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be. Very soon, as I say, we shall be with Him in eternity. But
the Lord says in John 12: 26,
“and where I am, there also shall be my servant”. That is the
present moment of the testimony and it is needful that we are
in the company of Christ in relation to the present testimony,
so that we may be in the testimony rightly.
So what I want to say in this section is that you have two
things—you have the pattern and you have the power. And
you must have the pattern before you can really know the
power.
The pattern is seen in the character of the Man who has gone
up. The scripture speaks of Him being lifted up out of the
earth, becoming the focal point of men drawn to Himself in
John 12: 32. That would be men like you and me. It speaks
about Him being raised up from among the dead by the glory
of the Father in Romans 6: 4, and it speaks about Him, being
taken up into heaven in Acts 1. We therefore find the company
of that blessed Man who has been taken up; thus we are
formed in the character of Christianity and it is then that we
shall be able to use the power of the Holy Spirit rightly—and
only then. So we have the pattern and the power.
So the test comes. As you follow Christ He will search you out,
just as Elijah searched this young man out, and just as the
Lord searched Peter out in John 21. The Lord will search you
out, and He will find why you are following. You will remember
that in John 1: 38 it says,
“But Jesus having turned, and seeing them following”. Think of
the Lord turning today and seeing you following.
Do you not think that He would have joy in that? But He will
test you. He will say, What do you want? What do you really
want? Young brother and sister, what do you really want? Do
you want Jesus? The little hymn says, ‘I would rather have