The Increasing Christ
“He leads us on Through all the unquiet years; Past all our dreamland hopes and doubts and fears He guides our steps; through all the tangled maze Of sin, of sorrow, and o’er-clouded days,
We know his will is done,
And still he leads us on.”
It is a joyful day when one finds Christ. But the truest coming to him is only the beginning of an acquaintance with Christ. Even in human friendships the beginning shows but a little of what comes out in the familiar intercourse of after years. The friend of to-day who is so much to us, whose character appears so noble, so worthy, whose personality is so rich, so charming, whose life is so strong in its influence and so faithful in its ministry, is not the friend we saw at the first meeting.
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He has been changing continually, growing in winningness, in helpfulness, more and more of the worthy things in him being revealed, as we learned to know him better.
The same is true of friendship with Christ. If we are faithful as disciples, the Christ of each new day will be different from the Christ of the day before. Then at the end of the longest life we shall find that we have only begun to know Christ.
This is true of our knowledge of the character of Christ. The mother tells her baby about Jesus, puts his name into its mind and heart earliest of all names. The little child soon learns something about him, — that he is good and gentle, that he loves children, that he died for sinners, that he safely keeps all little ones who trust in him. Sweet, indeed, is the child’s thought of Christ, but it is very little that the child knows of him. Its conception of him is dim and vague, only a child’s thought. But the study of the Master’s char acter goes on as the child becomes a man or a woman, ever eager to learn more and more of him. Every day brings its surprises of new revealing.
Christ is an exhaustless study. Every line in the Gospels reveals some new glimpse of beauty in him. Every sentence flashes some new revealing of loveliness in him. In Christ dwells all the fulness of the Godhead, all that God is. To know Christ, therefore, is to know God. In him is also full and complete manhood, all that God meant man to be, all the possibilities of humanity. What a boundless field of knowledge this is! All the Bible, all history, all science, all art, all nature, is full of the outshinings of Christ. The great business of our life should be to know him, to get acquainted with him.
It is a shame if, with these wonderful books spread open before our eyes, every page glowing with the rich treasures of the knowledge of Christ, we give our chief time, thought, and study to the mere trifles of earthly life. It is a shame if Christ is not ever changing to our thought, ever increasing in the beauty and glory of his character. It is a pity if we have the same Christ year after year, with no new revealings of loveliness. If we make it the aim of our life to know Christ, every day will have its fresh disclosures of him.
Then Christ should grow constantly in the mastership of our life. “He must increase,” said John the Baptist, “but I must decrease.” From that day Jesus became ever greater, and John grew less and less, until the Baptist’s light faded like the beams of the morning star in the glory of the rising sun. The saintly French preacher, Monod, tells us how at first his heart’s answer to Christ was, “All of self and none of thee.” At length he caught a glimpse of the Saviour on the cross, hearing his voice of tender, patient pleading. Then his wistful heart said faintly, under the new influence, “Some of self and some of thee.” The work of grace went on, day by day, bringing him lower and lower in humility, until at length his longing was, “Less of self and more of thee.” Still the work was not finished, nor did it rest until the petition became, at length, “None of self and all of thee.”
This should be the final outcome of every Christian’s experience. Usually the heart’s full surrender to Christ is reached in just this way — not suddenly, in a moment, but gradually, through a series of experiences. Little by little Christ wins the mastery over us, gaining something each day. The old nature yields slowly, — it is the work of years to bring the whole being into subjection to Christ. Yet he must increase, and the old life must decrease, until it is, “None of self and all of thee.” Christ must reign in each life until he has put all things under his feet.
The words of Christ also mean more and more as the new life goes on. The young Christian at first may not see great beauty nor find great help in the Bible. This may be to him also a cause of anxiety; he may think that something is wrong because he cannot find in the Bible all the things other persons have found in it. The Bible is a book which discloses its meaning of comfort and helpfulness gradually, and only as we come to experiences in which the special revealing is needed.
Every day of life brings us to some new sense of need, and then the Scripture word comes with its blessing. When Jesus met the tempter, his Father’s word — just the right word — came with its revealing of light and truth, and the battle was won. Thousands of times since, when Christ’s disciples have been on temptation’s battle-fields, have the holy words of inspiration come with their cheer and strength. When life’s first great sorrow is met the Christian finds almost a new Bible; countless verses, which he had read repeatedly before, without seeing any special beauty in them, or finding any particular help, now disclose rich divine comfort.
Robert Louis Stevenson says, “The dearest friends are the auldest friends; the young are just on trial.” A friend must be tried and proved before we can take him into our life, and give him our fullest confidence. We often hear persons in some sore trial say, “I never knew I had so many friends until my trouble came.” We can learn friendship’s holiest and best only in time of need.
THE INCREASING CHRIST. J
Human friendships ofttimes fail for years to realize their richest possibilities, because there has been nothing to test their faithfulness or bring out their best. All this while they are only surface friendships, sincere and true, but not deep. Then some experience conies which demands the utmost that friendship can do in the way of service and sacrifice. The ordeal is past, the test has been made, friendship has not failed; it has kept nothing back in the time of need. And now the friendship grows to its holiest and best. It is no longer a mere surface attachment; heart has become knit to heart, life and life have blended in one.
It is thus also with the friendship of Christ. Many Christians go on for years with only a surface attachment for him. It is no fault of theirs, perhaps. There has been nothing in their life to compel them into closer relation with Christ. They believe in him as their Saviour, they take his promises and lean on them, they accept his commandments as the law of their life and obey them; but they have never learned to know Christ as their personal friend.
By and by something happens which compels them to trust him in the darkness, — to trust everything to him. In the deep need, the sore stress, or the great sorrow, when the friendship of Christ is put to the proof, it does not fail. After that Christ means more to the heart than he ever meant before. He becomes a friend as well as a Saviour. His love flows about them and fills their heart. They have really found Christ anew — have found a new Christ.
We dread the hard things in life, — the burdens, the crosses, the responsibilities, the loss of earthly good, the pinching times, the struggles, the sorrows; but really, if we are Christians, these are life’s best things, because they become revealers of spiritual blessing. The Beatitudes illustrate this. “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst; “” Blessed are they that mourn; V “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.” The world would never write beatitudes for such experiences as these. It puts these experiences down among the misfortunes of life. What is the Christian secret of blessing in these ways? It is not that tears and hunger and reviling are good in themselves, but that they bring us to points in life where we find spiritual food. As night reveals the stars, so do these experiences reveal the divine meanings of the words of Scripture; and as through our necessities we discover the golden qualities of our human friendships, so through the sterner and harder things of life we find the richest blessings of the friendship of Christ.