“Fellowship with Him.” – 1 John 1:6.
💐 WHEN we were united by faith to Christ, we were brought into such complete fellowship with Him, that we were made one with Him, and His interests and ours became mutual and identical.
💐 We have fellowship with Christ in His love. What He loves we love. He loves the saints – so do we. He loves sinners – so do we. He loves the poor perishing race of man, and pants to see earth’s deserts transformed into the garden of the Lord – so do we.
💐 We have fellowship with Him in His desires. He desires the glory of God – we also labour for the same. He desires that the saints may be with Him where He is – we desire to be with Him there too. He desires to drive out sin – behold we fight under His banner.
💐 He desires that His Father’s name may be loved and adored by all His creatures – we pray daily, “Let Thy kingdom come and Thy will be done on earth, even as it is in heaven.”
💐 We have fellowship with Christ in His sufferings. We are not nailed to the cross, nor do we die a cruel death, but when He is reproached, we are reproached; and a very sweet thing it is to be blamed for His sake, to be despised for following the Master, to have the world against us. The disciple should not be above His Lord.
💐 In our measure we commune with Him in His labours, ministering to men by the word of truth and by deeds of love. Our meat and our drink, like His, is to do the will of Him who hath sent us and to finish His work.
💐 We have also fellowship with Christ in His joys. We are happy in His happiness, we rejoice in His exaltation.
💐 Have you ever tasted that joy, believer? There is no purer or more thrilling delight to be known this side heaven than that of having Christ’s joy fulfilled in us, that our joy may be full.
💐 His glory awaits us to complete our fellowship, for His Church shall sit with him upon His throne, as His well-beloved bride and queen.
-C.H.Spurgeon.
💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖
Meyer Notes:
By a quick turn of thought, Paul passes from the idea of the fleshly tablets of the heart, where God writes His new name, to the Law graven on the ancient tables of stone, and to the Lawgiver, stern and veiled. He argues that if the glory which shone on the face of Moses was so beautiful, surely that of the gospel must be transcendently so. The one is transient, the other abiding; the one is reflected, the other direct.
Not only was Moses veiled, but the hearts of the Jews were covered with a thick covering of prejudice. They did not understand the inner significance of the Levitical Code; and when the Law was read, they listened to it without spiritual insight.
Directly men turn to Christ, they see the inner meaning of Scripture. What liberty becomes ours when we live in Christ! We are free to love, to serve, to know, and to be. Note 2 Corinthians 3:18!
We may gaze on the unveiled face of God in Christ. The more we look the more we resemble. The more we endeavor to reflect Him, in doing what He desires, the more certainly and inevitably we become like Him. Only remember that in all things we are deeply indebted to the gracious influence of the Spirit. He produces the Christ-life in us.
Seeing Father in all Situations:
Meyer notes:
The cup probably referred to the anguish caused to His holy nature in being numbered with the transgressors, and bearing the sin of many. There was much in it from which His spirit recoiled, but He chose to do the will of God, however the flesh might start and shrink.
Let us ever take the cups of life’s pain and sorrow direct from the hand of God, not seeing Judas, but the Father.
Joseph told his brethren that it was not they who had sent him to Egypt, but God. David would not have Shimei silenced, because he felt that God had allowed him to utter his anathema. Here our Lord reposes absolutely on the Father, who loved Him before the world was made.
“The upright love Thee” – Song of Solomon 1:4
BELIEVERS love Jesus with a deeper affection then they dare to give to any other being. They would sooner lose father and mother then part with Christ.
They hold all earthly comforts with a loose hand, but they carry Him fast locked in their bosoms. They voluntarily deny themselves for His sake, but they are not to be driven to deny Him.
It is scant love which the fire of persecution can dry up; the true believer’s love is a deeper stream than this. Men have laboured to divide the faithful from their Master, but their attempts have been fruitless in every age. Neither crowns of honour, now frowns of anger, have untied this more than Gordian knot.
This is no every-day attachment which the world’s power may at length dissolve. Neither man nor devil have found a key which opens this lock. Never has the craft of Satan been more at fault than when he has exercised it in seeking to rend in sunder this union of two divinely welded hearts. It is written, and nothing can blot out the sentence, “The upright love Thee.”
The intensity of the love of the upright, however, is not so much to be judged by what it appears as by what the upright long for. It is our daily lament that we cannot love enough. Would that our hearts were capable of holding more, and reaching further.
Like Samuel Rutherford, we sigh and cry, “Oh, for as much love as would go round about the earth, and over heaven – yea, the heaven of heavens, and ten thousand worlds – that I might let all out upon fair, fair, only fair Christ.” Alas! our longest reach is but a span of love, and our affection is but as a drop of a bucket compared with His deserts. Measure our love by our intentions, and it is high indeed; ’tis thus, we trust, our Lord doth judge of it. Oh, that we could give all the love in all hearts in one great mass, a gathering together of all loves to Him who is altogether lovely!
Search the Scriptures 