One of the greatest blessings the soul can have is the power of entering into the refreshment the Lord Jesus Christ had while He was on the earth, and it is that which makes the scene between Himself and the dying thief so precious: not only that this poor man found light through an open door, but—the thought is so exceedingly precious—that He who saved that thief saw in him one of the fruits of the travail of His soul.

This is very solemn in connection with those who are members of His body, and one spirit with Him, that the Lord’s eye comes in to search everything in them, and that He knows all intents and thoughts of the heart and mind. But if He did not, we could not get such a blessed thing as One ever living to make intercession for us. Directly He sees in us something that needs it, He pleads with God; and not only He sees it, but He makes us see it. All is discovered to us. He makes us see every infirmity, every mark of spiritual disease, that we may know His healing; and He makes us conform in character with the place we are in, in Him.

It is so blessed, the way that the Lord teaches us about Himself as a living person; and there is no place where we have Him as a living person more than in the wilderness. We are all impatient to see Him in heaven, but it would not be the same thing if we had not seen and known Him in the wilderness. He is the object in whom God presents His own character, and as we pass through the turmoil of life, what can strengthen us in it? What can help us, except seeing Him, the living Christ, who is for us? When He takes us into the light, and shows us that all flesh is grass, what can sustain and settle the heart but the thought of that One, the unchangeable One, occupied with us?