CHRIST MANIFESTING HIMSELF: by Andrew Murray

 Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him." John 14:21

Christ had promised the disciples that the Holy Spirit would come to reveal His presence as ever with them. When the Spirit thus came, He through the Spirit would manifest Himself to them. They should know Him in a new, divine spiritual way; in the power of the Spirit they should know Him, and have Him far more intimately and unceasingly with them than they ever had upon earth.
        The condition of this revelation of Himself is comprised in the one word—love: "He that keepeth My commandments, he it is that loveth Me: and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him." It is to be the meeting of Divine and human love. The love with which Christ had loved them had taken possession of their hearts, and would show itself in the love of a full and absolute obedience. The Father would see this, and His love would rest upon the soul; Christ would love him with the special love drawn out by the loving heart, and would manifest Himself. The love of heaven shed abroad in the heart would be met by the new and blessed revelation of Christ Himself.
        But this is not all. When the question was asked, "What is it?" the answer came in the repetition of the words, "If a man love Me, he will keep My word"; and then again, "My Father will love him, and We will come unto him and make Our abode with him." In the heart thus prepared by the Holy Spirit, showing itself in the obedience of love in a fully surrendered heart, the Father and the Son will take up their abode.
        And now, nothing less is what Christ promises them: "Lo, I am with you alway." That "with" implies "in"—Christ with the Father, dwelling in the heart by faith. Oh, that everyone who would enter into the secret of the abiding presence—"Lo, I am with you alway"—would study, and believe, and claim in childlike simplicity the blessed promise: "I will manifest Myself unto him."