THANKS BE UNTO GOD FOR HIS UNSPEAKABLE GIFT

"The word which ye hear is not Mine, but the Father's which sent Me." -John 14:24 [KJV]

My soul, hast thou ever fully and thoroughly considered that sweet and precious teaching of thy Lord, which, as Mediator, when upon earth, in all His discourses and conversations with His disciples, He was perpetually shewing them? I mean, that all He was, and all He had; and all He dispensed, were the blessings and gifts of His Father, in Him, to His people. If thou hast been meditating upon this most blessed point of the gospel ever so fully and closely, it will still afford new glories for every renewed attention to it; and therefore, sit down this delightful summer's evening, and take another view of it.  

Jesus comes to His people in His Father's name, and He saith in this charming scripture, that His very words are not His, but the Father's; so much of the heart of the Father is in Christ, and in all of Christ, in all He saith, and in all He hath done. So that what is Jesus doing, in all His ministry upon earth, yea, in all His sovereignty now in heaven, but shewing to His redeemed, the Father, and the Father's love, and grace, and mercy, towards His people in Him? Did He not then come forth from the bosom of the Father full of grace and truth, as if to unfold to us what passed in the heart of the Father, of love and mercy towards His people, in the wonders of redemption? And is not Jesus now, in every renewed manifestation, teaching His redeemed the same?  

If all that the Father hath are our Jesus', and all the fulness of the Godhead bodily dwelleth in Him; surely we ought never to receive any of His good and blessed gifts without acknowledging the Father's love in them. And would not this make every blessing doubly sweet and increasingly precious? If Jesus Himself be the gift of the Father, shall I not enjoy the Father in all that Jesus bestows? And as I can have no immediate communion with the Father but by Him, will not the mercies gather a blessedness, and a value, in coming to my poor soul through Jesus's hands, as the bountiful dispenser of them? Yea, shall I not find a savour, which otherwise could never have been known, in receiving them in and from Jesus; convinced, as I am, that none cometh to the Father, but by him; and but for His opening a new and living way by His blood, never should I have known the Father's love, or the Redeemer's grace? 

Dear Lord Jesus! do Thou give me, by Thy blessed Spirit, ever to keep in remembrance these most precious things. So shall I truly enjoy both Thy person and Thy gifts. And then I shall not, like the apostle, pray for a sight of the Father distinct from Thee; for I shall then be perfectly satisfied and convinced, that in seeing Thee, I see the Father also; and from henceforth, that I know Him, and have seen Him. "Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift." 

-Robert Hawker (1753-1827 A.D.)

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