Beyond measure it's desirable that we, as believers, should have the person of Jesus constantly before us, to inflame our love towards him, and to increase our knowledge of him. I'd to God that my readers were all entered as diligent scholars in Jesus' college, students of Corpus Christi, or the body of Christ, resolved to attain to a good degree in the learning of the cross. But to have Jesus ever near, the heart must be full of him, welling up with his love, even to overrunning. So the apostle prays "that Christ may dwell in your hearts." See how near he'd have Jesus to be!

You can't get a subject closer to you than to have it in the heart itself. "That he may dwell;" not that he may call upon you sometimes, as a casual visitor enters into a house and tarries for a night, but that he may dwell; that Jesus may become the Lord and Tenant of your inmost being, never more to go out. Observe the words—that he may dwell in your heart, that best room of the house of manhood; not in your thoughts alone, but in your affections; not merely in the mind's meditations, but in the heart's emotions. We should pant after love to Christ of a most abiding character, not a love that flames up and then dies out into the darkness of a few embers, but a constant flame, fed by sacred fuel, like the fire upon the altar which never went out.

This can't be accomplished except by faith. Faith must be strong, or love won't be fervent; the root of the flower must be healthy, or we can't expect the bloom to be sweet. Faith is the lily's root, and love is the lily's bloom. Now, reader, Jesus can't be in your heart's love except you've a firm hold of him by your heart's faith; and, therefore, pray that you may always trust Christ so you may always love him. If love be cold, be sure that faith is drooping.