186. Tuesday after First Sunday after Easter.
“Whom have I in heaven but thee?
and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.”
God grant us this mercy. Amen.
Colossians 3, 1-6. If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry; for which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience.
❦
To be united with Christ is the one thing needful. Vital Christianity is the communion of the heart with him. Then we have died with him, and have been raised again from the dead with him. Christ is the life of the true believers. He that does not live in Christ is no Christian. What sort of Christianity may that be which is not life? But what life could Christianity be, if it be not the life of Jesus Christ? Let none deceive himself with a vain or dead hope in Christ! For Christ has overcome death; he is the living God, who quickens all them that are his own, and gives them a living hope. As Christ is in heaven, the heart of the faithful, which live in him, must likewise be in heaven. “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” “God has raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2, 6). Mind and heart have been set free and endowed with high aspirations. The soul’s longing reaches out beyond this life, and its goal is eternal communion with God in perfect holiness. Then you are dead to the world, its honors and pleasures, its riches and benefits, its poverty and misery, its dogmas and ordinances, its nursery tales and its thraldom. And the world regards you as lost and dead. The life which you live is the life of Christ, and it is hid with Christ in God. As Christ is invisible to the world, so also is his life in the faithful. Their faith in the Lord, their hope and peace and joy in him, their love, their holy longing after heaven, their zealous endeavors to keep their lives clean, their self-denial and their resistance to the devil, their prayers in the sanctuary of the heart; in a word, their life in God, is wholly hid from the world, which neither sees it nor understands it, but regards it as being nothing more than an idle dream. The glory of the Christians is covered over with troubles and poverty and afflictions and tears; nay, with sin and many infirmities. — But Christ shall appear, then shall you also appear with him in glory. Rejoice in this hope, and be not led astray by reason of your afflictions in this world. Your members, which are of the earth, are to be mortified; and herein the Lord assists you by means of the cross. The evil lusts are the members and joints of your old Adam, who by your conversion to the Lord has been mortally wounded, but has not as yet been entirely annihilated. They will seek to drag you down to the earth again; therefore mortify them with the cross of Christ; mortify them, for Jesus’ sake!
Lord Jesus, knowest thou me, that I live in thee, and thou in me? Grant me this boon, most merciful Savior. “O take my heart and soul and might, and fill them with thy heavenly light.” Amen.
Not for any worldly pleasure
Doth my thirsty spirit pine;
Not the earth with all its treasure
Could content this soul of mine;
For its Savior yearning ever:
I will leave my Jesus never.
From that living Fountain drinking,
Walking always at his side,
Christ shall lead me without sinking
Through the river’s rushing tide,
With the blest to sing forever:
I will leave my Jesus never.
Leave a Reply