Colossians 2:16-23 – Grow With a Growth from God

“It has been said by someone that ‘the proper study of mankind is man.’ I will not oppose the idea but I believe it is equally true that the proper study of God’s elect is God; the proper study of the Christian is Christ. The highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy, which can ever engage the attention of a child of God, is the name, the nature, the person, the work, the doings, and the existence of the great God whom he calls his Father. There is something exceedingly improving to the mind in a contemplation of the Divine. It is a subject so vast, that all our thoughts are lost in its immensity; so deep, that our pride is drowned in its infinity. Other subjects we can grapple with and in them feel a kind of self-content, and go our way with the thought ‘Behold I am wise.’ But when we come to this master-science, finding that our plumb line cannot sound its depth, and that our eagle eye cannot see its height, we conclude that no subject of contemplation will tend more to humble the mind than the thoughts of God. But while the subject humbles the mind, it also expands it. He who thinks of God often will have a larger mind than the man who simply plods around this narrow globe. The most excellent study for expanding the soul is the science of Christ and Him crucified…Nothing will so enlarge the intellect, nothing so magnify the whole soul of man as a devout, earnest, continued investigation of the great subject of God. And, while humbling and expanding, the subject is profoundly comforting. There is, in contemplating Christ, a balm for every wound, a healing for every grief, and an ointment for every sore. Would you lose your sorrow? Would you drown your cares? Then go, plunge yourself in the Godhead’s deepest sea, be lost in His immensity and you shall come forth as from rest, refreshed and invigorated. I know nothing, which can so comfort the soul; so calm the swelling billows of sorrow and grief, so speak peace to the winds of trial and temptation, as a devout meditation on the subject of God. It is to that subject I invite you this morning…”

These words spoke by Charles Spurgeon on January 7, 1855 are just as true today as they were in his day.