“Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think” (Eph. 3:20).
“James . . . to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad” (James 1:1).
“All seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s” (Phil. 2:21).
We could hardly find a more appropriate expression to describe the glorious results of the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ than exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think, nor one to describe the present state of Christendom under the governing hand of God than scattered abroad, nor one more descriptive of the path of Christendom’s decline than all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s.
Although the spiritual state of those to whom James writes would not admit the unfolding of the truths of our common salvation as Paul does, he addresses them as a kind of firstfruits of His [God’s] creatures—the first and most excellent witnesses of that power of good which will shine forth hereafter in the new creation.
God began this church day [dispensation] by uniting some from among those scattered ones in singleness of heart—of one heart and of one soul (Acts 2,4). None spoke of their own things (Acts 4), for they were as “those that possessed not” (1 Cor. 7:30). There was an Object before their affections which surpassed all, and He laid claim to all, even to their words and opinions (1 Cor. 1:10). They had seen the Lord Jesus, the Man in the glory.
How sad when the apostles must later speak of those who sought their own things: The assembly was theirs (1 Peter 5:3 JnD), the world was theirs (1 Cor. 7:31), their spiritual gift was theirs (1 Cor. 9:18), and their life was theirs (Phil. 2:21). We indeed have all things, but it is with Him—that One who in love would have nothing that was not for the benefit of others (Rom. 8:32). Nothing so scatters as treating the things of Christ as my own things.
W. Warr