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My Life For Christ

To me, to live is Christ. (Philippians 1:21)

I wonder very often if the fact that our tremendous knowledge about Christ, our tremendous doctrinal apprehension, failing to lead us into triumphant joy, failing to result in something of this contagious spirit of triumph that was about Paul, does not imply that it is something which is not Christ personally with which we are occupied and taken up. We are getting to know Christ purely by a book knowledge, and a Conference knowledge, an address knowledge, an historic knowledge; that really, apart from our Conferences, our books, our studies, our addresses, and all these things; in the secret place, in the secret history back of it all, we are not living on Christ Himself, and out from Christ, and knowing Christ. So much of our Christian life is a matter of teaching, of things about Him.

We recognise the simplicity of that word, but we are quite sure that you understand what we mean, because you have known a very great deal about Christ in doctrine, and then you have discovered something of the Lord Himself, and you have discovered the tremendous difference. There is nothing more uplifting than to come into a personal experience of the Lord, a knowledge of the Lord, in a living way, to have Christ ministered to your heart by the Holy Spirit. Then you discover that there is something there which is more than all your suffering, and which makes suffering worthwhile, and which robs suffering of its deadly sting. It is Christ. Paul lived on Christ: or me to live is Christ.Now, what might have been put afterward? For me to live is to be able to go to meetings! For me to live is to be able to have fellowship with other believers! If I am cut off from them I cannot live! If I cannot go to the meetings I cannot live! You can put in anything else: For me to live is to have encouragement in the work, to see results for my labours! You can cover a great deal of ground, if you are going to cover the ground of our demands in order to be triumphant. But Paul looked out, and he saw his work being injured, damaged, outwardly destroyed, his old friends being alienated and led to doubt and suspect him. Oh, he saw enough to take the heart out of any man at the end of such a life, but he did not say: or me to live is to see my life work standing as a monument, intact; to have all my old friends faithful and around me; to know that my message has had universal acceptance and appreciation!No! or me to live is (when all these things, and many others, have gone) Christ!/p>

Leaning on Jesus’ bosom.

As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you. § Then they brought little children to Him, that He might touch them … And He took them up in His arms, laid His hands on them, and blessed them. § Jesus called His disciples to Himself and said, “I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with Me three days and have nothing to eat. And I do not want to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way.” § A High Priest … [to] sympathize with our weaknesses. § In His love and in His pity He redeemed them.

I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. § Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, yet I will not forget you.

The Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

John 13:23;  Isa. 66:13;  Mark 10:13,16;  Matt. 15:32;  Heb. 4:15;  Isa. 63:9;  John 14:18;  Isa. 49:15;  Rev. 7:17

Jesus Christ the righteous. . . . The propitiation for our sins.

The faces of the cherubim shall be toward the mercy seat. You shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the Testimony that I will give you … I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat.

Surely His salvation is near to those who fear Him … Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed.

If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared … O Israel, hope in the Lord; for with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is abundant redemption. And He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities. § All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness.

1 John 2:1,2;  Ex. 25:20,22;  Ps. 85:9,10;  Ps. 130:3,4,  Ps. 7:8;  Rom. 3:23,25

Rest And Rejoice!

Rejoice in the Lord always!" (Phil. 4:4)

Exhaustive effort brings home the necessity of strengthening rest. The believer will not be ready to enter into his spiritual rest until he is utterly worn out by his unsuccessful efforts to conquer sin and the old man. There is no rest for the "wretched man" of Romans 7 - that struggle must lead to the rest of Romans 8.

"Grace is sufficient for favorable circumstances, but they are by far the most trying (spiritually) to the believer. There is an easy way of going on in worldliness, and there is nothing more sad than the quiet comfortable Christian going on day by day, apart from dependence upon the Lord.

"It must be as with Israel and the manna; there must be the daily gathering and daily dependence upon God. If circumstances come between our hearts and God, we are powerless. If the Lord Jesus is nearer, circumstances will not hinder our joy in God "

"The heart of man naturally seeks rest, and seeks it here. Now, there is no rest to be found here for the believer; but it is written, There remaineth, therefore, a rest to the people of God' (Heb 4:9).

"To know this is both full of blessing and full of sorrow: sorrow to the flesh; because it is always seeking its rest here, it has always to be disappointed; blessing to the spirit, because the spirit, being born of God, can only rest in God's rest, as it is said, If they shall enter into My rest' (Heb. 4:5). What God desires for us is to bring us into the enjoyment of all that which He Himself enjoys." -J.N.D.

"Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him" (Ps. 37:7).

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The Sacrifice of Silence