THE SPIRITUAL BOND EXCLUDES NATURAL STATUS
THE SPIRITUAL BOND EXCLUDES NATURAL STATUS
I am thankful that you are cheered in the work in ———— and I am glad that you are often before me in connection with it. There are many interesting units in ————, but very few understand the bond of the Spirit of God. With great intelligence as to the doctrine of the unity of the body, they practically little understand membership. They go in cliques or sets; but the fact of being united to [p. 27] one another by the Spirit of God very little possesses them. The national social element is a hindrance to the spiritual bond, and they cannot understand an unseen link where they have no outward link. The tendency therefore is that the rich preserves his own position, and the poor longs for the same. If they knew the spiritual bond, the spiritual would cluster together, glad to know and recognise one another in this new bond, and not careful or wishing, either the one to maintain, or the other to advance his natural status. When people are really spiritual the rich man does not think of or wish to maintain his grade, or the poor man to advance his, they both have a better one; and the one who seeks either to maintain or to encroach, has departed from the new and better status. Thank God! I had rather be with the lowest socially if he were spiritual than with the most accomplished who is not so. I think in ———— much is thought of position, and hence on the other side they think you cannot be intimate without being familiar. If I have no position to maintain I can allow every one else to retain his. If I have none there is none to encroach on, and no spiritual soul wants what I reject. He must be poor indeed who picks up one’s cast away clothes! The real difficulty is to measure every one by one standard. The Lord is our only standard. I do not say that we are to disregard our acquaintances, they are our “neighbours”, those providentially near us, but we should prove in ourselves that everything of human status is overlooked for the Lord, and that we really seek the 300 devoted ones (see Gideon) irrespective of rank or social quality, one thing alone really commanding any one to us, and that is simple devotedness to the Lord. Thus our acquaintances or neighbours would have a double gain if they were of the number. The servant who would maintain and cultivate a real spiritual bond would impart a vigour to the meetings in ———— hitherto unknown. The attempt to be a family was too levelling, and necessarily was a levelling up, but in the spiritual bond there is an ignoring of the social status on every side. It is even worse for the one who encroaches, than for the one who maintains.
I heard of dear G————’s serious illness. How it emboldens [p. 28] our hearts to tell the Lord what a use he was to us and to all His people, and then to plead for his life.
May every blessing surround you both. One word only I say — the servant must not consider what he can afford, or what he is used to, but what he can surrender, so as to be an example to the lowest grade.
How blessed to enter on every step here either of sorrow or of joy as preordained by Him, and with Himself as the manna — the provision for it. How much more sorrow was known to Him in His path here than gleams of sunshine. His joys were chiefly above. Paul could say: “I know how to be abased and how to abound” (Philippians 4: 12). The grace of Christ is as necessary for the latter as for the former. I write this line to assure you of my constant remembrance of you before the Lord.