John, the beloved disciple, first delivers his thread of messages to the seven churches; hut the moment he gets to Jesus. Christ, that name causes a vibration in his heart (Rev. 1:22Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw. (Revelation 1:2)); and we cannot hear that name without a movement in our souls, the result of God's having shown us that we have in that Lord Jesus Christ an answer to everything in Himself and in man. If Adam's rest was broken up, there was a place belonging to Christ, and John knew that place of rest, and joy, and peace, as his own; and the name of this Christ vibrated in the springs of John's heart as being; all his own. Just where he was, Christ had stepped in as Redeemer, and John could not utter His name without there being a thrill in his heart-a burst of praise on his lips.
Oh to know that the only answer to the deceitfulness of these hearts of ours and the hypocrisy of human nature, is, that we have got that One, that faithful and unchangeable One who is with His people all the way through the wilderness till He gets them into the Father's house.
Have you tasted the sweetness of the cry, “Abba, Father," in your heart, and the blessedness of Christ in heaven being in you, and you in Him? And is it, think you, strange that He should take notice of your walk, and want you to walk as a child of the Father? Is it a strange thing that He should be the One to watch over you? No and it is a blessed thing to know that he does do it. He never supposed that we could get through this life and get into glory without His leading and watching over us Himself; no such thought was ever in His mind.
We want reality; not a name, but the eternal life in the soul so practically our own, that it is seen by the way it works in us, and the things that flow forth from it. Wonderful is the effect of " dam', truth"! Look at Paul-what were all those offerings and all that self-denial of his, but an immensely strong argument for all that people heard from his lips? seeing him act out the truth gave immense power to it. People might challenge him, but if they did he could say, " whether I have done it well or ill, I have been trying all my life to carry out practically the life that Christ has put in me. I may have failed, but my sole desire and aim has been to live Christ."
My whole view of anything depends on my stand-point; if in a high place I get the whole compass. Paul could say, " My stand-point is Christ in heaven." From being in Christ, he had the power of Christ causing him to let the whole stream of life flow out in service. The result was a very different thing from gleaning a straw here and there.
It was quite right, John, Peter, Paul, that when the world looked on you and saw you were like your Master-it rejected you as it rejected Him; and could not know you because it did not know Him. I ask believers now, Are you walking so like Christ that the same world which did not know Christ, or John, or Paul, does not know you? Even an infidel will tell you the points of difference between you and Christ. In Paul the world saw a man who, in everything he did, had Christ's glory as the end in view. Could any who had been watching me the last 30 years, say the same of me? Not like Paul indeed; but whether it were the bell-bearer of the flock, or the feeblest lamb in it, the life ought to have the same character. If it is true that I have that life, am I walking in accordance with it? Are you? Do you say that I want to put you in bondage? I wish I could put you into bondage by binding your heart so close to Christ that all which is in Him should flow out of you. Let each one ask himself, "Can I say I am a member of Christ and He looks down on me and sees the life I have in Him flowing out through me? Is all the responsibility 1 am under that of pleasing the Christ who has loved me, and who, notwithstanding all that I am, is not ashamed to confess me?" If you do not find that answer to His love which you long to find in yourself, go to the Father and tell Him you do not, and see what He will do. Calling sons, was His thought. Go to the great Physician, and you will find plenty of balm in Gilead.
If you do not walk as a son and as a child with God, you will find that you will not have strength to withstand all that is fast coming on the world: but if walking with Him you will find Him for you, and the deeper the trial, the more your joy will be.
If we look at the millennium, we see on one side the glory of Zech. 8:3,3Thus saith the Lord; I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem: and Jerusalem shall be called a city of truth; and the mountain of the Lord of hosts the holy mountain. (Zechariah 8:3) and on the other side the bride: but there is something higher in the title of sons of God, Christ taking them into the Father's house, bringing many sons to glory; that is the highest glory-being sons with Christ, the only-begotten Son in heaven, in whom the Father has all delight, and having life in Him, the Father's love shines down on them freely. If I know that love of the Father to Him who is the center of this new system, and am conscious that through Christ I have that love shed abroad in my heart, will it drive out all of the flesh in me? No; but the outgoings of the life of Christ in me will be seen. The flesh is indeed still in me, but I have power to reckon myself dead unto sin and alive unto God through Jesus Christ; and all who are blessed in Christ ought to be using this power.
Take John and Paul-the power of life in them was not according to their thought of it, but according to the Father's measure of it in Christ. When battling with circumstances, saying, "I must, and I must not," do you find that you have the victory over self and the world? No; but if you get a happy train of thought about what Christ is, then just where you found all was failure, it becomes the scene into which He comes. He meets all the failure of His people, and all His grace comes in to meet me just where I fail.
If God's grace acts in you as a ruined creature, He says, " Christ is your hiding-place, you are accepted in Him, and I delight in all who are in Him;" and if so, everything that is unlike that Blessed One will be what you will hate, and you will like to take up all things that are according to His mind-purifying yourself even as He is pure.