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Come and See (Havergal)

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The following is taken from The Royal Invitation, a new online devotional available at the BLB. The Royal Invitation is one of five books contained in a collection written by Frances Ridley Havergal in the 1880s. This book embraces the many requests from God’s word for us to ‘come’ to Him. (Click here for previous posts)

Come and See.

He (Jesus) said to them, “Come and see.” …
And Nathanael said to [Philip], “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
Philip said to him, “Come and see.”
(John 1:39,46)

When Jesus had found Philip, Philip knew that he had found Him. And the next thing to knowing that “we have found Him” is to find some one else, and say, “Come and see!” I say it now to you, dear friend, known or unknown, “We have found Him!” (Jhn 1:45) “We see Jesus!” If you only knew the irresistible longing, the very heart’s desire that you should find and see Him too, you would pardon all the pertinacity, all the insistence, (Jer 20:9) with which again and again we say, Come and see!

When the woman of Samaria met Jesus, she left her water-pot and went her way into the city with the same message” “Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did.” And we to whom Jesus has said,”‘I that speak unto thee am He,'” (Jhn 4:26) cannot do otherwise or less.

We have seen by faith the only sight that is worth gazing upon, the sight that satisfies the angels, the sight that is enough for the joy and satisfaction of immortal vision throughout eternity (Jhn 9:25). One thing we know, that, whereas we were blind, now we see.

We see Jesus, as our Lord and God.

We see Him as the very Saviour we need, and the very Friend we craved.

We see Him as “the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

We see Him wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities; our Substitute and our Sin-bearer.

We see Him, (Hbr 2:9) too, crowned with glory and honor, and we rejoice in His glory and beauty; (Zec 9:17) we make our boast of Him.

If you say to us, “What is thy Beloved more than another beloved?”We reply, “My beloved is the chiefest among ten thousand. (Psa 45:2) Yea, He is altogether lovely.”

We love our Lord, so that we cannot bear Him not to be esteemed aright.

We cannot bear Him to be thought little of, and to be misunderstood (Isa 53:3); it is pain, real pain, to us when He is not appreciated and loved and adored—when all that He has done is treated as not worth whole-hearted gratitude and love—when His great and blood-bought salvation is neglected (Hbr 2:3). For His own beloved sake, for His own glory’s sake, we want others to come and see, that you they love and bless and glorify Him!

But, remember, this is not only our feeble human appleal; it is Jesus Himself who first said, and still says, “Come and see!” He says, “Behold Me, behold Me!” (Isa 65:1).

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Comments

  1. We see him Seated on the right Hand of God–

    We see him as our Big Bro–

    We see him as the chief corner stone–

    We see him as our Mediator and standing with in the gap

    You could say–he’s our lawyer that will never lose a case–

    We see him as the ONLY way to God and he will be the only one as well–

    we see him as an example of how to speak and love and be kind to people and how to handle the pressures of the day–

    Example of knowing God’s will

    Example of knowing the Scriptures–How?–He would say”for it is written”

    We see him as a great leader, loving leader, giver, a man that taught the Word and didn’t veeeeeeere off of it–he stuck with it.

    We see him returning some day and we will meet him in the air–not the earth–not yet, but that will happen someday as well.

    Anyway–
    My thoughts on the matter,
    Who could think of more?

    jim

    • Psa 140:7 HNV
      Pro 21:31 HNV
      Eze 13:5 HNV
      Hsa 10:14 HNV
      Zec 14:3 HNV
      And especially Rev 16:14 HNV
      J.

  2. Come and see

    We look upon Him the man of sorrows rejected by men

    Yet to those whom He has chosen we know the great love that was the travail of His soul. His shed blood, in which there is life, meant all.

    As Pastor Derek Prince has taught

    When we partake in communion, we drink of the wine representing His blood

    In His blood are 5 great wonderful spiritual truths;

    1. By His blood we have redemption
    2. By His blood we have forgiveness of our sins
    3. By His blood we have cleansing of our sins
    4. By His blood we are justified, the righteousness of the Lord beomes our righteousness
    5. By His blood we are sanctified, made holy

    As Mr Havergal wonderfully pointed us to, in an earlier post from Lamentations 1:12 “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?”

    Consider our Lord rejected by men and abandoned by His Father.
    “Is it nothing to you, ‘My blood shed, My life given for you,’ all you who pass by?”

    Lamentations 1:12-13 The sorrow of the Lord on the cross can be seen in this scripture of Jeremiah’s lamentation over Jerusalem, its people who backslid from obeying God.

