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Will it be the same company? How often we have proved His

patient grace; then we shall see His face, we shall be like Him.

What about being like Him now? What about that great matter

of the rapture having a bearing upon us now? Paul says “we

await” a well-known Person. We do not look for an event; we

do not search through the calendar to see what date it will be;

we await a Person, the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour—that

Man—what a title!—the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul’s heart is full

of Him here, the One who has been here in lowly

circumstances, who has taken up the question of our sins,

ministering forgiveness, maintaining us by His priestly grace

and service—we await the Person. Are we ready? Are we

looking for the Person who “shall transform our body of

humiliation into conformity to his body of glory”?

What a body it will be! John says, When we see Him we shall

be like Him. Oh that there could be stirred, by the Spirit, some

deeper longings in our hearts for Himself and what it will be to

be with Him. The rapture is presented so often as a matter of

deliverance and comfort, which it is, and will

be, but Paul is speaking here about the Person so engaging

his affections that he was longing to be with Him. It says, “who

shall transform our body according to the working of the power

which he has even to subdue all things to himself”.

We know from 1 Thessalonians 4 what a time of power it will

be; the dead in Christ shall rise first; they will hear His voice.

How can you explain that? It brings the glory and the power of

the Person before us, that nothing shall hinder the Lord as He

comes in those movements of power; then, ‘So shall we be

ever in heaven’? No—“and thus we shall be always with the

Lord”. The Person is to be before our affections. I think it

should have a very regulating effect during the waiting time. I

only leave the question—Do we regulate our lives in relation to

the early return of our Lord?