To
me, to live is Christ. Philippians 1:21
In
the wilderness the whole of our natural life is brought out, and we come to
know our weakness and emptiness; that we have nothing. Thus it is that we now
find everything in Christ and so can go over and possess. What is the secret of
possession, of coming into our inheritance? It is that we have come to the
place where all things are "in Christ" and He is everything –
our very Life and being. Our flesh is cut off and we know as the deepest thing
in our being, that unless God does everything in us by His Spirit, all is of no
value. We must come to an end of our own working in order to come into His
fullness. It is so easy to sit down in our weakness and nurse ourselves,
but the Lord says at that point, "Arise and possess." Your
inheritance is not here on earth, it is in Christ in the heavenlies; not in
yourselves, your fullness is in Him. It is ever His Fullness over
against your emptiness; His Strength over against your weakness; your
inheritance is all He is, as typified to Israel by the land flowing with
milk and honey.
Paul
says of Timothy, "he worketh the work of the Lord" (1 Cor. 16:10).
There is to be an end of our works so far as we are concerned, nothing of us,
as out from ourselves; but God says, in effect: "with your nothingness I
will possess the heavens and the earth." Oh, to be such a people,
chastened and emptied of self, for the Holy Spirit by His energies to display
the moral glories of the Lord Jesus in us and so through us. "To
the intent that now unto principalities and powers might be made known
through the Church the manifold wisdom of God" (Eph. 3:10,11). "That
in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace... for we
are His workmanship" (Eph. 2:7,10).
No comments:
Post a Comment