Page:Spiritual Reflections for Every Day in the Year - Vol 1.pdf/258

 make ready. Still the question is urgent. Where is the guest-chamber? To answer this, the mind of man must be viewed as a house, where all his spiritual family reside: his numerous affections, thoughts, and desires, the various compartments of his mind, are compared to rooms or chambers. The very inmost or highest chamber of his spiritual house, is where his supreme love holds universal control, and directs all things. This is the guest-chamber, described as a large upper room, furnished, situated in the inmost of his being, where the supreme love dwells, as in the upper room, to rule and regulate the household. It is in the inmost of our best affections where we are to receive the Lord; for the dwells in the pure, the humble, and contrite heart. If, while we acknowledge Jesus to be Master and Lord, our supreme love be fixed on self and the world, and we think to entertain Him, not in the upper or best room, but in some inferior chamber, dark and filthy; in this case we do not deceive Him, but ourselves. He will not be a guest in any of our low and dirty chambers; for these are not furnished, not prepared. If we are to partake with Him of the feast that he blesses and sanctifies for our good, we must receive him in the guest-chamber: "there (saith the Lord) make ready for us." He may, indeed, meet us in some other chamber, but not to break bread; rather to rebuke our folly by the words: Why call ye me Master and Lord, and do not the things that I say? Remember, it is in the guestchamber only that Jesus will eat the Passover with his disciples!