UNION WITH JESUS
Jesus said, 'I and My Father are one' (John x. 30), and it is His
loving purpose that you and I shall be able to say that too, and say
it now in this present time, in the face of the devil and in holy,
triumphant defiance of a frowning world and of shrinking, trembling
flesh.
There is a union with Jesus as intimate as that of the branch and
the vine, or as that of the various members of the body with the
head, or as that between Jesus and the Father. This is shown by such
Scriptures as that in which Jesus said, 'I am the Vine, ye are the
branches' (John xv. 5), and in His great intercessory prayer, where
He prays, 'that they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and
I in Thee, that they also may be one in us' (John xvii. 21).
It is also shown in such passages as that in which Paul, speaking of
Jesus, says that God 'hath put all things under His feet, and gave
Him to be the Head over all things to the Church, which is His body'
(Eph. i. 22, 23), and again that we 'may grow up into Him in all
things, which is the Head, even Christ' (Eph. iv. 15), and again,
'For both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of
one' (Heb. ii. 11). It is also shown clearly in Paul's testimony, 'I
am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ
liveth in me' (Gal. ii. 20).
This union is, of course, not physical, but spiritual, and can be
known to the one who has entered into it by the direct witness of
the Spirit; but it can be known to others only by its effects and
fruits in the life.
This spiritual union is mysterious and yet simple, and many of our
everyday relationships partially illustrate it. Where two people
have interests or purposes the same, they are to that extent one. A
Republican or Democrat is one with every other man of his party
throughout the whole country in so far as they hold similar
principles. This is an imperfect sort of union. And yet it is union.
Our General may be in any part of the world, pushing forward his
mighty schemes of conquest for Jesus, and every other Salvationist,
however humble he may be, just in so far as he has the same spirit
and ideals as the General, is one with him. A husband and wife, or a
boy and his mother, may be separated by continents and seas, and yet
be one. For six months three thousand miles of wild waves rolled
between me and a little woman I rejoiced to call 'wife,' but my
heart was as absolutely true to her and my confidence in her
fidelity was as supreme as now when we sit side by side -- and we
were one.
But more perfect, more tender, more holy and infinitely more
self-consuming and ennobling and enduring is the union of the soul
with Jesus than is any other possible relationship. It is like the
union of the bay with the sea. It is a union of nature, a
commingling of spirit, an eternal marriage of heart, and soul, and
mind.
I. It is a union of will. Jesus said, 'I came down from Heaven, not
to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me' (John vi.
38), and again,' My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me'
(John iv. 34). And so it is with those who are one with Jesus. The
Psalmist said, 'I delight to do Thy will, O my God' (Ps. xl. 8), and
that is the testimony of every one who has entered into this divine
union. There may, and doubtless will, be times when this will is
hard for flesh and blood, but even then the soul says with its Lord,
'Not my will, but Thine, be done' (Luke xxii. 42), and prays always,
'Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven' (Matt. vi. 10).
In the very nature of things there can be no union with Jesus
without this union of will, for there is really very little of a man
but his will. That is really all he can call his own. His mind, with
all its splendid powers and possibilities, may be reduced to idiocy;
he may be robbed of his property. His health, and even his life may
be taken away from him, but who can enter into the domain of his
will and rob him of that?
I say it reverently, so far as we know, not even God Himself can
compel a man's will. God wants to enter into a partnership, an
infinitely tender and exalting fellowship, a spiritual marriage with
the will of man. He approaches man with tremendous inducements and
motives of infinite profit and loss, and yet the man may resist and
utterly thwart the loving thought and purpose of God. He can refuse
to surrender his will. But surrender he must, if there is to be a
union between him and God, for God's will, based as it is on eternal
righteousness, founded in infinite knowledge and wisdom and love, is
unchangeable, and man's highest good is in a hearty and affectionate
surrender to it and a union with it.
II. It is a union of faith -- of mutual confidence and esteem. God
trusts him, and he trust God. God can entrust him with the honour of
His name and His holy character in the midst of a world of rebels.
