Christianity

Christianity

Without The Company Of Christ

I use this word ‘Christianity’ in its common application. It is a poor thing to be going through this world with only the name of Christian. We all know that the truest doctrines are not Christ, nor can you have Christ with you unless you are LIVING ACCORDING TO HIS MIND. We may be ever so correct as to doctrines, and be what the world calls ‘orthodox’, but it is not doctrine, nor is it orthodoxy, that Christ condescends and desires to accompany—it is OURSELVES. And if Christ has to stand apart from you in your daily life, or from me in mine, we know that no amount of correctness or orthodoxy will make up for that, John 21: 5.

The Lord stood apart from Lot in Sodom, from Eli when he did not restrain his sons, and from the Corinthians when they covered up evil in their midst. He stood apart from each as a rebuker, and did not give to them the joy of His daily company. Yet Lot was a righteous man, and Eli was an honoured “prophet of God” in that day; while Corinth was planted by an apostle, was, perhaps, watered by an Apollos, and was, at any rate, the true husbandry of God, 2 Pet 2: 8; 1 Sam 3: 13; 1 Cor 5: 7.

Right doctrines separated from the everyday life of communion lead the soul into a spiritual desert. The Lord cannot identify Himself with us PUBLICLY if there is not companying with Him in PRIVATE.

Reader, I ask myself this question, and I ask you to put it to yourself, Does the Lord cheer this everyday desert life of mine with the consciousness of His presence and support? Or to put the question in another form, Is there anything that I am in, or that I allow in myself which shuts HIM out?

“I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me”, Rev 3: 20. This is His desire for you, though you may be among those who are neither “cold nor hot” (Rev 3: 15); and if you do not know much about it, what is all this boasted Christianity worth?

From Simple Testimony—vol 16, 1899