Wounding Jesus!

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(James Smith, "Gleams of Grace" 1860)

"I was wounded in the house of My friends!" Zechariah 13:6

Whoever loved like Jesus--and whoever was wounded like Him? Literally in the days of His flesh--and figuratively or spiritually since He has gone to glory. Hence the language of the prophet is most appropriate to Him, whether originally intended for Him or not.

THE PARTIES COMPLAINED OF. "My friends." All who call themselves Christians, and profess to be the friends of Jesus.

THE PARTY COMPLAINING. This is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, the only party who never ought to have reason to complain, and who never would complain without a reason. Yet no one has such cause--for hourly He is wounded in the house of His friends.

Yet, He is the personification of love. Love in all its fullness, tenderness, and glory, dwells in Him. He is emphatically love, and He never had one feeling in His heart towards His friends, nor dropped one word from His lips to us, nor did anything in His dealings with us--but what flowed from love. Love . . .
reigns in His heart,
looks through His eyes,
speaks with His tongue,
and works with His hands.

Let us listen to HIS COMPLAINT. "I was wounded in the house of my friends!" Precious Lord Jesus--is it true that You are wounded still? Can it be that Your people, Your professed friends, wound you? Alas! it is too true.

WHO wounds Him? Every inconsistent believer. O Christian, will you, can you, wound that Savior, on whom alone your dependence is placed, for . . .
help in life,
hope in death, and
glory beyond the grave! Yet . . .
by the irregularity of your walk,
by your lukewarmness,
by your half-heartedness,
by your mixing up with the world, and
by your lack of thoroughness in His cause
--you wound Him!

WHAT wounds Him? Our pride, selfishness and worldliness.
We think so much of ourselves--and so little of Him.
We pay so much attention to ourselves--and so little to Him.
We give so much of our time, our talents, our energies to the world--and so little to Him.

How could we insult Him more, than by preferring ourselves, our ease, our pleasure, our wealth, our reputation to Him; except it is by preferring the world, which is His enemy, to Him?

O beloved, how deeply have our pride of heart, and worldliness of spirit, wounded Jesus!

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