Reading: “For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.” —Hebrews 12:3 

They who would always rejoice, must derive their joy from a source which is invariably the same; in other words, from Jesus. Oh, that name! What a person, what an office, what a love, what a life, what a death, does it recall to our minds!

Come, madam, let us leave our troubles to themselves for a while, and let us walk to Golgotha, and there take a view of His. We stop, as we are going, at Gethsemane, for it is not a step out of the road. There He lies, bleeding, though not wounded; or, if wounded, it is by an invisible, an almighty hand. Now I begin to see what sin has done. Now let me bring my sorrows, and compare, measure, and weigh them, against the sorrows of my Saviour! Foolish attempt, to weigh a mote against a mountain, against the universe!

(Taken from “A Letter to a Friend in Trouble” in The Works of John Newton, 6:378)

 

Now let our pains be all forgot,

Our hearts no more repine;

Our sufferings are not worth a thought,

When, Lord, compared to thine.

—Isaac Watts