God takes the bright light that shines in the face of Jesus Christ, and makes it shine in our hearts. He is the perfect answer and character of everything delightsome to God. We are in Him, and His character is to flow through us. He has brought us into the light and holiness of the Father's house; and because of having fellowship with Him, we can turn round to Him and cast every thought and every sorrow on Him.
Do all around you get, in your ways, such a reflection of Christ's life, that they could not understand you without knowing Christ? Christ's heart was always in heaven while He was on earth, and everything came forth to Him in all the savor of the Father's love. He was of one heart and one mind with the Father. I want to be like Christ; I want the world to say, "Like Master, like servant." The present object of the Lord Jesus is to have a people down here who shall display Him in their ways, thoughts, and doings: speaking out intelligently and practically what He is.
No one was ever, on earth, so happy as Christ, because of His seeing everything in connection with God's purpose and God's will; and the greater the sorrow, the higher its wave broke over His heart, the more this is seen. There was always some expression of praise, some reference to the Father, showing the joy within untouched, as a spring of water hidden for refreshment. He was straitened till the Father's will was accomplished in the death upon the cross.
Water was in the rock, but until smitten, it did not give forth water-so it was with Christ. And now He is revealed to us, in heaven, as the eternal Son of God, who was smitten for us, and we can turn to Him and say, " There is our spring of living water, He is ours. We have got eternal life in Him as a well of water springing up." All the way through the wilderness, the water flowed, to slake their thirst, to refresh them; all the way, and it spoke blessedly of Christ.
The freshness of heart in Christ was always the same. You and I get so weary in our experience of the wilderness, but Christ's heart is never wearied, it is as freshly set on the bride as when God chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.
Whatever the mind is most fixed upon, and is ever turning to, gives its impress to the mind; if my feelings and thoughts are fixed on. Christ, I get the impress of Christ. If I am ever turning to Him in all His heavenly measure of love, I shall get the impress of it; and if my soul then rises to Christ in that freshness of love which can say, "Come, Lord Jesus," there is His answer in all freshness, " Surely I come quickly." He does not forget us toiling through the wilderness and the sands of the desert; He is with us all the way, and all freshness is in Him. If the heart turns to the heart of Christ, the heart of the Son of God, I find that heart immeasurably fuller than mine of love-there, there is always freshness of love. I may be a way-worn pilgrim, there I shall find freshness-a spring of cold water to refresh me just when fainting in the wilderness. Oh that love in the heart of Christ, that knows no weariness, no dragging steps, no hanging down of the hands. I may always turn to Him, and say, "Come!" His heart can always answer, "Surely I come quickly." Oh, the freshness of Christ's love and the brightness of that water forever flowing in incomparable purity and freshness!
If we connect the wilderness with our great High Priest in heaven, we may still feel the bitterness of wilderness trials, but we shall have the sweetness of Christ's sympathy with us every step of the way. All blessing, carried on and sustained, must be so by the present action of the Lord Jesus. Where has there ever been found a single blessing, save in the hand of Christ? Could you wish for any save what He gives?
Can you spread out no wants before Christ, the Giver, the Healer? Believers grieve the Spirit by not using Christ, and then God must compel them to do it. He knew how to make Paul startle up the jailor at Philippi. Do I know that Christ up there has to do with my heart individually? Has He looked into it to-day? has He seen any brightness in it towards Himself, or coldness? Well, He does not trust a bit to the feelings of the heart. He knows what. it is; whether it looks bright or not; everything is naked and open to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. He does not trust my heart, but He says, " I want to give you all that is in my heart of love."
I see Christ's heart yearning over poor sinners -not poor sinners' hearts yearning after Christ.
When Christ meets a sinner, and gives him peace, the only thing that He thinks of is His own blood, and anything added to that, He would turn away from and repudiate. Ah! there is no name to which Jesus of Nazareth responds more heartily than the name of Savior-it has not become a common name to Him. He will not share it with another. He may have every glory, but above all is this name of Savior between Him and God. He, "the Savior God," "redemption through His blood!" Ah! there is something there that has a voice to one's soul, the thought of that Savior God, in whom we have redemption, being the One who is to have all glory. When you get home, will your delight be in the glory of that Christ? Not only happy because you are saved, but because of seeing what He is-what a Savior you have got! Being saved is nothing to the brightness of the glory shining out of the Savior Christ; because He is what He is, we have redemption through His blood.
Will He ever lay aside His character of Redeemer? " The Lamb in the midst of the throne" points Him out as the One whose redemption-glory will still be seen, though we shall be realizing a different part. Israel when in Canaan realized a different portion from Israel in the wilderness, but this was still their glory, that they were the people of a Redeemer God. When you get into glory, every one of you will be pointed to as a spectacle showing forth the redemption-glory of the Redeemer God. God sees in redemption one of the thoughts dearest to His own heart: it shows out His highest glory, all centered in Christ, according to His eternal purpose. Is that glory in the person of Christ the thing that fills your soul? When telling over all the glories that attach to the person of that Christ, do you say, " Ah, that is the One in whom I have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins!"
God has set us in His Son, hidden us in Him. As Moses was put into the cleft of the rock, so God has put us into Christ.
If I am hidden in Christ, there can be no condemnation for me. Can God condemn what is in His Son? Can God find fault with Him? Satan cannot stand against one who is in Christ: all condemnation will roll back against Satan; there is none for me. I rejoice in Christ as a life-giving Spirit, not merely as One who brought me out of Egypt, but as One with whom I am united in life: the One smitten on Calvary, raised from the dead, a life-giving Spirit in heaven. Death may be stamped on every particle of the first Adam in me, but the spirit of life in the last Adam has made me free from the law of sin and death; it makes me know that Christ is my life, the stream of life is flowing down from Him to me, leading me on in life in the Spirit because the Spirit of God dwells in me, and I am not in the flesh but in the Spirit.
Christ is the smitten rock, and the water of life is flowing from Christ through my soul, witnessing of heavenly things; and if eternal life is flowing through a body dead because of sin, yet will it give an immense power of joy in the Lord. Whither has fled the joy unspeakable of the early Christians? Why are Christians now without it, but because they have not learned to give up the first Adam for the last Adam-because they have not learned to walk as the early Christians walked. Do we not know a want of the Holy Ghost in power? a want of walking with the soul full of heaven? Is it not because we have not learned that all that is of self is a stony rock which all that is of Christ is to flow through, to show how everything in self is to be set aside? Oh, do not be satisfied with ordinary Christianity; but be saying, " If nobody else is heavenly-minded, why not I? If others are not full of the Holy Ghost, why not I? " I would beseech you not to trifle with your own mercies. God 'has provided you with joy that might fill your souls to overflowing if you walk in the Spirit and not in the flesh. There is no dimness in Christ's joy-not a cloud rests on Him: our blessing is not short of His. Oh that the power of the Holy Ghost may work in our hearts so that we may know the fullness of the spring of blessing in Him, looking to God to bring us into the enjoyment of the rivers of refreshing in the Son of His love!