* God offers to fill our homes and our hearts with joy and gladness if we will only let Him do it. We cannot create the canary-birds; but we can provide cages for them, and fill our dwellings with their music. Even so we cannot create the heavenly gifts which Jesus offers; but they are ours if we provide heart-room for them. The birds of peace and contentment and joy and praise will fly in fast enough if we will only invite Jesus Christ, and set the windows of our souls open for His coming.
= Theodore L. Cuyler, p. 355.

* God is merely tuning the soul, as an instrument, in this life. And these joys of the Christian, are only the notes and chords that are sounded out in the preparation — preludes to the perfect harmony that shall flood the soul — forerunners of the perfected and rapturous joy that shall bless the soul, in that exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
= Herrick Johnson, p. 355.

* Rejoice evermore in your Redeemer,— in His truth — His person — His almighty grace — His everlasting faithfulness — His precious blood whose efficacy reaches farther than the eye of your conscience ever penetrated, and cleanses you from a sin- fulness more inveterate than you have ever conceived to be yours.
= Richard Fuller, p. 356.

 * As the skillful artist, in making a good portrait, finds it essentially necessary to use the dark and bright colors alternately, so the Divine Artist dips His pencil, by turns, in Marah and Elim. In Marah first, and the background is laid in darkness black as midnight; and then in Elim, and the blackness is relieved with the colors of the rainbow.
= Alexander Dickson, p. 356.

* These are the marks of a heart that is living in the joy of the resurrection. It lives out of itself; and living out of itself, by this unselfish joy, it has a joy in itself which comes from the presence of Jesus Christ; the overflow of His peace which passeth all sense, the consciousness of that twofold relationship — His relation to us, our relation to Him, and our mutual and indissoluble love.
= Archibald Manning, p. 356.

* We ask God to forgive us for our evil thoughts and evil temper, but rarely, if ever, ask Him to forgive us for our sadness. Joy is regarded as a happy accident of the Christian life, an ornament and a luxury, rather than a duty.
= Robert William Dale, p. 357.