We must guard against the mere refusing to take a place in the world, because we know it is wrong as followers of Him who has been rejected. A mere legal estimate of what is right can never last. A thing may be very right, but there is not stability in pursuing it, because there is no power to subdue the flesh in merely doing what one knows to be right. There was the sense of obligation with the law, but the law did not set an object before us to attract our hearts; it did not bring God to us nor us to God. That lasts which feels that we are nothing and that God is everything.
Many have begun very energetically and taken a certain place right in itself, but if legality be the source of it, there will be no power of perseverance, for that which is taken up under law will be sure to be lost in the flesh. When God is the object, the low place here is sufficient. He Himself carries us on, and whatever it be, if the mind and affections are upon Him, what was hard at first is no effort as we proceed. His love, which attracted and gave us power at first to take such a position, becomes brighter and brighter when better and longer known, and what was done at first tremblingly is easy with increasing courage.
The only thing which can enable us thus to goon is to have Christ the object before us, and just in proportion as it is so can we be happy. There may be a thousand and one things to vex us if self is of importance; they will not vex us at all if self is not there to be vexed. The passions of the flesh will not harass us if we are walking with God. What trials we get when not walking with God and we think only of self! There is no such deliverance as that of having no importance in our own eyes. Then we may be happy indeed before God.
J. N. Darby