RELIEF, SUPPORT AND INTIMACY

RELIEF, SUPPORT AND INTIMACY

I am very thankful to hear that you are more relieved of the pressure of illness, and I trust that the relief has come after you had learned support under the pressure. Martha was relieved but not supported — she did not find sympathy. I have been much interested in studying intimacy with Christ. He is known to us first as to our side of things; I think as we know Him sympathising with us we are not only supported, but we are in heart ^[p. 76] drawn away from things here to Himself; and as we enter upon His things, beginning with the holiest of all, we have “part” with Him. The translators of the New Testament did not understand John 10: 14, 15; there should be no dividing of the verses; the correct translation is — “... and I know those that are mine, and am known of those that are mine, as the Father knows me and I know the Father”. The same kind of intimacy; How very blessed! May we know more of it.

Patience or endurance is a wonderful quality. I am convinced that the sense of the Lord’s support under a pressure, not only attaches us to Him in a peculiar way, but nothing so weans us from this place. Relief makes this place more agreeable, but support detaches us from everything here, because we are supported by One who is not here, and He is increasingly endeared to us.