There are two lines of exercise which must engage the heart of everyone true to Christ. The first is rest in Himself; the next, service for Him. The tendency is to put the second first, or rather to engage in it, in order to attain the first. And I believe that this is attended with the worst consequences. It is legality, unknown, and so cloaked that it is not easy to detect it. I do not deny that there is joy in bearing fruit, which is the true service (see John 15); but I think if you watch your own soul, you will agree with me that serving in order to be happier in Christ, tends to legality; and the work done is the source of the happiness, and not simply Christ Himself. In John 14 I learn what Christ is to me; and there is no service enjoined there beyond obedience, as the proof of love. If I love, I obey.
Mary Magdalene (John 20) is an example of one whose heart was so true to Christ, that apostles or angels could not divert her from Him; but as soon as she had seen Him, her heart was satisfied. His calling her by name was everything-a personal, individual link. What can surpass it! She was so controlled by Him of whom her heart was full, that she obeyed Him (v. 18), even at the sacrifice and loss of His own visible presence, because a truly loving one could do nothing else.
I think deep, personal joy in Christ is a very quiet and unexpressed thing. I believe where there is great fervor of expression, there is not much depth, though there may be real conviction. Where there is much demonstration, it is rather discovery, than home, personal enjoyment. Very little demonstration or rapture do we exhibit to our most beloved friends when we are at home with one another. When we meet after an absence, then there is rapture; but this is evidence that there has been an absence. Alas! we are often absent from our Lord; but surely the rapture felt at regaining His presence is lower than the restful enjoyment of His personal nearness. Let us then not make rapture everything, but rise from it to the deep rest and satisfaction of communion with Him. It is from this communion that service ought to flow, for it is only in it that I know my Master's mind. It is not the hardest working servant who in a household is the most confidential. A confidential servant is the highest servant. I am willing to clean shoes if no other work be allotted to me; but whatever my work may be, I should like my master to trust me with his mind.
The saint is never to think himself safe from the evil in the world. No doubt, by faith he is kept from the evil; but then he must not shut his eyes to the form which evil takes in his time, as if he were safe from it. The reverse is the fact; for any evil working in the world finds its way into the hearts of the saints in a refined, specious way. Sensationalism is one of the means by which Satan is blinding the minds of the people of the world in this day -be it the novel, the concert, or the stage-it is mental intoxication. Was there none of it at the revival meetings? Is there not a leaven of it now? And should not souls see that their rapture or delight is not that in which the flesh takes part, but on the contrary, that which ignores the flesh, because we are in the Spirit, where the flesh has no place?