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Read these words again and again until you come under the impression of the supreme fulness of Christ. Let the Holy Spirit teach you to worship this Christ as the One in whom it dwells all the fulness of the Godhead.I may receive a purse containing very little or nothing at all, or the purse may contain many golden pounds. There is a great difference between the two! And so with us as Christians. Some I receive Christ with the forgiveness of sin and the hope of heaven, I and know little of the fulness of Christ, and all the treasure there is in Him. Other Christians are not satisfied, but sacrifice all | things, until they can say, "Of His fulness have we received, and 1 grace for grace." St. Paul said: "I count all things loss for the I: excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord." Like the 1 merchant seeking goodly pearls, when he had found the pearl of I great price, sold all that he had in order to buy it, so the Christian I who grasps something of the fulness of Christ, the fulness of love § and joy, His holiness and obedience, His utter devotion to the • Father and to mankind, that Christian gives up all, that he may be limited to this Christ. Listen to our Lords words: "These things I have I spoken unto you, that My joy might remain in you, and Ithat your joy might be full." "Your heart shall rejoice and your joy no man taketh away from you." "Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full."
Dear Reader, do you know this Christ in whom all fulness dwells? Or do you live as a pauper, depending in a great measure upon the world for joy? It is Gods will that Christ should fill all i things, even your heart and its needs. Let the Holy Spirit imprint deeply upon your heart the words of our text in all its fulness.
We are not to expect to win victories for the LORD Jesus by a single blow. Evil principles and practices die hard. In some places it takes years of labor to drive out even one of the many vices which defile the inhabitants. We must carry on the war with all our might, even when favored with little manifest success.
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 earths 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 Fathers name may be loved and adored by all his creatures—we pray daily, “Let thy kingdom come. 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 Christs 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.
Each believer should be thirsting for God, for the living God, and longing to climb the hill of the Lord, and see him face to face. We ought not to rest content in the mists of the valley when the summit of Tabor awaits us. My soul thirsteth to drink deep of the cup which is reserved for those who reach the mountains brow, and bathe their brows in heaven. How pure are the dews of the hills, how fresh is the mountain air, how rich the fare of the dwellers aloft, whose windows look into the New Jerusalem! Many saints are content to live like men in coal mines, who see not the sun; they eat dust like the serpent when they might taste the ambrosial meat of angels; they are content to wear the miners garb when they might put on kings robes; tears mar their faces when they might anoint them with celestial oil. Satisfied I am that many a believer pines in a dungeon when he might walk on the palace roof, and view the goodly land and Lebanon. Rouse thee, O believer, from thy low condition! Cast away thy sloth, thy lethargy, thy coldness, or whatever interferes with thy chaste and pure love to Christ, thy souls Husband. Make him the source, the centre, and the circumference of all thy souls range of delight. What enchants thee into such folly as to remain in a pit when thou mayst sit on a throne? Live not in the lowlands of bondage now that mountain liberty is conferred upon thee. Rest no longer satisfied with thy dwarfish attainments, but press forward to things more sublime and heavenly. Aspire to a higher, a nobler, a fuller life. Upward to heaven! Nearer to God!
I have always been glad that the Psalmist said to God that some things were hard. There is no mistake about it; there are hard things in life. Some beautiful pink flowers were given me this summer, and as I took them I said, "What are they?" And the answer came, "They are rock flowers; they grow and bloom only on rocks where you can see no soil." Then I thought of Gods flowers growing in hard places; and I feel, somehow, that He may have a peculiar tenderness for His "rock flowers" that He may not have for His lilies and roses. --Margaret Bottome
Having risen from the dead, Jesus came to the disciples and proclaimed peace. He had removed every wall of partition and joined them to Himself. He then commissioned the process of offering among those disciples. They were to be a holy priesthood, offering up spiritual sacrifices. The Last Supper, or Passover continued as they devoted themselves to prayer. The fifty day period between the sheaf of firstfruits, or resurrection, and the Day of Pentecost was referred to as a time of ‘continual devotion’. These disciples, one hundred and twenty in all, were evidently presenting their bodies as living sacrifices. They were truly embracing the morning and evening sacrifice and the aroma of their offering was ascending.