God can empower him and beautify him with His Spirit and adorn him
with all heavenly graces, without any fear that the man will take
the glory of these things to himself. God can heap upon him riches
and treasures and honors without any fear that the man will use them
for selfish ends or prostitute them to unholy purposes.
Again, the man trusts God. He trusts God when he cannot trace Him.
He has confidence in the faithfulness and love of God in adversity
as well as in prosperity. He does not have to be fed on sweetmeats
and live in sunshine and sleep on roses in order to believe that God
is for him. God can mingle bitter with all His sweets, and allow the
thorns to prick him, and the storm-clouds to roll all about him, and
yet he will stubbornly trust on. Like Job, his property may be swept
away in a day, and his children die about him, and yet with Job he
will say, 'The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be
the name of the Lord' (Job. i. 21), and still trust on.
His own life may be menaced and be filled with weariness and pain,
and his faithless wife bid him curse God and die, and yet he will
say, 'What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we
not receive evil?' (Job. ii. 10), and still trust on.
His friends may gather about him and attack his Christian integrity
and character, and foolishly assault the foundations of his faith by
assuring him that if he were right with God these calamities could
never befall him. Yet he will look up from his ash-heap and out of
his utter wreck and ruin and desolation, cry, 'Though He slay me,
yet will I trust in Him.' (Job. xiii. 15). And though communities or
nations conspire against him, he will say with David, 'The Lord is
my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the
strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? . . Though an host
should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: though war should
rise against me, in this will I be confident' (Ps. xxvii. 1, 3).
A woman said to me the other day, 'I dread to think of the end of
the world. It makes me afraid.' But though worlds, like drunken men,
tumble from their orbits, and though the universe crash into ruin,
the child-like confidence of the man who trusts God will enable him
to sing with the Psalmist, 'God is our refuge and strength, a very
present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the
earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst
of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though
the mountains shake with the swelling thereof ' (Ps. xlvi. 1-3).
God can be familiar with such a man. He can take all sorts of
liberties with his property, his reputation, his position, his
friends, his health, his life, and allow devils and men to taunt
him; but the man unchangeably fixed in his estimate of God's holy
character and everlasting love, will still triumphantly trust on.
III. It is a union of suffering, of sympathy. Once when I was
passing through what seemed to me a perfect hell of spiritual
temptation and sufferings, the Lord supported me with this text, 'In
all their affliction He was afflicted' (Isa. lxiii. 9). The prophet
refers in these words to the afflictions of the children of Israel
in Egypt and in the wilderness after their escape from the hard
bondage of Pharaoh, and he says in all their sufferings Jesus
suffered with them.
Let her child be racked with pain and scorched with fever and choked
with croup, but the mother suffers more than the child; and so let
the people of God be sore tempted and tried, and Jesus agonizes with
them. He is the world's great Sufferer. His passion is for ever. He
once tasted death for every man. He suffers still with every man.
There is not a cry of anguish, nor a heartache, nor a pang of
spiritual pain in all the world that does not reach His ear and
touch His heart, and stir all His mighty sympathies. But especially
does He suffer and sympathize with His own believing children. And
in turn the man who is one with Jesus suffers and sympathizes with
Jesus.
Any injury to the cause of Christ causes him more pain than any
personal loss. He mourns over the desolations of Zion more than over
the loss of his property. The lukewarmness of Christians cuts him to
the heart. The cry of the heathen for the gospel of salvation is to
him the cry of the travail, the agony of Jesus Himself. He gladly
says, with David, 'The reproaches of them that reproached Thee have
fallen upon me' (Ps. lxix. 9). He esteems the reproach of Christ
greater treasure than all the pleasure and power and profits of this
world combined. As the true wife gladly suffers privation and shame
and reproach with her husband whom she knows to be righteous and
honorable, so he who is one with Jesus rejoices that he is 'counted
worthy to suffer shame for His name' (Acts v.41). He suffers and
sympathizes with Jesus.
IV. It is a union of purpose. The great mass of men serve God for
reward; they do not want to go to Hell; they want to go to Heaven.
