From The Queen of Sheba: Heart-Communing | Published in 1902; delivered New Park Street Chapels, Southwark.
She communed with him of all that was in her heart. 1 Kings 10:2
I. We will begin by saying that we ought to commune with Jesus of all that is in our heart.
I do not mean all of you who are present; I mean all those who have been redeemed from among men by his most precious blood, all those who are believing in him, and who call him their Savior, their Master, their Lord. You are bound to tell him all that is in your heart, and to have no secrets hidden away from him within your soul.
Tell Jesus all that is in your heart, for neglect of intercourse with Christ, of the most intimate kind is ungenerous toward him. Are there any professing Christians here, who have lived for a month without conscious communion with Christ? If I were to speak of a longer period and to ask " Are there not some professing Christians here, who have lived for three months without conscious communion with Christ," I am afraid there are some who, if they were honest and truthful, would have to reply, "That is the case with us." If so, think what that means; you profess to belong to Jesus, and to be his disciple, yet you confess that you have lived all this while without real, intimate communication with him who is your Master and Lord. What is more, you profess to be not only one of his disciples, but one of his friends. "Is this thy kindness to thy Friend?" I may go further than that, for you believe yourself to be married to Christ, for that is the union which exists between himself and his people. That would be a strange kind of marriage union in which the wife should be in the presence of her husband, and not even speak to him by the week, by the month, by the three months, by the six months together. For them to have no fellowship with one another, no mutual interchange of love, no communications with each other, would be regarded as unnatural, and would be rightly condemned; but do we not, sometimes, act toward our heavenly Bridegroom in just that manner? Are we not, too often, like the men of the world who do not know him? Do we not live as if we did not know him, or as if he were no longer present with us? It ought not to be thus; unless we would act contrary to all the dictates of our higher nature, we must be continually holding intimate intercourse with our Lord Jesus Christ.
And we must tell him all that is in our heart, because to conceal anything from so true a Friend betrays the sad fact that there is something wrong to be concealed. Is there anything that you do that you could not tell to Jesus? Is there anything you love that you could not ask him to bless? Is there any plan now before you that you could not ask him to sanction? Is there anything in your heart which you would wish to hide from him? then it is a wrong thing; be you sure of that. The thing must be evil, or else you would not wish to conceal it from him whom, I trust, you do really love. O my Lord, wherefore should I desire to hide anything from you? If I do want to hide it, then, surely, it must be because it is something of which I have cause to be ashamed; so help me to get rid of it.....
If we canoot tell Jesus all that is in our heart, it shows a want of confidence in his love, or his sympathy or his wisdom or his power. When there is something that the wife cannot tell to her husband, or there begin to be some secret things on the part of one of them, that cannot be revealed to the other, there will soon be an end of mutual love and peace and joy. Things cannot go on well in the home while there has to be concealment. O beloved, I beseech you to love Christ too much to keep anything back from him! Love him so much that you can trust him even with the little frivolous things hich so often worry and vex you. Love him so much that you can tell him all that is in your heart, nor ever for a moment wish to keep back anything from him.
If we do not tell it all to Jesus, it looks as if we had not confidence in his love, and therefore thought that he would not bear with us; or else that we had not confidence in his sympathy,, and fancied that he would not take any notice of us; or else that we had not confidence in his wisdom, and thought that our trouble was too perplexing to bring to him; or else that we had not confidence in his power, and dreamed that he could not help us in such an emergency. Let this never be the case with any of you; but every day, unburden your heart to Christ, and never let him think that you even begin to distrust him. So shall you keep up a frank and open and blessed fellowship between Christ and your own soul.
I believe that our trials usually come out of the things that we do not take to the Lord; and, moreover, I am sure that we make greater blunders in what we consider to be simple matters, which we need not take to the Lord, than we do in far more difficult matters which we take to him. The men of Israel were deceived by the Gibeonites because they had on old shoes and clouted, and had moldy bread in their wallets, and the Israelites said, "It is perfectly clear that these men must have come from a long distance; look at their old boots and their ragged garments"; so they made a covenant with them, and inquired not the will of the Lord. If it had not appeared to them to be quite so clear a case, they would have asked the Lord for direction, and then they would have been rightly guided. It is when you think you can see your way that you go wrong; when you cannot see your way, but trust to God to lead you by a way that you know not, you will go perfectly right. I am persuaded that it is so that the simplest and plainest matter kept away from Christ will turn out to be a maze, while the most intricate labyrinth, under the guidance of Christ, will prove to have in it straight road for the feet of all those who trust in the infallible wisdom of their Lord and Savior....
This just being a short excerpt. So much to chew on.
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