IN
CHRIST RISEN - The Holy Spirit establishes you in your realization of
close proximity to the Father before He cultivates you for close fellowship with
Him. You are before the Father in the Lord Jesus eternally, and that
position is immutable. Your "citizenship is in heaven" (Phil.
3:20)--you not only have the right to be there, but you have the nature and
life to live there. And, "where
your treasure is, there will your heart be also" (Matt 6:21).
You are not there in
your own condition or merit you are not there in the flesh, but in the Spirit, "that
no flesh should glory in his presence" (I Cor. 1:29). Neither are
you there in the body, but you are there in the One who is your life. "Of
God are ye in Christ Jesus (where He is), who of God is made unto us wisdom, and
righteousness and sanctification, and redemption" (I Cor 1:30).
INTENSIVE
CARE - You will soon find that the Father's presence is the element
the normal environment and habitat, of your new life and nature. The Lord
Jesus has always been at home in heaven, and since He is your life, you too are
at home there. It is through abiding in His light and life that your life
will thrive. And one of the first attributes of His life that you
will become newly aware of is His love--for you.
LOVE'S
DUALITY - You may say you know He loves you, and what He did for you
on the Cross is the proof of it "Greater love hath no man than this,
that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). There
can be no question concerning God's Calvary love, and yet there are times of
need when His giving love seems somewhat impersonal and far removed--as
you may have thought during the pause.
It is the Father's drawing
love that is shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5).
It is when you begin to realize the Father's personal interest in you as
an individual, in His drawing you to Himself in His beloved Son so as to morally
conform you to His image, that you begin to know the love that is personalized.
It is the love of God
that brings you to His Son at the Cross; it is the love of the Father that
brings you to Himself at the Throne. "For if when we were enemies,
we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being
reconciled, we shall be saved by his life" (Rom 5:10).
JOSEPH'S
LOVE - Prior to the pause, you may have been somewhat like Joseph's
brethren. As governor of Egypt, Joseph fully provided for his brothers for
seventeen years as they served under him. When their father, Jacob,
finally died they were afraid that Joseph would seek revenge, so they
acknowledged their sin against him and how undeserving they were of his kindness
to them.
"And they sent
a messenger unto Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying,
So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy
brethren, and their sin; for they did unto thee evil: and now, we pray thee,
forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph
wept when they spoke unto him" (Gen. 50:16,17).
Joseph broke down and
wept as if to say, "After seventeen long years under my care and in my
service, is that all you know about me?" "And
his brethren also went and fell down before his face; and they said, Behold, we
are thy servants. And Joseph said unto them.
. . Now therefore fear ye not; I
will nourish you, and your
little ones. And he comforted them and spoke kindly unto
them" (Gen. 50:18,19,21).
"ARISE,
MY LOVE" - It
may be that you have known the Father's care and have served Him faithfully for
seven, seventeen, or even twenty-seven years while still not knowing Him in a
truly personal way. Be that as it may, Love will have you for Himself--and
He is using the pause and its related problems to draw you into His
presence. It is there that He will tell you to fear not, that He will
nourish and comfort you, and speak kindly to your heart.
Your Father loves you
far too much, longs too deeply for your personal fellowship to let you,
prodigal-like, grow away from His presence and independently inhabit the far
country. In His love and constant care He has allowed you to discover that
there is "a mighty famine in the land," whereby you have
experienced what it is "to
be in want" (Lu. 15:14).
In that blessed want,
with its hungers, fears, and loneliness, you have found that no man is able to
give unto you. It is in such conditions of dire need, right in the midst
of your growth, that you have been brought to yourself and enabled to say,
"I will arise and go to
my father" (Lu 15:18).
PRESENT
PRESENCE - It is there, in the presence of the Father, abiding above
by faith, that you will come to know personal love and life. It was the
Lord Jesus' prayer that you might be loved of the Father as He is. "I
have declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it, that the love with which
Thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them" (John 17:26).
"We must make the
Lord Jesus the paramount object of our soul's pursuit, else our spiritual life
will inevitably sicken and decline. We cannot even feed upon feelings and
experiences connected with Him, for they, inasmuch as they are fluctuating,
cannot form our spiritual nourishment.
"It was Christ
yesterday, and it must be Christ today, and Christ forever. Moreover, it
will not do to feed partly on Him and partly on other things. As in the
matter of life it was Christ alone, so in the matter of living it
must be Christ alone. As we cannot mingle anything with that which imparts
life, so neither can we mingle anything with that which sustains
it."--C.H.M.