The life we make so much of has death in it; death is necessarily connected with the body, but I get rid of it-Christ left a savor in the grave quite different from the savor of God's wrath. He has made death to a believer to be nothing save being absent from the body to be present with Himself.
The church never really dies; the people of God pass off the scene, but do not taste death. If there must be a people down here, saying, "Come Lord," until He come, how is it that Stephen and those who leave this scene worn out in service, or those taken away, like Lot out of Sodom, have been removed above? Ah! they are there not only still to wait with us in anticipation of His coming, but to experience in a new way what blessedness the Lord gives. I am not speaking of glory, but of the experience they have meantime of the preciousness of His love. Will not it be everything to be with Him? No kingdom, no glory, can be compared to that.
Oh! let the love of this Lord who has given His people the privilege of knowing that they are vessels He pours His love into, and that He will not take a bit of glory without them-oh? I ask you to let that love of His fill your heart.