The Great Companion and His House

‘* That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.” EPH. iii. 17. Tue Lord dwelleth not in temples made with hands. These are homeless places, even though they may have the strength and beauty of great cathedrals. We may build these wonderful piles, and we may embellish them with all manner of architectural graces, but, if this is all, “‘ the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head.” The wonderful building may be empty. And yet the heart of some poor body, living in one of the miserable little houses which so often huddle around our Cathedrals, may be a favoured spot in which all heaven is interested, for it may be all ablaze with the grace and glory of the Lord. The material surroundings matter nothing. Christ was born in a manger; He was cradled in Nazareth, and His Spirit still visits lowly conditions, and He seeks a dwelling-place in the hearts that dwell within. He makes His home in the warm and genial intimacies of the soul.

But now let us examine this word, ‘“‘ dwell,”’ and let us get at its vital significance. There is a very great difference between visiting a place and living in it. It is one thing to have a week-end in the Lake district, it is quite another thing to live there all the year round. It is one thing to offer someone “a bed for the night”; it is a very different matter to offer him a home for the rest of his life. Now Christ wants to dwell in our hearts, to settle down there, and live day and night, and all the year through, at the very centre of our life, near the very springs of all its actions and dreams. And what do we do with Him? We entertain Him for a single meal. We allow Him to pay us a visit. We give Him a lodging for the night. Yes, perhaps we put up with Him for a week-end — a Saturday till Monday visit — but on the Monday He must go. We don’t arrange for Him to settle down and live with us.

All of which means that we are religious by fits and starts. Our piety is a thing of bits and fragments. There is no continuity in our devotion. There is no settled purpose. There is no deep and unbroken communion. We have a sort of nodding acquaintance with the Lord, in a certain way we are familiar with His name, but we have no knowledge of that prolonged and vital fellowship which knits days and nights together, and which makes the weeks like moments in the year. In such broken religion there is no constancy of faith, there is no fine consistency of motive, there is no ceaseless interflow of noble affection. Things come and go. We let Christ in now and again, but we do not live with Him.

But He is wanting to dwell with us: ‘““Abide in Me, and I in you.” He wants to come into our hearts, and never go out again. And what is this heart which He seeks as His home? I do not offer any merely metaphysical or theological interpretation of it. We know perfectly well what it means to live in somebody’s heart, and we know perfectly well what it means for somebody to live in ours. When we live in anyone’s heart it means that we are taken into the interior room of their life. We have all the privileges of “‘ the living-room” in their house. It is the room where life moves in perfect freedom. We put off our “calling coat,” and we put on our lounge coat. Everything that is stiffly ceremonial is laid aside. Intercourse is born and proceeds without any formal checks. The imports and exports of communion move in perfect freedom of trade. And then secret things come out and play. Free thought has free expression, — and love flows abundantly without being conscious that it is flowing at all. This is life in the living-room. It is life in Liberty Hall.

And it is just there, in that inner room, that our Lord wants to dwell. He wants to be taken into our intimacies. He wants to be one with us in our privacies and simplicities. He wants to have a vital share in all the deep primary impulses which are the creative forces of our outer life. All this is what the Lord is seeking. But we keep Him out of the living-room. We offer Him the more formal room of our ceremonies, our cold rituals, our stiff conventions, our stated worship. We engage Him for our solemn moments, but we keep Him out of our mirth. We pay Him courtesies, but we don’t play with Him. We have grave words with Him now and again, but we do not talk freely with Him at the fireside, and in the intercourse find that life’s water flows like wine. And all the time He wants to dwell with us.

How do we make our hearts a dwelling-SS St 120 The Great Companion and his House

place for the Lord? What is our part in the creation of the intimacy? What is the first thing to do? The first thing to do is to open the door, and that is an act of will, And then what? “I will come in.” Is that sure? As sure as morning follows night! “Well, I will just put the room a bit in order and then I’ll lift the latch and let Him in!” Nay, but that is a deadly mistake. That is seeking salvation by works. It is trying to do the Saviour’s work, and before we let the Saviour in, If we can prepare our hearts for Him we can really do without Him. The gospel of grace is this — we must open the door upon our neglected and disorderly room, with all its marks of riot and rebellion. And the great Guest Himself will take control. He will prepare the room for His own habitation. And our part is what? To let Him do it!

There is, I think, a classical usage of the word which is translated “dwell,” and it means to govern, or to administer. This may not be in the New Testament content of the word, but it is certainly in the New Testament gospel. When we let the great Friend into our life He begins to administer our affairs. The Guest becomes the Housekeeper, and He arranges things which are beyond both our strength and understanding. And what again is our part? To let Him do it! To hand everything over to Him in deep, quiet, constant trust. It is ours to surrender the living-room to the Lord. And when I have done that I shall be able to say with the Apostle Paul, ‘“‘I live, yet not I, Christ liveth in me.”’