Occupation with Christ
"One thing have I desired ... to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in His temple." (Psalm 27:4)
"Jesus, Thou art enough
the mind and heart to fill;
Thy patient life - to calm the soul,
Thy love its fear dispel.
Oh fix our earnest gaze
So wholly, Lord, on Thee
That, with Thy beauty occupied,
We elsewhere none may see." (LF #174)
(Footprints for Pilgrims, pp. 53-56)
The perfection of the Christian life is to lose sight of oneself completely and to make everything of Christ.
The sign of a good state of soul is enjoyment of the presence of Christ. Everything that takes your eye off Christ is a snare of the devil.
The one object of the Christian life is to learn more of Himself, and Satan cannot find entrance into a heart that is full of Christ.
We are not to rejoice so much in the deliverances when they come as in the One who delivers us.
The deeper the sense of the state from which we have been delivered, the more absorbingly intense will be our affection for the Deliverer.
Intellectual conviction is always powerless. It occupies itself with the truth and never leads to Christ Himself.
The Israelites were to gather the manna, every man according to his eating (Exodus 16:16). The appetite governed the amount collected. How strikingly true this is of the believer! We all have as much of Christ as we desire - no more, and no less. If our desires are large - if we open our mouth wide - He will fill it...On the other hand, if we are but feebly conscious of our need, a little only of Christ will be supplied.
There are seasons when many believers feel as if they could not get into the presence or obtain the ear of God...Surely it would prove an antidote to Satan's temptations at such periods to remember that if we cannot pray ourselves, Christ never fails to bear us up in His prevailing intercession...It would soon dispel our gloom and coldness of heart, because it would lead us to look away from ourselves and to expect all from Him and from His continual ministry for us in the presence of God.
A heart possessed of Christ is fortified against the most seductive allurements of the world.
The state of our souls may be discerned by the effect produced upon us by the name of Jesus.
Christ Himself is to be our great example of faith - of a life of dependence upon God. If the holiest man that ever lived were to fill our vision, it would only hinder and not help us.
Whenever we speak to one another of Christ, He will always be one of the company. (See Malachi 3:16). Do our hearts long for His presence? Then let us speak together of Him more.
We feed on Christ by the appropriation of Him in every character that He is presented to us.
The whole life of our blessed Lord as man is compressed into the worlds, "He humbled Himself"
"This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him." Christ is the sole authority in the kingdom.
--- E.D.
