THE RIVER JORDAN
[p. 468] THE RIVER JORDAN
It is a great mercy to be able to justify the Lord in His dealings with one, and sure I am that He can be a full solace for the greatest loss here. I often wonder that we feel so little the fact that the Lord is not here, and that in order to be near Him now we must be in His life beyond the scene of death - there ‘Heavenly light makes all things bright’, and the prospect does grow brighter as we are able to contemplate the supreme bliss of being unhinderedly in His life. One may comprehend in some degree His love in dying for one, but that He should live in me is such identity that one can only wonder and adore! I often ask myself what are His tastes and interests? Many things are agreeable to us which belong to humanity and not to christianity. I see that the only way by which this scene is reduced to a wilderness is by communion with the Lord, who is outside and apart from this world.
When one’s joy there is full, the Jordan, that is, death with Christ to everything here, is an experience of the deepest blessing; you are in complete liberation from things here, free from the influence of everything to be simply and wholly ordered by the Lord.
The effect of being where everything is good is very great. You return to this poor world as no longer looking for better things in the midst of the bad, but conscious that you had been where all is good. The effect of ecstasy is that you are transferred into the presence of One who fills the scene where there is no weakness, no discontent, no evil. I think the practical reality of what Jordan means to us is often brought before our souls in order to test the measure in which we have really crossed over with Christ, so that our only hope is in the Lord. Where else can one’s hope be, if we have died with Him, but on the other side where He lives and we live in Him? His leading us by [p. 469] this way, and the depth of the interest He takes in us, consoles our hearts in every trial and makes Himself more known. May He enrich your heart in all wisdom and spiritual understanding in the knowledge of Himself!