Chapter 2, Part 1 The Scripturalness of This Life

Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. (Col. 3:2-3)

There is a secret that must be told! This secret is about the true Christian life, that life which is hid with Christ in God. Every child of God longs, even pines for this life, but often it seems to elude our grasp.

We all long for victory and rest in Christ. Can you remember the shout of triumph your soul gave when you first became acquainted with the Lord Jesus, and had a glimpse of His mighty saving power? How sure you were of victory then! How easy it seemed, to be more than conquerors, through Him that loved you. How could you possibly dream of defeat at that moment? And yet, our real experiences have been quite different. The victories have been but few and fleeting, the defeats many and disastrous. You have not lived as you feel children of God ought to live.

There has been rejoicing in the knowledge of things testified of in the Scriptures, without a living realization of the things themselves, consciously felt in the soul. Christ is believed in, talked about, and served, but He is not known as the soul's actual and very life, abiding there forever, and revealing Himself there continually in His beauty. You have found Jesus as your Savior and your Master, and you have tried to serve Him and advance the cause of His kingdom. You have carefully studied the Holy Scriptures and have gathered much precious truth, which you have endeavored faithfully to practice.

Despite all your knowledge and activities in the service of the Lord, your souls are secretly starving, and you cry out again and again for that bread and water of life which you saw promised in the Scriptures to all believers. In the very depths of your hearts you know that your experience is not a Scriptural experience; that, as an old writer says, your religion is "but a talk to what the early Christians enjoyed, possessed, and lived in." Your souls have sunk within you, as day after day, and year after year, your early visions of triumph have seemed to grow more and more dim, and you have been forced to settle down to the conviction that the best you can expect from your religion is a life of alternate failure and victory; one hour sinning, and the next repenting; and beginning again, only to fail again, and again to repent.

But is this all? Had the Lord Jesus only this in His mind when He laid down His precious life to deliver you from cruel bondage to sin? Did He propose to Himself only this partial deliverance? Did He intend to leave you struggling along under a weary consciousness of defeat and discouragement? Did He fear that a continuous victory would dishonor Him, and bring reproach on His name? When all those declarations were made concerning His coming, and the work He was to accomplish, did they mean only this that you have experienced? Was there a hidden reserve in each promise that was meant to deprive it of its complete fulfillment? Did "delivering us out of the hands of our enemies" mean only a few of them? Did "enabling us always to triumph" mean only sometimes; or being "more than conquerors through Him that love us" mean constant defeat and failure?

No, no, a thousand times no! God is able to save to the utmost, and He intends to do it. His promise, confirmed by His oath, is that "He would grant to us, that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him, all the days of our life." It is a mighty work to do, but our Deliverer is able to do it. He came to destroy the works of the devil, and dare we dream for a moment that He is not able or not willing to accomplish His own purposes?

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, hold fast to this one thing: that the Lord is able to save you fully, now, in this life, from the power and dominion of sin, and to deliver you completely out of the hands of your enemies.