A STRANGER HERE
A STRANGER HERE
When we know what Christ is for us as above everything on this side Canaan we are delivered from sin and death, in which are comprised all the misery and cause of misery down here. But when we [p. 132] dwell on what He is for us on the Canaan side, the effect of our knowing Him in heaven is twofold - one is that because He is in heaven we have a place in heaven, and this makes us strangers here; the other is that we are expecting not only to be in the place where He is, but that we are to have bodies suited to that place. In John 14 the Lord tells us what a true heart most needs; that He is not leaving us alone in misery and He Himself getting out of it, but that He is going to prepare a place for us, that we may be with Him where He is. In Ephesians 2 I find how I am to reach that place now in spirit because I am quickened together with Him, hence my conversation is in heaven. As I realise this I am first relieved from the misery here (John 14), and next I am in strength here because of it; and thirdly, I endure provocation and loss here because I have in heaven an enduring substance; Hebrews 10.
It is my heart that leads me out of this place in John. My life does so in Ephesians, and my losses in Hebrews. It is that which essentially makes one a stranger here - this is not my place. Daniel had no heavenly place, he uses what he can lay his hand on because the earth was his place, and he sighed truly and divinely after Jerusalem. But one may be a stranger here, and have the feeling of a stranger, and yet not be apart from selfishness down here; hence the importance of the other truth - our conversation is in heaven - and I look for the Lord Jesus Christ to change my vile body like unto His own body of glory. Now this has a wonderful effect. I feel I am not only a stranger for having a place in heaven, but I shall have a glorious body, a resurrection body; the effect of this is to make me superior to the many wants and infirmities of my body, and not only this, but to make me ‘chaste’ from the world. I might be a stranger, as I should be in Turkey, and yet put up at the best hotel, take the best care of myself. Now if I [p. 133] am really expecting to have a glorious body, I am enjoying the power of resurrection in myself and carrying my bed, an illustration of the practical power of resurrection, and I am purified or “chaste” from this evil world. I connect my body with another, and the highest order of things. The Lord lead us more into it.