When the Day of Pentecost had ‘fully come’, they were still waiting as the morning and evening sacrifice. Long before, King David had understood this saying, ‘I will lift up my hands as the evening sacrifice’. The prophet Hosea spoke of offering the calves of our lips. This is the expression of a life wholly and continually given. We are reminded here of the lives of Dorcas and Cornelius. The Scripture accounts that their prayers and alms were ascending. This commitment to offering caused the aroma of sacrifice to ascend to the Lord and He answered them and gave them life.
The effect of the blood of the burnt offering was not particularly answering to sin. Rather, it was the expression of life poured out. We’ll recall that Jesus said at the Last Supper, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood’. When you present yourself as a living sacrifice, two expressions of offering are effective in your life. The aroma of your offering is ascending. But more than this, like Christ, you are emptying and pouring yourself out for others.
On the day of His resurrection, Jesus walked with two men on the road to Emmaus. Their hearts burned within them, but they did not recognise Him until He ‘broke bread’. During this encounter, Jesus explained many things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures, ‘beginning with Moses and with all the prophets’. Remember, they only had the Old Testament. The testimony of I AM is most certainly contained in those Old Testament Scriptures. Why did Jesus begin with Moses? Perhaps it was because Moses beheld the pattern of all heavenly things. He constructed the tabernacle of testimony, ordained the priests, and compelled the nation to make offering. And yet, the answer is more basic. Jesus began with Moses
because he was the first to receive the revelation of the name - I AM.
Moses was the first person to whom the Lord revealed Himself as Yahweh.
All references to Yahweh prior to the account of the burning bush, were inserted by Moses retrospectively when he wrote the Pentateuch; the
first five books of the Bible. The Lord Himself bears witness to this by
saying, ‘I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name, Lord [Yahweh], I did not make Myself known to them’. Before Moses’ time, the Lord appeared as El; that is, ‘God’. He was El-Shaddai, ‘God Almighty’. Moses received further revelations concerning the tabernacle, the priesthood and the offerings. He received all these revelations as a bondslave and prophet of the Lord. He was receiving the testimony of the Lord. And he was hearing ‘the counsel of God’. Indeed, the Lord does nothing ‘unless He reveals His secret counsel to His servants the prophets’. It was as Moses had prophesied concerning Jesus, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren’.
From the very beginning, it has been evident that the Lord considers our offering to represent us and the condition of our heart. When Cain and Abel brought their offerings to the Lord, the Scripture records that ‘the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard’. The Lord always considers the person and their offering. Accordingly, He said to Cain, ‘If you do well, will you not be accepted’. The apostle Paul said to the Corinthians, ‘I do not seek yours, but you’. When an Israelite brought their burnt offering to the doorway of the tabernacle, the first thing they did was to lay their hands on the head of the animal. They were testifying before the Lord and His priests that this offering represented them. It could, therefore, be accepted on their behalf. The Lord always looks at our offering this way. Accordingly, He holds us fully accountable for our offering. Our offering is only acceptable when we bring it acceptably. This is why our offering must be sanctified by the Holy Spirit. And because our offering represents us, we can be sure that the Lord will address us in a very personal way. The book of Malachi was written to a group of people who had completely forgotten this. The priesthood was corrupted and they allowed blind, lame and sick offerings to be placed upon the altar. The Lord rebuked the people by saying, ‘Offer it then to your governor! Would he be pleased with you?’ In very practical terms, sometimes we expect the Lord to look favourably upon an offering that we would never expect a secular employer to receive.
The second aspect of koinonia is the fellowship in grace. Paul considered the Philippian church to be partakers of grace with him. He wrote in his letter to the Corinthians, ‘We wish to make known to you the grace of God which has been given in the churches of Macedonia’. The Son gives each of us a measure of grace according to our name and the works prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. We receive grace to be sons of God. And we receive grace to do the works of our sonship. The apostle Paul testified, ‘By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I laboured even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me’. When we come into the koinonia of Christ, we enter a fellowship in which we discover the truth of our name. We need to be clear on who we are. This is what it means to walk in the truth. John rejoiced over Gaius, saying, ‘For I was very glad when brethren came and testified to your truth, that is, how you are walking in truth’. Evidently, Gaius was walking in the truth of his name. And accordingly, he would have been receiving an abundance of grace. When a person is walking in truth and receiving grace, they are a blessing in the place where they live. Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the Head, Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.