And that is right. But it is not the highest motive. There is a
union with Jesus in which the soul is not so anxious to escape Hell
as it is to be free from sin, and in which Heaven is not so
desirable as holiness. The soul in this state thinks very little
about its reward. His smile of approval is its Heaven. The
housekeeper wants wages, but the wife never thinks of such a thing.
She serves for very love. She is one in purpose with her husband.
His triumphs are hers. His losses are hers. All he has is hers and
she is his. And, as the Apostle says, 'For all things are yours, . .
. and ye are Christ's' (I Cor. iii. 21, 23). The will of God is the
supreme good of this man. Some one has said that if two angels were
sent into this world, one of whom was to rule it and the other was
to sweep street crossings, that the sweeper would be so satisfied
with his Heavenly Father's will that he would not exchange places
with the ruler.
The purpose of Jesus is to save the world and uphold the honor of
God, and establish truth in the lives, the hearts, the laws, the
customs of men, and this is the purpose of this man.
In order to do this, Jesus sacrificed every earthly prospect, and
laid down His life, and this man does the same. He does not stand in
the presence of the world's great crying need and hesitate and
wonder if the Lord really wants him to give a few cents or dollars
for the salvation of the heathen. He does not quibble as to whether
God really requires him to make the sacrifice and leave his
dog-kennel and chicken coop and barn and house furnished a little
below the standard of beauty and luxury set by his ungodly
neighbors. He does not struggle and kick against the pricks when he
feels God would have him forsake business and preach the gospel. He
would loathe himself to have such mean thoughts.
He does not say, 'If I were rich,' but out of the abundance of his
poverty he pours into the lap of the world's need, and like the
widow he gladly gives all his living to save the world. When God
looks about for a man to stand up for His honour and warn a wicked
world and offers terms of peace to sinners, this man does not say,
'If I were only educated or gifted I would go,' but with a heart
flaming with love for Jesus and the world He has bought with His
Blood, cries out, 'Here am I, send me.' It can be said of him as it
was of his Lord 'The zeal of Thine house hath eaten me up' (John ii.
17).
A young carpenter in New England, whose name was unknown, came every
few months to the Divisional Headquarters, and gave a hundred or
more dollars for the work of God in India, or some other portion of
the world. He was one with Jesus in His purpose to save the world.
On a bitter wintry day a poor woman came to John Wesley's apartment
in Oxford University. She was shivering with cold. Wesley asked her
why she did not dress more warmly She replied that she had no warmer
garments. When she was gone, Wesley looked at the pictures on his
walls, and said to himself in substance, 'If my Lord should come,
would He be pleased to see these on my walls when His poor are
suffering with cold?' Then he sold the pictures and gave to the
poor. And in this way began that mighty and life-long beneficence
and almost matchless self-sacrifice that has led to the blessing of
millions upon millions of men.
O my God, that Thy people might see what union with Thee really
means.
Do you ask, 'How can I enter into this union?'
1. Read God's promises until you see that it is possible. Especially
read and ponder over the fifteenth and seventeenth chapters of the
Gospel according to John.
2. Read and ponder over the commandments until you see that it is
necessary. Without this union here there will be no union in
eternity.
3. Make the sacrifice that is necessary in order to become one with
Jesus.
The woman who will be the true wife of a man must be prepared to
give up all other lovers, leave her home, and forsake father,
mother, brothers and sisters, change her name, and utterly identify
herself her prospects for life, her all, with the man she loves. And
so must you be prepared to identify yourself utterly with Christ, to
be hated, despised, rejected, crucified of men; but armed, baptized
with the Holy Ghost, and crowned of God.
Does your heart consent to this, my brother? If so, make a perpetual
covenant with your Lord just now. Do it intelligently. Do it with a
true heart, in full assurance of faith, and God will seal you for
His own. Do not waver. Do not doubt. Do not cast away your
confidence because of your feelings or lack of feelings, but stand
by your facts. Walk by faith, and God will soon prove His ownership
in you in a way that will be altogether satisfactory to both your
head and your heart, and convincing to men and devils.
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