WHAT a thing for us to find in any measure that the portion of Christ is our portion too at the world's hands: " It knew him not," and so it knows us not in proportion as we are simply children of God. And we know not the world; we know that it exists, but it is nothing to us. It exists not to us, save in so far as we are inconsistent, allowing lust to come in.
And the day is coming when we shall be like Him. With all the schooling of God on us, with all the self judgment that there is within, with all the true-hearted prayer that the saint pours out for himself and for God's people, yet how often comes forth from the same heart the groan, "How little attainment! How little power!"
Never mind; go on climbing. We shall be like Him. The day is coming when we shall have no taste for anything that He has not a taste for; when we shall have no mind for anything save that for which He has a mind. like Christ! Clothed with immortality and glory. And not only like Him outside even, in 'that scene where all can shine out without disturbance, but like Him, all within. Everything in harmony with Christ!
What a word to have in my heart! I shall be like Christ! His name on my forehead; I, stamped with His image, for I shall see Him as He is. Now we see in a glass darkly, but even now in the measure in which we see Him, we are molded into His likeness. Then it will be eye to eye!
So we go onward still. Onward in darkness? Oh no! onward still in light, because it is onward to Christ. While the heart is occupied with Him each step leads one nearer to Him. Everything and spot that is unlike Christ becomes odious to the heart that is occupied with Him; and thus he purifies himself even as He is pure.
It becomes us in such days as these to look to it that we have the mark of God's children on us both as answering to the heart of God, and also for the joy and comfort of our own souls.
(G. V. W.)