EGW - A Forestaste of Heaven

Meditation Leads to Love and Fellowship

by Ellen G. White

My brother, you will be sorely tried and tempted at times; but ever remember that Jesus Christ is at your right hand to help you. Cast all your burdens upon the Lord, for He hath promised, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.”

“Rest yourself wholly in the hands of Jesus. Contemplate His great love, and while you meditate upon His self-denial, His infinite sacrifice made in our behalf in order that we should believe in Him, your heart will be filled with holy joy, calm peace, and indescribable love.

As we talk of Jesus, as we call upon Him in prayer, our confidence that He is our personal, loving Savior will strengthen and His character will appear more and more lovely. We will understand that He does not “afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.”

We may enjoy rich feasts of love, and as we fully believe that we are His by adoption, we may have a foretaste of heaven.

Wait upon the Lord in faith. The Lord draws out the soul in prayer, and gives us to feel His precious love. We have a nearness to Him, and can hold sweet communion with Him. We obtain distinct views of His tenderness and compassion, and our hearts are broken and melted with contemplation of the love that is given to us.

We feel indeed an abiding Christ in the soul. We abide in Him, and feel at home with Jesus. The promises flow into the soul. Our peace is like a river, wave after wave of glory rolls into the heart, and indeed we sup with Jesus and He with us. We have a realizing sense of the love of God, and we rest in His love.

No language can describe it, it is beyond knowledge. We are one with Christ, our life is hid with Christ in God. We have the assurance that when He who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with Him in glory. With strong confidence, we can call God our Father.

Whether we live or die, we are the Lord's. His Spirit makes us like Jesus Christ in temper and disposition, and we represent Christ to others.

When Christ is abiding in the soul, the fact cannot be hid, for He is like a well of water springing up into everlasting life. We can but represent the likeness of Christ in our character, and our words, our deportment, produces in others a deep, abiding, increasing love for Jesus, and we make manifest in word and deportment that we are conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.” The language expressed by John will be the language of every individual soul: “We have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.”

Read also Psalms 63 & 104