A believer ought to know himself inseparable in life from Christ, the Man at God's right hand. And, if there, he must know the Man who is there-the Man who in Philippians was
down here and did not care what He did if only God had His way with Him-the One who brought all His Sonship into His Servantship—in every part of whose life was the unqualified force of His Sonship expressing itself in service. And the same power that put Him where He is put you there too. Are you then saying: I am a son of God, and I am going to walk exactly as He did? If you have everything in Him, are you living as He lived? He never made allowance for the flesh: " In Him was no sin." He knew thoroughly all the weakness of humanity-what it was to be weary-what it was to have no one to understand Him; but the whole thing He was after through it all was to express His Sonship in His Servantship.
Are you walking in the power of this eternal life? There is always exercise of soul in doing so. But if it make the wilderness rough, it is only the more happy for it, only the more bright for it; there is "the answer of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead."
After all it was, I feel, no such wonderful thing that God should take Him up, and that He, having left the grave, should go up to God's right hand; but when I look at where we were, I say, Well, this is marvelous! That He should find me out in my ruin, and set me in Christ up there! It is wonderfully little thought of; you find it very rarely in those you live with, that there is the thought of there being the Man up there. It changes everything if you have it. You delight in God-in all the thoughts of God Himself. Down here I see groaning, trouble, sorrow; but what a portion is mine up there! There is one Man in heaven; the eyes of that Man are always upon me, and the heart of that Man is always with me; the river of refreshing flows into my soul; He is to me like a cool shadow on a hot scorching day. That Man who, when He was down here, never would have His own will; there He is with a heart looking down on me, gathering now to the place where He is, and all the heart I have is with Him and upon Him there.
(G. V. W.)
The church has failed in public testimony, so now the remnant must retire into private to promote the interest and progress of the family circle; like a man who failed in public, devoting himself to the care and education of his own.
(J. B. S.)