Who Art Thou?
“Set your mind on the things that are above,... for ye died and your life is hid with Christ in God.” — Col. iii. 2, 3. R. V.
In entering into God’s presence in the morning hour much depends upon the Christian realising not only who God is, but Who He Himself Is, and what the relation in which he stands to God. To the question” Who art thou? ‘’ which is asked, not in words but in spirit, of each one who claims right of access and an audience from the Most High, there must be an answer ready in his inmost consciousness; that consciousness must be nothing less than a living sense of the place he has in Christ before God. The mode of expressing it may differ at different times, in substance it will always be the same.
Who am I? yes, let me think and say, who, I am who now come to ask that God shall meet me here, shall spend this whole day with me? I am one who knows, by the word and Spirit of God, that.X,amin-.Chxist, and that my life is hid with Christ in God. In Christ I died to sin and the world. I am now taken out of them, separated from them, and delivered from their power. I have been raised together with Christ and in Him
I live unto God. My life is hid with Christ in God and I come to God to. claim and obtain all Divine life that is hidden away in Him for to-days need and supply.
Yes, this is who I am, I say it to God in humble, holy reverence, as my plea. I say it to myself to encourage others, as well as myself, to seek and expect nothing less — grace to live out, here on earth, the hidden life of heaven. I am one whP longs to say, who does say, Christ is my life. The longing of my soul is for Christ, revealed by the Father Himself within the heart. Nothing less can satisfy me. My life is hid with Christ. He can be my life n other way than as He is in my heart. Ye§! with nothing less can I be content than Christ in the heart. Christ is a Saviour from sin. Christ as the gift and bringer of God’s love. Christ as an indwelling Friend and Lord.
Oh! my God! if Thou dost ask, “Who art thou? ‘^ listen to my stammering: I live in Christ and Christ in me. Thou alone canst make me know and be all it means.
There is more I shall have to say, as my plea for the grace of God’s presence and power all the day. I come as one who desires, who seeks, to be prepared to live out the life of Christ to-day on earth, to translate His hidden heavenly glory, into the language of daily life, vtdth its dispositions and its duties. As the Christ on earth lived only to do the will of God, it is my great desire to stand perfect and complete in all His will. My ignorance of that will, in all its spiritual applica- %
tion to intercourse with the world and men, is very /^fiA^^i^X
great. My impotence is still greater. And yet I
come to God as one who dare not offer less or seek
any compromise, as one who in all honesty accepts
the high calling of living out fully the will of
God in all things.
It is this brings me to the closet. As I think of aiFmy failures in fulfilling God’s will, as I look forward to all the temptations and dangers that await me, as I feel my entire insufficiency and yet say to God — I come to claim the life hid in Christ, that I may live the life for Christ; I feel urged and drawn not to be content without the quiet assurance that God will go with me and bless me.
Who am I that I should ask these great and wonderful things of God?
May I indeed expect to live the life hid with Christ in God, so as to make it manifest in my mortal body? I may; for it is God Himself will work it in me by the Holy Spirit dwelling in me. The same God who raised Christ from the dead, and then set Him at His right hand, has raised me with Him and given me the Spirit of the glory of His Son in my heart. AJife iit Christy given up to know and do all Gods will, is the life God Himself will work and maintain increasingly in me by the Holy Spirit. And when I come in the morning and present myself before Him to take up afresh the life He has hidden in Himself for me, where His Son is hidden, and live it out in the flesh, I can wait confidently and quietly, as one in whom the Spirit dwells, for the Father to give the fresh anointing that teacheth all things, and Himself to take charge of the new day He has given me.
My brother, I am sure you feel of what infinite importance it is, if the morning hour is to secure God’s presence for the day, that you take firm stand on nothing less than the ground of a full redemption. Believe what God says to you. Accept what God has bestowed on you in Christ. Be consciously and openly what God has made you to be. Take time before God to know it and say it. How much in a battle depends upon an impregnable position. Take your place Where God Has Placed You.
The very attempt to do this, may at times interfere with your ordinary Bible study, or prayer. It will be no loss. It will be fully recompensed later. Your life depends upon knowing who your God is, AND Who You Are as His Redeemed One IN Christ. The life of every day depends on it; when once you have learned the secret, it will, even when you do not think of it, be the strength of your heart, both in going in to God, and going out with Him to the world.