Yesterday you thought mostly about yourself. Today the poor will
meet you, and you will feed them. The helpless, the tempted, the
sad, will throng about you, and each you will befriend. Where were
all these people yesterday? Where they are today, but you did not
see them. It is in reflected light that the poor are seen. But
your soul today is
Not at the ordinary angle.
"Things which are not seen" are visible. For a few short hours
you live the Eternal Life. The eternal life, the life of faith,
is simply the life of a higher vision. Faith is an attitude--a
mirror set at the right angle.
When tomorrow is over, and in the evening you review it, you will
wonder how you did it. You will not be conscious that you strove
for anything, or imitated anything, or crucified anything. You
will be conscious of Christ; that He was with you, that without
compulsion you were yet compelled; that without force, or noise,
or proclamation, the revolution was accomplished. You do not
congratulate yourself as one who has done a mighty deed, or achieved
a personal success, or stored up a fund of "Christian experience"
to ensure the same result again. What you are conscious of is "the
glory of the Lord." And what the world is conscious of, if the
result be a true one, is also "the glory of the Lord." In looking
at a mirror one does not see the mirror, or think of it, but only
of what it reflects. For a mirror never calls the attention to
itself--except when there are flaws in it.
Let me say a word or two more about the effects which necessarily
must follow from this contact, or fellowship, with Christ. I
need not quote the texts upon the subject--the texts about abiding
in Christ. "He that abideth in Him sinneth not." You cannot sin
when you are standing in front of Christ. You simply cannot do it.
Again: "If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall
ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." Think of that!
That is another inevitable consequence. And there is yet another:
"He that abideth in Me, the same bringeth forth much fruit."
Sinlessness--answered prayer--much fruit.
But in addition to these things, see how many of the highest Christian
virtues and experiences necessarily flow from the assumption of
that attitude towards Christ. For instance, the moment you assume
that relation to Christ you begin to know what the CHILD-SPIRIT
is. You stand before Christ, and He becomes your Teacher, and
you instinctively become docile. Then you learn also to become
CHARITABLE and TOLERANT; because you are learning of Him, and He is
"meek and lowly in heart," and you catch that spirit. That is a
bit of His character being reflected into yours. Instead of being
critical and self-asserting, you become humble and have the mind
of a little child.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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