"Think of that love without beginning, and which, blessed be God, shall never, never cease. Give the wings of your imagination full play, and go back to the time before all time, when there was no day but the Ancient of Days; when ages had not begun to be, but God dwelt alone. Remember, if you are one of his people, that the Father loved you even then, and he continues still to love you, and will love you when, like a bubble, this earth has melted, and like a gypsy's tent, the universe has been rolled up and put away....
Oh! think of the Savior descending from the starry heights of glory, and coming down to the Virgin’s womb, and then descending from that lowly manger of Bethlehem, even to the cross and to the grave for you; counting it not robbery to be equal with God, and yet for your sake he takes upon himself the form of a servant, and makes himself of no reputation, but becomes obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Many of the ancient saints were accustomed to spend hours in meditating upon the wounds of Christ, and many of the martyrs have been for days engaged in solemn meditation upon those wounded hands and feet, and that pierced side. Oh! of all the volumes which were ever written, this volume, printed in crimson upon the pure, lily-like flesh of Christ, is the best to read. Talk ye of pictures? Was there ever such a picture as that which God drew with the pencil of eternal love, dipped into the color of Almighty wrath on Calvary’s summit? Angels desired to see it, but there was a veil before the picture until Jesus came and drew it up, and then the spectacle was revealed, to be gazed upon throughout eternity by adoring spirits, with fresh wonder and admiration for evermore.
You cannot exhaust this subject, but, O, let me beseech you to give it the first and chief place in your meditation. "I have set the Lord always before me,” would be a good motto for the believer, and well would it be for him to have the cross painted upon his very eye-balls, so that everywhere he should be reminded of Christ crucified, and so should be led always to say, "For me to live is Christ.”
- C.H. Spurgeon