Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXIMaclaren, Alexander
Religion
Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI
Maclaren, Alexander
Bible. John -- Commentaries
It is peace, if we have it at all, _in Him_. Now you remember how
emphatically and loftily, as one of the very key-notes of these
discourses, our Lord has spoken to us, in them, of 'dwelling in Him' as
the prerogative and the duty of every Christian. We are in Him as in an
atmosphere. In Him our true lives are rooted as a tree in the soil. We
are in Him as a branch in the vine, in Him as the members in a body, in
Him as the residents in a house. We are in Him by simple faith, by the
trust that rests all upon Him, by the love that finds all in Him, by
the obedience that does all for Him. And it is only when we are 'in
Christ' that we rest, and realise peace. All else brings distraction.
Even delights trouble. The world may give excitement, the world may
give vulgar and fleeting joys, the world may give stimulus to much that
is good and true in us, but there is only one thing that gives peace,
and that is that our hearts should dwell in the Fortress, and should
ever be surrounded by Jesus Christ. Brother! let nothing tempt us down
from the heights, and out from the citadel where alone we are at rest;
but in the midst of all the pressing duties, the absorbing cares, the
carking anxieties, the seducing temptations of the world, and in the
presence of all the necessity for noble conflict which the world brings
to every man that is not its slave, let us try to keep the roots of our
lives in contact with that soil from which they draw all their
nourishment, and to wrap ourselves round with the life of Jesus Christ,
which shall make an impenetrable shield between us and 'the fiery darts
of the wicked.' Keep on the lee side of the breakwater and your little
cock-boat will ride out the gale. Keep Christ between you and the
hurtling storm, and there will be a quiet place below the wall where
you may rest, hearing not the loud winds when they call. 'These things
have I spoken that in Me ye might have peace.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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