit, to revive
the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite. Isaiah 57 15 This verse may with
reference be termed God's own description of His two dwelling
places. How amazing the contrast and
disparity inhabiting eternity and the human bosom. The great
of the earth associate with the great. Kings have their abodes
and palaces. One of God's palaces is the lowly
heart. Inconceivable is the distance
of those stars whose light takes millions of years in traveling
to our Earth. And yet what is this? A mere
span compared to the distance which separates the creature
from the Creator? We are but of yesterday, our
days as a hand-breath, as a dream when one awakens. Eternity is
the lifetime, the biography of the Almighty. Ages and eras are
the pages of the vast volume. If our distance from Him be great
as creatures, it is greater still as sinners. Yet this High and
Lofty One, dwelling in the High and Holy Place, and whose name
is holy, condescends to be the inmate of the humble contrite
spirit and to listen to its penitent sighs. O unutterable, unimaginable
stoop! The sovereign earthly king visiting
the abode of poverty is Earth's illustrative picture and symbol
of condescension. Yet what, after all, is this
but one perishable mortal visiting another perishable mortal? But
here is omnipotence, dwelling with weakness, majesty dwelling
with nothingness, the infinite dwelling with the finite, deity
dwelling with dust. How this precious thought ennobles,
elevates, consecrates the human soul! That home of earth is ever
afterwards rendered illustrious where royalty has sojourned. If any man loves me, says Jesus,
he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we
will come unto him and make our abode with him. What, O Lord,
is man, that you are thus mindful of him, that you visit him? Prepare
my heart for your reception. Rend your heavens and come down.
Fill its temple courts with your glory. May all its powers, sprinkled
like the sacred vessels of old, consecrating blood, be dedicated
to your service. The sacrifices of God are a broken
spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God. You will not despise. Destroy every pedestal of pride. Make me humble. Keep me humble. What have I to be proud of? Nothing. I am dependent continually on
your bounty. My existence, my health, my strength,
my reason are alone from you, the great proprietor, who can,
in the twinkling of an eye, paralyze strength, dethrone reason, arrest
the pulses of joyous life, and write upon all I have, Ichabod,
the glory has departed. Much more is this the case in
spiritual things. I am a pensioner from hour to
hour on redeeming grace and love. But for Jesus, I would be lost
forever. It is lying low at the foot of
His cross that I can learn how the greatest of all beings can
be the most condescending of all. I cease to wonder at anything. said a believer, after the discovery
of God's love to me in Christ, who is like the Lord our God,
the one who sits enthroned on high, who stoops down to look
on the heavens and the earth. you