CHRIST THE MAGNET AND RESOURCE OF THE HEART

CHRIST THE MAGNET AND RESOURCE OF THE HEART

In the Lord’s goodness I am permitted to write to you on entering upon another year in the wilderness. The Lord has shown you and —— much favour during the last year. The result of His blessed work is that “as he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4: 17); then untold blessings for this present time are assured to us.

We do not see Him alone in His joy and greatness, as angels do, as far as they are concerned; but we, as we see Him, see what is ours, for we are Christ’s. As from the sun all light comes, so from Christ every grace comes to me. With the sun, the light is gone from me as soon as the sun disappears, but Christ never disappears, and the light and grace I have received from Him is never withdrawn from me, because it is ever true for me in Him, even though I have not, or do not enjoy it. Again, the sun has lost none of its light, though it has shone for many a year. So Christ, blessed be His name, loses none of His grace by sharing it with millions. The world gives, and loses what it gives. He shares, and ever retains His fulness to share still on for ever. We are not mere spectators or guests, great as that would be. We are participators, members of His body, assimilated to the image of the glory, as we behold His unveiled face in glory. Faith is seeing Him that is invisible. When I see Him, I see my resource. It is not looking in, but looking up. My heart, like David, may be able to speak of the lion and the bear, which He had previously enabled me to overcome. I set Him always before me; “because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved” (Psalm 16: 8). Like the mariner at sea, I look out for the sun - for Christ. If, in a storm, I see Him asleep on a pillow in the hinder part of the ship, I say, He is quiet; I receive of His grace, and I am quiet.

Again, if I see Him walking on the crest of the wave, I say, I can walk there too, for Christ is there, and I am His, and His power is mine.

The progress of the soul is thus very interesting. Like a dog following its master: the one thing before it is the way the master goes; only with us, when we follow Christ, we share His power in the path, as Elisha got the double portion of Elijah’s power by seeing him go up. “If thou see me ... it shall be so unto thee” (2 Kings 2: 10); all turned on seeing him; and so it is now. It is not what I have known and enjoyed, but where is He? Where do I see Him? If I see Him rising, as in Romans, I see that I occupy a new ground, like Noah after the deluge. If I see Him at God’s right hand, and the Head of His body, the church, as in Ephesians, I know that the power that set Him there has raised us up together and made us sit in heavenly places in Christ. From the smallest detail of daily life, up to the interminable range of glory, the one single thing for me is to see Him - “shewing himself through the lattice”. Where is He in this domestic trouble? Where is He in every circle up to and in glory? The one resource everywhere. We often look at our difficulties first, before we look at our resource. How blessed for us to be so assured that Christ is our resource, that instead of being distressed by any difficulty, we at once turn to Him who having passed through the heavens, is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and has, at each trial, some special provision for us in the smallest thing, as well as in the greatest.

The Spirit of God is our telescope. “Being full of the Holy Spirit, having fixed his eyes on heaven, he saw the glory of God, and Jesus” (Acts 7: 55).

^[p. 403] May you enter on this new year with greater enjoyment in our most marvellous telescope than ever, and thus be ever able to see the magnet of your heart, and your almighty resource, in every difficulty great or small.