T he divine friendship of Christ Jesus is a thing revealed to the He keeps. He who would know Him as friend, in all the depth and reality of the blessed character, must be him who has put his neck beneath the master’s yoke, and committed himself into the possessor’s custody; that blissful captivity in which the soul recognizes that it is ever the prisoner of the Lord, and rejoices to know not only that He has clasped its hand in love with a clasp that is returned, but that the two hands are chained together with the strong bond of a real, a lawful, an absolute, an acknowledged conquest and cus tody. Happy we, if we are learning what it is to move about day by day in thought, word, and act, alone, or in the circle, or in the throng, conscious that we are thus attached to thé never-sleeping keeper of the soul; really bound and not wishing to be free. But now, not for a moment leaving these facts behind, taking them with us, weaving them into all that is to follow, we pass on to the view of the divine friend. Remember, then, first, the assur ances in the Word of God of the fact that such the Lord is. “ I say unto you my friends” ; “ I call you not slaves, I call you friends.” And, in less direct but profoundly significant phrases, “ I will come unto him, and make my abode with him” ; “ I will manifest myself to him” ; “ Our fel lowship,” our share of thought, and view and sympathy, “ is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.” Remember again what these and the like Scriptures imply in the idea of the friendship of the Lord. It is an idea, not merely of patronage and benevolence on His part, as when a Christian philanthropist is said to be the friend, the best friend, of the outcast, the falling or the fallen. It is that of intimacy, or reciprocity, of holy interchange of thought and feel ing. “ I will sup with him,” as well as “ he with me” ; “We have fellow ship one with another” ; “The slave knoweth not what his lord doeth; but all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known to you.” And how closely the Lord connects this with the obedience of the faith ful soul. “Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.” “He that hath my commandments, and
keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: he will keep my words; and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” And this reminds us, if we need it, of the special character of this won derful mutual intimacy. It is the friendship of truly sympathetic per sons; capable, marvelously capable, of mutual intuitions and responses of thought and will. But then it is a case where always, and in deepest realization, one is subject, the other King; one is slave, the other Master. For we said above, that when the Lord says: “ I call you not slaves,” the absolute words have a relative bearing. In the very same conversa tion He says: “ Ye call me Lord, and ye do well, for so I am.” He prompts His loved ones to glory in the life-long title: slave of Jesus Christ. He claims the entire disposal of their lives: “What is that to thee? follow thou me.” Nevertheless, I call you not slaves, in the hard sense of mere slavery. You are slave-friends, friend-slaves. Your position is unal tered and unalterable, but your atti tude in it is divinely and blissfully modified thus, that in the depths of your recognition that you are my property, bought with a price and branded with my stigma, you are en titled, welcomed, to look into your worshiped Master’s face with eyes of true intuition into His heart, into His will, into Himself; and to welcome back, undazzled, His deep fraternal gaze into your inmost being. In the very act of claiming and taking your all in self-surrender, and of telling you all day long what to do as His conscious implements, He assures you that He knows your souls, never for a moment forgets your innermost emotions, understands you with a boundless sympathy, loves you with an indescribable affection, is not ashamed to call you brethren, tells the confessed and proclaimed slave that he is not such, but a friend. Y o u r Praye r Requests Each morning a t eight the editor ial sta ff of King 's Business m agazine gathers for prayer. Over the years God has answered the heartcry of thousands. Should you have a re quest we would count it a privilege to take it to the throne of grace. Y o u r request w ill be held in the strictest confidence. Address: Th e Editors, King's Business, 5 5 8 So. Hope St., Los Angeles 17, C a lif.
soul "which He owns, the soul which
a compelling devotional article
by H. C. G. MOULE
12
THE KING'S BUSINESS
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs