SUITABILITY TO CHRIST ONLY PRODUCED BY HIS COMPANY
[p. 15] SUITABILITY TO CHRIST ONLY PRODUCED BY HIS COMPANY
Satan’s aim is to hinder souls from finding and enjoying that nearness to Christ which would so establish them in the taste and ways and manners of Himself, that they would find everything of man irksome, and only affording an opportunity to express the qualities of that blessed One whose spirit they have imbibed. I am struck in observing how saints delight in listening too to details of His love, who know very little what it is to be taught by His presence, the manners, as I may say, suited to His presence. One might greatly enjoy reading of the acts and purposes of a great sovereign, or a great benefactor, and yet know little or nothing of the habits and ways which would suit such a one; and possibly one might find it irksome to be obliged to submit to the peculiar influence which the presence of a great one exercises. The effect of the presence of Christ is piety and godliness - subduedness of heart and mind to the One whose presence is in full sway. When I am reading of or listening to the living acts of the Lord, I necessarily see, as I accept them in faith, that I am an object to Him; but when I am in His company, He only is before me, and as I enjoy His company, I am formed by the influence of that company, into the same order of things as Himself, so that I am not only influenced, but I am changed into the same image from glory to glory. Working for Him, reading, even praying, can be carried on without the sense of His presence. There may not be in any of these the sense of One so fully and entirely occupying the vision of the soul that not only must all of one’s evil be in abeyance, but self is ignored, while at the same time there is a real acquisition of new habits and powers which so displace the old ones, that there is growth. Now I find many who, after all their reading and learning, are not thoroughly satisfied that they are objects of His [p. 16] love. If they were really in this great truth, as a necessary consequence they would not be content without the personal acquaintance, the presence of the One to whom they know they are so dear.
When the company of Christ is truly cultivated, there is ever a growing sense of and ability to discern what suits Him; and however isolated saints may be, they are empowered, when thus skilled, to see the path which He would take in the circumstances. The silken thread, the clue to the labyrinth is in their hands; however great the confusion, they can separate the precious from the vile, and they increase in suitability to Him as they go on. They connect themselves with everything of God and for God on earth, and by strange and unexpected ways, they are found connected with the brightest and most interesting circle of His interests on earth. If you are not familiar with His tastes, how can you know what suits Him? and you cannot be familiar with them, but as you are in His company.