October 1927
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
617
The
Indwelling Christ N English sportsman—a Christian man—was resting on the desert sands in the Sudan in the heat of the day. He felt someone touch him. Turning, he saw an old Arab. “Do you know Jesus?” the old man asked. “Y e s, I know H i m,” was the reply. “Well,” said the man, “is He coming soon?” “I do
the thing before which every ambition of man is folly, and all lower achievement vain.” It is certain that the very purpose for which believers are redeemed and called is that they should be “conformed to the image of His Son" (Rom. 8:29). We may listen for days to messages on “the victorious life” ; we may clutter our minds with complicated theories of “identification” and agonize for hours in Search of a “baptism of the Holy Ghost,” but have we gotten down to the simple truth that Jesus Christ wants to live His life in us? Can we say with Paul: “For me to live is Christ”? Is the love of Him the moving spring of our lives? Are we ready to take Him into everything? Are we ready to have our emptiness filled? Are we ready to have Him shift the center of things from ourselves to HIMSELF? It is a’ life to be lived “by the faith of the Son of God.” Too often faith begins by desiring a blessing rather than Christ HIMSELF. It should end with de siring HIM more than all besides, and with losing self utterly in the love of Him. We cannot love Him and disregard the words which He spoke while here upon earth, and which He declared to be the very foundations of Christian character (Matt. 7:24). We must ponder His words continually and draw from Christ HIMSELF the power to obey them. What a responsibility is this for mortal creatures! We may be girded with His own strength for whatever He has for us to do. Then shall others be able to say of us what was said by an unknown poet of a Christian friend:
not know.” “Is He coming in a few months—or next year?” pressed the sheik. “God only knows—I do not: but I know He is coming again.” Said the man, “I want you to tell me what He is like, so that if He should pass me in the desert I may recognize His face and be able to welcome Him.” This is the question that men are still asking—“What is Jesus like?” and God has decreed that our method of informing men what He is like shall be to show them what He can make us like. It requires, first of all, that we shall know something of what He is like as He is revealed in the Scriptures. It means also that He must possess us by His Representative, the Holy Spirit, and live His own life in us. Our Lord has “left us an example, that we should follow in His steps” (1 Pet. 2:21). The Apostle John declares that “He that saith he abideth in Him ought him self also to walk, even as He walked” (1 Jn. 2 :6). Many have vainly sought to imitate Him, not realizing that His was a supernatural life and float there is no copying of Christ until Christ Himself is “formed in them” (Gal. 4:19). “I live ” said Paul, “yet not I, but Christ liveth in m e : and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith o f the Son of God, who loved me and'gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). The apostle’s prayer for all his converts was that “He would grant them according to the riches of His Glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in their hearts by faith” (Eph. 3:16-17). If our Lord has not only given us the precepts and example of this divine life, but has actually made it avail able to us by promising to impart enabling power to repro duce it, just to the extent to which a saved person is yielded to Him, then what excuse have we for living the low-level Christian life which completely misrepresents Him to the world ? If we do not live the resurrection life in Christ, we shall never be able to convince anyone that Christ is “the resurrection and the life.” A living Christ in a living man is a living sermon. Skeptics may find arguments against every point of the Christian creed, but they are helpless to find an argument against a Christlike life. The one thing that God blesses and uses above everything else in a Christian—is not great talent—not great benevolence—but great likeness to Jesus. Professor Drummond once said: “To become Christ like is the only thing in the whole world worth caring fo r;
“Not merely in the words, you say, Not only in your deeds confessed, But in the most unconscious way Is Christ expressed. “Is it a beatific smile ? A holy light upon your brow? Oh, no: I felt His presence while You laughed just now. “For me ’twas not the truth you taught, To you so clear, to me still dim, But when you came you brought A sense of Him. “And from your eyes He beckons me, And from your heart His love is shed, Till I lose sight of you—and see The Christ instead.”
Going to Have a New Bible, Folks ! « "V \7 E want a Bible.” It is H. G. Wells who says so, VV and but for the widespread influence he has, we would not give space to the consideration of the sugges tion. It is not the old Bible that Mr. Wells wants. He thinks we should have an altogether new one, as a help in “sal vaging civilisation.” He believes that civilization is in a precarious, state. He sees dangerous tendencies at work which will destroy society unless a means of control be found.
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