I believe that if I get near the Lord Jesus Christ, I shall find in His heart a specialty of affection about a people down here who are waiting for Him; not waiting for glory, but for Him, which is quite a different thing. Do I love Him? Do I not know He was my Substitute? and do I not want to see Him? Has He not taken from my mind everything that harassed and perplexed me? and do not I want to see Him? Do I know that for eighteen hundred years He has been sitting at the right hand of God, with everything His own, but with a craving in His heart that will never be satisfied till He has got us-till He has got me-home with Himself; do I know this? and can I be satisfied till I see Him face to face in the glory of all divine uncreated light?
I do not so much think of the glory we shall enter into, but what my heart recognizes is the sweet truth that it is the Lord and myself that are to be in companionship together. Our going and His coming, though different things, are both connected with the deep consciousness formed in the heart that we are to be in Christ's own individual presence—not till then, not till there-satisfied.
There is fixity of purpose in Christ's heart, to come, but there is the patience of hope in Him, and I am to have it. The to-morrow of the believer is formed on the yesterday of the believer; and today, where does the heart get its rest? By going inside the veil where the Lord is-perfected forever in Him. Because of your connection by faith with what He did who is at the right hand of God, you are before God without sin, accepted in Him, that is our anchoring ground: not °illy brought inside the veil, but in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself as He is in heaven, you are accepted, even in the Lamb upon the throne. That is the yesterday of faith. We have the entr(2e of the house with no veil on the light; and the love that brought us there tells its tale out in all that we pass through in the wilderness. Suppose that I have not learned this love as I ought down here, yet. I can look up and say that that Lamb on the throne is not only the measure of what my guiltlessness is before God, but that that Lain]) on the throne has also undertaken to come and fetch home the children whom God has given Him.
What does my faith begin with? the belief that God took me from Satan and gave me fitness to be in His presence by being washed in the blood of His dear Son; and He will keep me to the end. Yesterday and to-day I have had the continual proof of His faithfulness-tomorrow and forever it will be the same Christ.
1 Thess. 1:9, 109For they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; 10And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come. (1 Thessalonians 1:9‑10). There are two marks of faith: first, serving the living and true God; second, watching for His Son from heaven. There can be nothing more important than works to a believer. If you are the Lord's children; what are von to be but channels for that living water? Is God to dig a channel, and no water flow through it after all? What are we if not channels for that water to flow through? Bought at such a price, can we think it of no importance to serve the living and true God? He does not-and high as He is, with everything in His hand-He is not too great to look into the little attic where I am; to see if I am serving Him. How the greatness of the living God comes out in this! Everything concerning the soul is, in the greatness of His love, settled for eternity, yet He can come down quietly to a poor thing in the wilderness, saying, " I am looking at your works"-a poor bed-ridden cripple, one obliged to be kept in a dark room, and the living God coming to see how one so feeble as to be hardly up to the smallest quota of service, is serving Him! How wonderful a God to accept it! saying, " I know what every child is about; I am expecting service because I have given von my Son, and when I say ‘Give me something,' I am
endearing you to that Son, for He must give you grace and intelligence that you may have power to give." is it not wondrous grace for the living God to say to poor things like you and me. They " Give?" Do you say "What can I give?" Ah, He will accept even a cup of cold water. There are a number of little things in which the heart can go out to the living God in service to Him.