Quiet Talks on Following the ChristGordon, S. D. (Samuel Dickey)
Religion
Quiet Talks on Following the Christ
Gordon, S. D. (Samuel Dickey)
Christian life; Devotional literature
Then He spoke another word to the innermost circle, on the night in which
He was betrayed. He had a long talk that evening with the eleven around
the supper table, and walking down to the grove of olives at the Brook of
the Cedars.[31] Several times that evening He used this new word, "abide,"
"abide in Me." That means staying with Him, not leaving, living
continuously with Him. It means a continued separation from anything that
would separate from Him. And then it means a fulness of life coming from
Himself into us as we draw all our life from Himself, a rich ripeness, a
rounded maturity, a depth of life, and these always becoming
more,--richer, rounder, deeper.
Then after the awful days of the cross were past, on the evening of the
resurrection day, in the upper room with ten of the inner disciples, He
practically said, "You be Myself"; "as the Father sent Me, even so send I
you"[32]; "You be I." I wonder if any one of us has ever been taken or
mistaken for the Lord Jesus. We would never know it, of course. But He
meant it to be so.
A Scottish lady missionary in India tells of a Bible class of girls which
she had. She was teaching them about the life and character of the
Lord Jesus. One day a new girl came in, fresh from the heathenism in
which she grew up, knowing nothing of the Gospel. She listened, and then
became quite intense and excited in her childish way, as she heard them
talking about some One, how good He was, how gentle, how He was always
teaching and helping the people around Him. At last she could restrain her
eagerness no longer, but blurted out, "I know that man; he lives near us."
It was found that she did not know about Christ, but supposed they were
speaking of a very earnest native Christian man living in her
neighbourhood. She had mistaken her neighbour for Jesus. How glad that man
must have been if he ever knew. This was a part of our Lord's plan.
And at the very end, these successive invitations took the shape of a
command, which was both a permission and an order,--"Go ye."[33] Men who
had taken to heart, one after another, these invitations were ready for
the command. They would be eager for it. The invitations were the Master's
preparation for the command. He could trust such men to go, and to keep
steady and true as they went, in the power He gave them. There is one word
that you find in all these invitations--"Me." They all centre about the
Lord Jesus. He is the centre of gravity drawing every one, in ever growing
nearness and meaning, to Himself. It is only when we have been drawn into
closest touch with Him that we are qualified to "go" to others. It's only
Himself in us, only as much of Himself as is in us, that will be helpful
to any one else, or will make any one else willing to break with his old
way. He is the only magnet to draw men away from the old life up to
Himself.
"Follow Me."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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