TIME
IS OF THE ESSENCE - It may have taken a long time for you to become
assured concerning the birth truths; it took a long time for you
to become established in the identification truths (you are,
aren't you?); and it will take an even longer time for you to mature in the fellowship
truths. This progress is carried out in the midst of your everyday
life with its multitudinous responsibilities as you "grow
in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ" (2
Pet. 3:18).
TRUTH
IS ESSENTIAL - As to your position, the Father has made you
complete and perfect in His Son and seated you in His heavenly presence for
fellowship. As to your condition, the Father has sealed you in
the Spirit here on earth for your day-by-day growth into that
completeness. In growing you become experientially what you already are
in the Lord Jesus positionally. "The more clearly you enter, by
faith, into objective truth, or what is already true of you in Christ,
the deeper, more experiential and practical will be the Spirit's subjective
work in you, and the more complete will be the true manifestation of the
moral effect in your life and character." --C.H.M.
HEAVEN
ON EARTH - In the midst of this growth in your condition the Father
caused you to more definitely occupy your heavenly position via the needs
created by the pause. He did this in order to establish you in His
personal fellowship, and that you might resume your walk and service in that
fellowship--now from above, not beneath the daily circumstances and
pressures. Keep looking
down!
Spiritually, you do
not leave your position in the Father's presence. Practically, you
maintain that fellowship in the midst of your down-to-earth growth and
service. "For in him we live, and move and have our being"
(Acts 17:28). In ministering to Nicodemus the Lord referred to
Himself as "He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man who is
in heaven " (John 3:13).
HE
"CALLETH FOR THEE" - The Father
in His mercy has been teaching you that there is no solid advance in growth
apart from personal fellowship with Him. It is not only His intimate
love that you need, but it is your own heart-love that He longs for.
Think of it, the Creator yearning for the love and companionship of the
created!
Ponder the infinite
pathos of the Lord Jesus' plea to the Twelve, as many of His disciples were
forsaking Him: "Will ye also go away?" (John 6:67). Does
not your heart all but break as He asks the same of you? Surely your
loving response can be no less than that of Peter's: "Lord, to whom
shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life" (John 6:68).
COMMONALITY
- Your fellowship with the Lord Jesus, and His with you, is an
interpenetrating union of life. "I am the vine, ye are the
branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him the same bringeth forth
much fruit; for without me ye can do nothing" (John 15:5). As
you abide in Him where He is, He is progressively manifested in you where you
are. There is a bond of common life and nature--"for to
me to live is Christ." "Now thanks be unto God, who always
causeth us to triumph in Christ and maketh manifest the savor of his knowledge
by us in everyplace" (Phil. 1:21; 2 Cor. 2:14).
The Father has
restrained you via the pause so as to establish you in a fellowship of death
unto life. You were identified with His Son in His death unto sin and
resurrection unto newness of life; He is identified with you so that the truth
of your position may become increasingly the experience of your
condition. As a result we "grow
in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ" (2
Pet. 3:18).
THE
LAMB-LIFE - Your spiritual growth will be manifested as a
Cross-centered, Christ-centered, and therefore a sacrificial, life. So
then death worketh in you, but life in others (2 Cor. 4:12). In the
process of your growth for His glory, your sacrifice for the saints, and your
labor of love for the lost, there is still your participation in His primary
purpose for you--His personal fellowship.
Now, post-pause, your
growth is founded upon communion, a common mind and heart with Him, "who
gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto
himself a people of his own." "Let
this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who ...
made himself of no reputation, and took upon himself the form of a servant,
and ...
humbled himself" (Phil
2:5,7,8).
SUMMATION
- Consider this statement by the early Brethren writer, J.B. Stoney:
"Your Father, in His grace, has come in and ended your history in the
flesh, by the Cross, and now by the Spirit you are brought into association
with His Son at His own right hand in heaven.
"The Lord Jesus wins
your heart in His humiliation; He satisfies it in His glory.
A won heart is not necessarily a satisfied heart. But if a heart is
truly won by the Lord Jesus it never will be satisfied without Him. No
heart that is won is ever satisfied but in the company of the one who won
it. Absence does not 'make the heart grow fonder!' You only
discover in absence what you gained in presence."
Yes, our fellowship
is with the Father in His Son, "in
whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to
the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will
that we should be to the praise of his glory" (Eph. 1:11,12).
SAY
IT WITH SCRIPTURE - "Now
unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless
before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our
Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever
Amen" (Jude 24,25).