A number of the articles in this issue have necessarily focused largely on warnings about immorality in its various forms — the negative side of the subject. However, it is of supreme importance to understand the positive side of the subject, namely, occupation with Christ. If He in all His loveliness fills our hearts, we will not want the things of this world, whether they are evil or simply that which draws our hearts away from Him. God has given us an object that fills His own heart, and it will surely fill ours too. A full heart has no room for evil.
“Our growth in likeness to Christ while down here — our increase in practical holiness — is the fruit of occupation, of being constantly engaged with, of meditation upon, our blessed Lord’s glory. This statement is borne out by the language of Scripture: ‘Beholding ... the glory of the Lord, [we] are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord’ (2 Cor. 3:18). Three things are given here. First, that it is by beholding we are changed; second, that the change is gradually effected; third, that the Spirit is the power by which the transformation is accomplished” (E. Dennett).
“There is a danger of being too much occupied with evil; it does not refresh, does not help the soul on. ‘Hold aloof from every form of wickedness’ (1 Thess. 5:22 JND), but be occupied ourselves and occupy others with Christ. The evil itself becomes not less evil, but less in comparison with the power of good, where the soul dwells” (J. N. Darby).
“It is not always in the correction of the failures which come before us that sources of evil are healed; they disappear when souls are nourished upon the riches which are in Christ. We must think of this; we must, while ourselves feeding upon Christ — and He give us to feed on Him without stint — cause others to breathe a new atmosphere, where Christ is” (JND).
When asked if he had been to a large exhibition which was going on at the time (more than one hundred years ago), brother George W. Heney replied, “If you knew the exhibition that is going on in my mind, you wouldn’t ask.”
“I love to think of that verse, ‘As the Father hath loved Me, so have I loved you’ (John 15:99As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. (John 15:9)). One desires to keep in the good of it. Suppose you take a seat in a railway coach and sit down and think of that verse. Oh, the sweetness of it — the preciousness of it! It makes one a worshipper. That is how we should go through the world. Do you think if your seat companion should offer you a silly or unclean magazine, if you were enjoying that verse, that you would read the magazine? No; you have something better. It is the enjoyment of the truth in the soul that keeps us from the trash of the world. ‘As the Father hath loved Me, so have I loved you.’ The enemy may say to you, That cannot be true of you, because you are such a poor, weak thing, but it is true of every saint of God. He may have to deal with us in government; His ways may change, but His love never does” (H. E. Hayhoe).