“WHAT is the sweetest object of your heart?” said the writer to a respectable Christian woman.
After a moment’s consideration she replied, “Oh, sir, it is Jesus in the glory that is the most precious object of my heart.”
“And how long has the Lord Jesus been precious to you?”
“Why, sir, I have known Him for a long time as my Saviour, but it is only about six months that I have seen that I have risen-life in Him.”
This reply was striking, and forcibly reminded us how seldom we find a believer in these days who seems to have apprehended, with soul enjoyment, the precious fact of what it is to be “risen with Christ.” And yet nothing could be found in Scripture more plainly revealed; and, in the days of the apostles, it was one of the points of truth which believers were taught, that they had died with Christ, and were risen with Him. Our blessed Lord, who, when He left the world, and promised to His disciples the Holy Ghost, the other Comforter, assured them that when He did come they should know that He was in the Father, and they in Him, and He in them. Hence we find this truth so commonly accepted that letters were addressed by the apostles to saints as those who were in “Christ Jesus.” But, in the present day, even true Christians, sincere souls, have so drifted away from the new position and character of the blessings in Christ in which the grace of God has set them, that comparatively few can now be found who say that they enjoy the precious faith that they are risen with Christ, blessed in Christ, accepted in Christ, complete in Christ, and preserved in Christ. Those who do can surely confess themselves to be of “the circumcision, who worship God in the spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.” (Philippians 3:88Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, (Philippians 3:8).)
It is realizing their own association with Christ, who is now in heavenly places, knowing Him as our life and righteousness before God, that we are united to Him by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, and are led by the Spirit into the contemplation of His infinite worth, personal excellencies and unchanging faithfulness, who loved us and gave Himself for us, that makes Him so precious and attractive to us. He then becomes, in our experience, the absorbing, commanding, and satisfying object of our hearts. No marvel, therefore, that one should speak of Christ in the glory as the most precious object of her soul. It must be so, if Christ be rightly known. It cannot be so, if self in any form, or the world, or anything in it, be sought as an object! It is well, therefore, to know, though it is often learned by a painful and disappointing experience, that the flesh profiteth nothing, that the world is under judgment, and that Christ Jesus, the risen and ascended Son of God, whom the world rejected, is the One to whom God now directs us, not only as a Saviour, but as the alone becoming and satisfying object for our souls. “We see Jesus.” “Consider Him.” “Looking unto Him.” “Live a life of faith upon the Son of God,” and other Scriptures abundantly confirm this. The heart that tries this proves it. It is known in no other way. Christ, the object of our heart, is the secret of true joy and strength.