In His Father's love, we are dear to God.
There is one thing which the human heart is unwilling to give away to any other and that is the exclusive love which belongs to us alone, from those that are dear to us. We cannot give it away to any unless they are so close to us that they are even as we ourselves. This is the most wonderful thing about the love of Christ. He has given away to His disciples His Father's peculiar love to Him. "That the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them" (John 17:26).
How can He give to us that sacred love which was His own supreme delight? Only because we are one with Him. In giving it to us, He is only giving it to Himself in another form. It is like the mother willing to share the love of her husband with her child who is part of her own self.
It is the strongest proof of our identity with Christ. For in no other way could He share with us that which belongs to Himself alone. In the same way, we as His disciples, can be willing that His peculiar love to us should be shared with our brethren, because they are one with us.
Well may it give boldness to our love to know that we are as dear to the Father as His beloved Son, so that Christ must perish before we can be plucked out of His hand.
We are Sanctified
In His righteousness and boldness, we are sanctified.
Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers" (Hebrews 2:11). Our sanctification is the very same as His. He said in His parting prayer, "For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified" (John 17:19).
Christ gives us His own holiness, being made unto us of God sanctification and redemption, and as He is so are we also. This should give boldness to our love. He does not expect of us any qualities that He is not willing Himself to impart. He does not chide us for our failures and imperfections, but because we do not receive more of Him.
Let us, therefore, nestle closer to His breast and throw ourselves more fully upon His all-sufficient grace.
In His mind, we are sufficient for we have the mind of Christ.
Humanity is threefold: spirit, soul and body. Christ gives us His soul and life as well as His spirit.
He thinks His thoughts in us and not only reveals to us divine
truths, but also gives us a divine capacity to understand them. It is not a similar mind but the same mind that was in Jesus that we are exhorted to possess. How it quickens the languid thought, clarifies the obscure conception, enlarges the vision of the soul, kindles the imagination and inspires every lofty and heavenly impulse to enthusiasm, until the soul takes wings and mounts up into the heights that are to others inaccessible and which are full of glory!
There is no direction in which the life of Christ may be more practical and helpful in our work for Him, than in this connection. Happy are they who have learned to say with the great apostle, "Not that we are competent to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant - not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life" (2 Corinthians 3:5-6)
Friends and Colleagues
In His plans and thoughts, we are friends and colleagues. The Master has said as the tenderest expression of His love: "I no longer call you servants, because a servant doe not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you" (John 15:15).
~A. B. Simpson~
(continued with # 25)
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