    “Look and see, if there is any sorrow like my sorrow which was brought upon me, which the LORD inflicted on the day of His fierce anger” the next verse is “From on high He sent fire; into my bones He made it descend.” Is this also not the suffering of our Lord? Leviticus 9:22-24

    When God sent fire to consume His offering in Leviticus 9:22-24 He indicated by what death His Son would die, rejected by man but pleasing His Father. God who having abandoned Jesus to evil men and man’s rejection, would pour forth His wrath, His fire upon Jesus, that the Lord would pay the penalty for all the sins of mankind.

    In Isaiah 45:9 we see that ‘The potsherd is not to strive with the Potter.’

    Yet in Psalms 22:15 the Psalmist declares ” My strength is dried up like a potsherd.” God’s presence and thereby our Lord’s joy, His very strength was taken from Him. [Potsherd is a broken fragment of a clay vessel used to hold wine – BLB meaning from Arabic text]. The wine, the joy of the Spirit was dried up, from a broken vessel now unable to hold its wine.

    In fact, in the very moments of our Lord’s sorrow on the cross, in submission to His Father’s will Jesus became as a potsherd Himself. In these moments Christ most took on human frailty being abandoned by God to win man from his sins.

    Our Lord strove as an earthen vessel with earthern vessels to win man’s soul. ‘Let the earthern vessel [potsherds] strive with the potsherds of the earth.’ Isaiah 45:9

    Will men yet not come to our God who came in man?

    In Christ
    Mark H NZ

    • Sorry scripture from Lamentations did not come up in full.

      Lamentations 1:13 pointing us to Leviticus 9:22-24 and our Lord’s suffering on the cross.

      • WOW! How blessed I am to have read all this. It just brings tears to my eyes and such sorrow to think of my Lord who for my soul’s sake willingly suffered such as this. The thought of the anguish God and His son must have felt that moment Jesus took on all our sins and His father turned His face from Him. No wonder He sweat blood and prayed so fervently to have such a cup pass from Him.

        Even the thought is more than I can bare or even take in.

        Thank you so much for sharing that Mark.

        • Hallelujah Tess for the wonderful Teacher,God and Saviour we have in Jesus Christ.

          I truly had a struggle seeing the Lord Jesus as being able to empathize in my struggles, until recently.

          Yet, I praise the Lord whom by revelation led me to BLB to look up the meaning of the ‘potsherd’ in Psalms 22:15. Then it went to my heart, God’s presence, His very joy was our Lord’s strength.

          When we consider further Lamentations 1:13 ‘From on high He sent fire into my bones, He made it descend’

          If fire is descending from above to a man hanging on a cross, where is the first place it will encounter the body? Would it not be the head?

          Leviticus 1:1-9 and first of all Leviticus 1:3-4. Notice a male from the herd without blemish, the priest laying the hands on the head of the burnt offering, so that the male from the herd is accepted to make atonement for him.

          Is this not the shadow of our Lord? He was the atonement for us each, He paid the penalty in our stead. The fire of God’s wrath descended into the Lord Jesus on the cross from the top of His body, into His very bones. Lamentations 1:13

          As the scripture writes – ‘He who knew no sin, {the creature without blemish}, became our sin.’ Fire descended from on high, from His Jesus’ head into Jesus’ very bones, into the core of His being. Fire bringing God’s wrath, all the sins of mankind.

          And yet why would the Lord Jesus do this?
          Again pointed to in Leviticus 1:9 Leviticus 1:17 and Leviticus 8:21 – Our Lord Jesus did this to please His Father the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY, from Leviticus ‘to be a pleasing odour to the LORD.’ As well as of course to save us.

          I can now see it, our Lord having no joy being abandoned by God His Father, and having mans sins as it were ‘fused’ into Him to His bones, the Lord Jesus in these dying moments truly could and can identify and empathize with me in my struggles.

          All Praises and Glory and Honour is His.
          Amen

          In Christ

          Mark H NZ

    • Hallelujah.

      I thank the Lord for the the link you have sent me Tess. His face has shone on me it seemed as I read.

      Blessings and grace to you in our God the Father, our Lord & Saviour Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

      In Christ
      Mark H NZ

      • Aren’t those just the most wonderful moments? I’ll be reading his Word on a mortal level and suddenly something shines through. A sparkle of divine light that bounces off another faceted of Who He is. In that instant He’s there revealing more of who He is to me and strengthening our relationship. Precept upon precept. Here a little, there a little the building up of faith.

        My faith isn’t based on whether God answers my prayer. God doesn’t look down and say I’ll answer because of you and your faith. Faith is knowing that whatever the answer it is the right one and God is there. If we don’t get what we ask for it’s because there’s something better going on that we can’t see but faith allows us to know without doubt it’s a better answer because He’s not addressing our emotional needs He’s working out His glorious purpose.

        I pray that He blesses me with every good thing but I pray He works His glory more than having my temporary need met. Faith is belief that He will and does.

        Isaiah 32:17; Psalm 108:1-3; 2 Corinthians 5:1; Colossians 2:2