The new nature which God has given His children yearns after Himself — the One who is its origin, its strength, and its joy. In God’s presence, the new nature has perfect pleasure. In creation, the happiness of the creature depends upon its life being vigorous and in freedom. It is the same with the children of God. Life under restraint is always burdensome: A child of God weighted with worldly cares or half choked with worldly pleasures is a contradiction of his new nature and a denial of its yearnings.
The child of God, in a right state of soul, looks on to the future, when all hindrance shall be abolished and when he, spirit, soul and body, shall be like the Lord in the liberty of the glory. He also yearns after the conscious favor of God’s presence day by day and longs to know more of Christ and to live in His enjoyed communion until the glory comes. This, though varying in intensity and though interrupted by the influences of the world, is true of everyone who has divine life. The measure of the desires may differ, but the eternal life itself, as acted upon by the indwelling Spirit, rises up to the Father and the Son.
Eternal Life
Natural life goes on independently of our parents from whom we derived it, but eternal life, the possession of each believer, is immediately connected with its source and origin; it is not ours apart from its source, but it is in the Son. “This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son” (1 John 5:1111And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. (1 John 5:11)). Despite the wanderings of the child of God and their sad results, we must not forget the unchangeable truth of his having eternal life in Christ.
True Christian desire may be summed up in these few words: “That I may know Him” (Phil. 3:1010That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; (Philippians 3:10)) — words which are the expression of the Apostle’s panting after the Son of God. David longed after Jehovah in the sanctuary; Paul longed after Jesus in the glory. He had seen Him in the glory; he knew Jesus in heaven, and his soul bounded forward in divinely-given energy to reach the goal of the Christian’s affections. When this goal shall be reached by all, the realized hope of eternal life will be the rejoicing of the children of God.
Christ Is Our Life
Paul gives the only true principle of godly life in this one word: “To me to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:2121For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. (Philippians 1:21)). Christ is our life, and the believer desires to live Christ. God the Father gives the power to do this, by strengthening the affections, by His Spirit, in such a way that Christ may be their continual occupation. “Strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith” (Eph. 3:16-1716That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; 17That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, (Ephesians 3:16‑17)). In proportion as Christ abides in our hearts, by faith, our hearts are truly taken up with Him as their object, and thus Christ becomes the principle of Christian living. If the many things of sight are filling our hearts, the world is the object we have in view. When such is the case, the Christian is like a heavily burdened man trying to run a race.
If we wish to thrive, Christ Himself must be filling our hearts, and not just truth about Christ. This is a necessary caution in a day when knowledge of the most sacred truths may be intellectually attained by so small an effort. It is a happy thing to understand the Word of God, but, with that Word treasured in our hearts, the aim of the Christian’s affections should be, “That I may know Him.” Desires to live out on earth what Christ is and to live with Him in heaven make the Christian separate from the world, and they separate him to the Lord. Practice flows from affection. If the heart sleeps, the Christian, like an engine without fuel, is at a standstill. The once ardent Ephesians left their first love of Christ, and from the center of lukewarm affections spiritual decay spread, till at length their privilege of light-giving for Christ was removed.
Christ died for us and rose again; it is for us, not to live to ourselves, but to Him. His love awakens ours; His love is the motive power of ours, and our lamps are lighted by the flame of His love to us. “The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again” (2 Cor. 5:14-1514For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: 15And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. (2 Corinthians 5:14‑15)).
Decadence
Decadence is sadly so common to all that we must speak of it. There are children of God who, burdened by their sins, once were absorbed in overwhelming desires for rest of conscience. God in grace gave them the knowledge of pardon and of deliverance, and for a short time they ran well. What has hindered them, and where are they now? Sleeping among the dead! At one time it seemed almost impossible that these eager seekers after God should ever be found in the ranks of commonplace Christians, hardly distinguishable from the world. But truth took the place in the mind which Christ should occupy in the heart. The facts of life and liberty were accepted, while going on in heart with the Lord was deficient, and they no longer shine as bright lights in the world.
As with a nation, so with an individual; peace and liberty not infrequently induce ease and carelessness, and solemn, indeed, as it is to express it, many a believer forsook his earnestness shortly after having been delivered from doubts and fears as to his salvation. “Ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh” (Gal. 5:1313For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. (Galatians 5:13)). It is not too much to say that with many it seems easier to come to the Lord as a Savior at the first and to die trusting Him as a Friend at the end than to keep plodding on, day by day, in dependence upon Him. The beginning and the ending of many a Christian’s course are brighter than the middle. Is it because at the extremes there is such felt nothingness in self that Christ is necessarily all?
We Walk by Faith
We are not pieces of machinery wound up upon the day of our conversion, to move like the hands of a clock till we leave this world. We are responsible to Him who loves us, and the only way to live the daily life of a true Christian is to do so by living and walking each day by faith and keeping on going to God moment by moment, even as we breathe the air moment by moment.
What Christ’s work has effected may be understood, yet Christ Himself not be laid hold of by the heart. To know all that Christ has done for us is not sufficient; we must have Him dwelling in our hearts by faith. May it be true of each of us, as said the Apostle, “To me to live is Christ”!
H. F. Witherby (adapted)