WHAT AM I LIVING FOR?

WHAT AM I LIVING FOR?

It is a very solemn question — What am I living for? Every one has an object, let him conceal it as he may. The smallest acts of his life betray him; he may be on his guard as to his momentous acts, but when he is off his guard he betrays himself. It is a saying in the world — a man’s character is betrayed by his involuntary acts. So with the believer. If the smallest acts spring from devotedness to Christ there is no fear but that the great ones will.

The next thing the soul learns after salvation is the great fact that Christ is not here, that He has been rejected in this world where we live. When this comes home to you in divine power everything here assumes another aspect to you. The very beauties of the creation wrought by His hand afford you but a melancholy pleasure in the thought that He should have come to His own creation, and His people would not have Him. No one can be here rightly who does not live in the deepening sense, ‘I am in the place where my Lord, my all, has been rejected and refused’.

The next question is — What am I doing there? The true answer is that my heart is not here, my heart is in heaven, but I seek to be here for Him, who is all my delight, in this scene of His rejection where His “treasure” is, for His heart is here, though He has left the place; and therefore ^[p. 53] the chief and real interest of a heart true to Him is the only place He comes to, that is, the midst of His own, His assembly. Approbation of a true object is not enough; there must be untiring, absolute devotion to Christ.