Christ…is
our life.
—Colossians 3:4
Christ’s life was more than His teaching, more
than His work, more than even His death. It was His life in the sight of God
and man that gave value to what He said, did, and suffered. And it is this
life, glorified in the resurrection, that He imparts to His people and enables
them to live out before men.
“By this shall all men know that ye are My
disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:35). It was the life in the new
brotherhood of the Holy Spirit that made both Jews and Greeks feel that there
was some superhuman power about Christ’s disciples; they gave living proof of
the truth of what they said, that God’s love had come down and taken possession
of them.
It has often been said that, unless the
missionary lives out the Christ life on an entirely different level from that
on which other men live, he misses the deepest secret of power and success in
his work. When Christ sent His disciples forth, it was with the command, “Tarry…until
ye be endued with power from on high” (Luke 24:49); “But ye shall
receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be
witnesses unto Me…unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
Many missionaries have felt that it is not learning, zeal, or the willingness
for self‑sacrifice in Christ’s service, but the secret experience of the
life “hid with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3), that enables
them to meet and overcome every difficulty.
Everything depends on the life with God in
Christ being right. It was so with Christ, with the disciples, and with Paul.
The simplicity and intensity of our lives in Christ Jesus, and of the life of
Christ Jesus in us, sustains us in the daily drudgery of work, makes us conquer
self and everything that could hinder the Christ life, and gives victory over
the powers of evil and over the hearts from which the evil spirits have to be
cast out.
The life is everything. It was so in Christ
Jesus. It must be so in His servants, too. It can be so, because Christ Himself
will live in us. When He said, “Lo, I am with you alway[s]” (Matthew
28:20), He meant nothing less than this: “Every day and all day long, I am with
you, the secret of your life, your joy, and your strength.”
Oh, to learn what hidden treasures are
contained in the blessed words we love to repeat: “Lo, I am with you all the
days!”
No comments:
Post a Comment