W e need to lay beneath all the restful views of Christ, and to weave as a thread of strength and truth into them all, the thought, the fact that He is the Master, the Master of a veritable slave, and that slave here, now, always, everywhere, myself. True, there are texts in which the Lord and His apostles waive this idea for a special purpose. “ I call you not servants . . . but . . . friends,” “Thou art no more a servant, but a son.” But a little more attention shows that we have in such sentences, as often in Scripture, one side of truth iso lated and spoken of absolutely, while yet other sides hold good. He who calls His followers friends, says on the same occasion that they do well to call Him Lord. And soon He deals with them as Lord indeed: “ If I will that he tarry till J come, what is that to thee?” And the apostle who bids the believer repudiate in one respect the idea of bondage, clasps it in an other to his inmost soul: “ Paul, the slave of Jesus Christ” ; “Whose I am” ; “ Enslaved to God.” Thus the idea is a permanent one, so permanent that it is carried on into the eternal state: “His bond-servants shall serve Him, and they shall see His face.” And what I deeply feel and would earnestly enforce with regard to this idea, is that it is an idea precisely fit to give safety and solidity to every tenderer one. Fail to recognize it to the full, fail of an unreserved and habitual recognition that this is my despotic Master, a recognition carried into the inner habit of everyday thought and pur pose, and there will be in every other aspect of Jesus Christ to me a some thing out of order, a lack of fixity, a lack of rest. His Property. Every Moment Let me look, then, every day and hour, and, as to the mental habit, every moment, upon Jesus Christ as my Master. Saintly George Herbert chose that to be, as it were, his best- beloved aspect o f His Saviour: “My Master, Jesus” ; “ An oriental fragrant cy, my Master.” Let me do the same. Let me wear the word next the heart, next the w ill; nay, let it sink into the very springs of both, deeper every day. Let me get up every morning with this for the instantaneous thought, that my Master wakes me. I wake, I rise, His property. Before I go out
The Divine Master
By
H. C. G. Moule
From "Christ and Sanctification," Pickering and Inglis Ltd., London. American agents, Fleming H. Revell Co., N.Y.
THE KING'S BUSINESS
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