So whoever turns to the love of God in Christ, and yields in the inmost
part of his being to the power of His grace, is already "light in the
Lord." The true home and affinities of his real self are in the kingdom
of the light, and he is ready for his part in the inheritance, either
here or yonder. There is no breach of the great law, that character
makes fitness for heaven--might we not say that character makes
heaven?--for the very roots of character lie in disposition and desire,
rather than in action. Nor is there in this principle anything
inconsistent with the need for continual growth in congruity of nature
with that land of light. The light within, if it be truly there, will,
however slowly, spread, as surely as the grey of twilight brightens to
the blaze of noonday. The heart will be more and more filled with it,
and the darkness driven back more and more to brood in remote corners,
and at last will vanish utterly. True fitness will become more and more
fit. We shall grow more and more capable of God. The measure of our
capacity is the measure of our possession, and the measure in which we
have become light, is the measure of our capacity for the light. The
land was parted among the tribes of Israel according to their strength;
some had a wider, some a narrower strip of territory. So, as there are
differences in Christian character here, there will be differences in
Christian participation in the inheritance hereafter. "Star differeth
from star." Some will blaze in brighter radiance and glow with more
fervent heat because they move in orbits closer to the sun.
But, thank God, we are "fit for the inheritance," if we have ever so
humbly and poorly trusted ourselves to Jesus Christ and received His
renewing life into our spirits. Character alone fits for heaven. But
character may be in germ or in fruit. "If any man be in Christ, he _is_
a new creature." Do we trust ourselves to Him? Are we trying, with His
help, to live as children of the light? Then we need not droop or
despair by reason of evil that may still haunt our lives. Let us give it
no quarter, for it diminishes our fitness for the full possession of
God; but let it not cause our tongue to falter in "giving thanks to the
Father who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints
in light."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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