The apostle's prayer (Eph. i. 15-22) demonstrates how fully he, by the Holy Ghost, entered into the difficulty with which the Church would ever have to contend, in seeking to apprehend "the hope of _God's calling_, and the riches of the glory of _his_ inheritance in the saints;" because, evidently, if we fail to apprehend the calling, we cannot "walk worthy" thereof. I must know where I am called to go, before I can go thither. Had Abraham's soul been fully under the power of the truth that "God's calling" was to Canaan, and that there, too, lay "his inheritance," he could not have remained in Charran. And so with us. If we are led by the Holy Ghost into the understanding of the truth, that we are called with a heavenly calling; that our home, our portion, our hope, our inheritance, are all above, "where Christ sitteth at God's right hand," we could never be satisfied to maintain a standing, seek a name, or lay up an inheritance, on the earth. The two things are incompatible: this is the true way to look at the matter. The heavenly calling is not an empty dogma, a powerless theory, nor a crude speculation. It is either a divine reality, or it is absolutely nothing. Was Abraham's call to Canaan a speculation? Was it a mere theory about which he might talk or argue, while, at the same time, he continued in Charran? Assuredly not. It was a truth, a divine truth, a powerfully practical truth. He was called to Canaan, and God could not possibly sanction his stopping short thereof. Thus it was with Abraham, and thus it is with us. If we would enjoy the divine sanction and the divine presence, we must be seeking by faith to act upon the divine call. That is to say, we must seek to reach, in experience, in practice, and moral character, the point to which God has called us, and that point is full fellowship with his own Son,--fellowship with him in his rejection below, fellowship with him in his acceptance above. But, as in Abraham's case, it was death that broke the link by which nature bound him to Charran; so, in our case, it is death which breaks the link by which nature ties us down to this present world. We must realize the truth that we have died in Christ, our Head and Representative,--that our place in nature and in the world is amongst the things that were,--that the cross of Christ is to us what the Red Sea was to Israel, namely, that which separates us forever from the land of death and judgment. Thus only shall we be able to walk, in any measure, "worthy of the calling wherewith we are called,"--our high, our holy, our heavenly calling,--our "calling of God in Christ Jesus."