Christ Within

Hrist does not offer to be simply an occasional shower of blessings to the faithful believer. He promises to be a living well, “The water that I give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” The deepest and the most urgent wants of the heart He promises to satisfy.

In true conversion Christ enters the soul. This is the very essence and touchstone of conversion. With Him comes light; with Him comes love; with Him comes peace. The radical change of heart in conversion is just as truly a supernatural work as was the resurrection of Lazarus from the cave in Bethany. Christ, then, enters the soul, not as a transient visitor, but as an abiding guest While He abides there He gives perennial life and beauty and strength to the believer. “Because I live, ye shall live also.” “Yet not I,” said the happy, hale-hearted apostle, “but Christ that liveth in me” And that was the reason why Paul remained a Christian (a Christ’s-man) long after the first excitement of the scene at Damascus had passed away. A well was opened in Paul’s heart that day, and its deep, cool, living waters never ran dry. Men could always predict wovi oi m any emergency, because the principle that ruled him was always the same, “The love of Christ constraineth me.” “For me, to live is Christ’ The only reason why any good man continues to be a good man is that the well-spring in his soul never runs dry. Reckless, slave-hunting John Newton ceases to swear and scoflf, and begins to pray. Twenty years later, John Newton is still praying, still preaching, still overflowing in beneficence among the haunts of busy London; and solely because the Lord Jesus dwelt in him, a soiu-ce of holy affections, and an inspirer of noble and godly actions. On Sunday he preached to rich bankers and titled ladies. On a week-day evening he would sit on a three-legged stood, in his blue sailor jacket, and open up his rich experiences and wise counsels to the poorest who came to visit him.” “I was a wild beast on the coast of Africa once,” he used to say; “but the Lord Jesus caught me and tamed me, and now people come to see me as they would go to look at the lions in the Tower.” What people came to see and to hear and to love in the sturdy sailor-preacher was the Christ who dwelt within John Newton.

Here is the secret of Christian perseverance. Wesleyans and Calvinists alike agree in this, that a true Christian holds out for no other reason than that Christ holds out. The Fountain-head of all holy affections and all generous deeds and all heroic, self-denying endurances, is down deep in the man’s heart; because Chnst lives, he lives also. You exs. yo lspiQ>.^ exhaust the graces of a John Wesley, or an Oberlin, or a Chalmers, than you can pump the Thames dry at London Bridge. What a transcendent idea that is in PauFs prayer for his brethren: That ye might be filled with all the fulness of God!’^ When, therefore, we meet with a man or woman who almost never disappoints us; who is always “abounding” in the work of the Lord; who serves God on every day as well as the Sunday; who is more anxious to be right than to be rich; and who can ask God’s blessing on the bitterest cup; when we meet such a one, we know that down in the clefts of the soul is Christ, the well-spring.

In a thousand ways will the inward fountain of Christian principle make itself visible. We see it in the merchant who gives Christ the key of his safe, and never soils it with a single dirty shilling. We see it in the statesman who cares more to win God’s smile on his conscience than a re-election to office. We recognize it in the minister who is more greedy for souls than for salary. We see it in the young man who would rather endure a comrade’s laugh than his Saviour’s frown; in the maiden who obe)rs Christ sooner than fashion. I sometimes detect this well-spring of cheerful piety in the patient mother, whose daily walk with God is a fount of holy influence amid her household. I know of poor men’s dwellings in which grows a plant of contentment that is an exotic rarely found in marble mansions. Its leaves are green and glossy; it is fed from the WelL In dying chambers we have often heard this spiritual fountain playing, and its murmur was as musical as the tinkle of a brook

“In the leafy month of June.”

Perfect love had cast out fear. Peace reigned Joys sparkled in the sunlight of God’s countenance. There was a well there which death could not dry — the “well of water springing up into everlasting life.” Bonar, the sweet singer of Scotland, has rhymed this thought into beautiful metre:

“I heard the voice of Jesus say:

* Behold, I freely give
The living water; thirsty one!

Stoop down and drink, and live.’
I came to Jesus, and I drank

Of that life-giving stream.
My thirst was quenched, my soul revived.

And now I live in Him.”