Biblical Essays
JESUS CHRIST - OBJECT OF THE HEART
It is a wonderful thing to be able to say, “I have found an object that perfectly satisfies my heart – I have found Jesus Christ.” This not only renders us thoroughly independent of resources required by the unconverted heart, it also gives settled rest, imparting calmness and quietness to the spirit the world cannot comprehend. The unbeliever may think the Christian life is slow and dull; even silly, ignorant, and stupid. They often marvel how anyone can manage to get along without worldly amusements and pleasures.
To deprive an unconverted person of such things would almost drive him to despair or lunacy. But the Christian does not want such things, would not have them. They would be a weariness to him. Of course, we speak of a true Christian – not merely in name but in reality. Many in this age profess to be Christian, even taking high ground in their profession, who, nevertheless, are to be found mixed up in man’s vain and frivolous pursuits. They may be seen at the communion table on the Lord’s Day and at a nightclub during the week. They may be found taking part in some one or other of the many branches of Christian work on Sunday, and, during the week, may be seen in some scene of folly and vanity.
It is evident that such persons know nothing of Christ as an object of the heart. In fact, it is questionable how anyone with a single spark of divine life in the soul can find pleasure in the wretched pursuits of a godless world. The true and earnest Christian instinctively turns away from such things, not merely because of the positive wrong and evil of them (though most surely he feels them to be wrong and evil), but because he has no taste for them – he has found something infinitely superior, something that perfectly satisfies all desires of the new nature. Could we imagine an angel from heaven taking pleasure at anything the world has to offer? The bare thought is supremely ridiculous. All worldly things are perfectly foreign to a heavenly being.
And what is a Christian? He is a heavenly man; a partaker of the divine nature. He is dead to the world, dead to sin, alive to God. He does not have a single link with the world. He belongs to heaven. He is no more of this world than Christ his Lord. Could Christ take part in the amusements, gaieties, and follies of this world? The very idea is blasphemy. So, what of the Christian? Is he to be found where his Lord could not be? Can he consistently take part in things he knows in his heart are contrary to Christ? Can he go into places, and scenes, and circumstances in which he must admit his Savior and Lord can take no part? Can he go and have fellowship with a world that hates the One to whom he professes to owe everything?
Perhaps it may seem to some that we are herein taking too high ground. To such we would ask, what ground are we to take? Surely we are to take Christian ground, if we are Christians. Therefore, if we are to take Christian ground, how are we to know what that ground really is? – Without a doubt, from the New Testament. And what does it teach? Does it offer any opportunity for the Christian to mix in any shape or form with the amusements and vain pursuits of this present evil world? Let us hearken to the weighty words of our blessed Lord, in John 13. Let us hear from His lips the truth regarding our portion, our position, and our path in this world. Addressing the Father, He says, “I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world” (vs. 14-18).
Is it possible to conceive a closer measure of identification than that set before us in these words? In this brief passage, our Lord declares twice that we are not of the world, even as He is not. What has our blessed Lord to do with the world? Nothing whatsoever – the world has utterly rejected Him, and cast Him out. It nailed Him to a shameful cross, between two malefactors. The world lies as fully and as freshly under the charge of all this, as though the act of the crucifixion took place yesterday, at the center of its civilization and with the unanimous consent of all. There is not a single moral link between Christ and the world. Yea, the world is stained with His murder, and will have to answer to God for the crime.
How solemn; what a serious consideration for Christians. We are passing through a world that crucified our Lord and Master. He declares that we are not of that world, even as He is not of it. Hence, it follows that in so far as we have fellowship with the world, we are false to Christ. What should we think of a wife sitting, laughing and joking, with a group of men who had murdered her husband? And yet this is precisely what a professing Christian does when mixing with this present evil world, becoming part and parcel of it.
Perhaps it will be said, “What are we to do? Are we to go out of the world?” No. Our Lord expressly says, “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.” We are in it, but not of it – this is the Christian’s true principle. To use a figure, the Christian in the world is like a diver. He is in the midst of an element that would destroy him, were he not protected from its action, and sustained by unbroken communication with the scene above. So, what is the Christian to do in the world? What is his mission? Here it is: “As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I sent them into the world.” And again, in John 20:21, “As my Father hath sent me, even so I send you.”
Such is the Christian’s mission. He is not to shut himself within the walls of a monastery or convent. Christianity does not consist in joining a brotherhood or a sisterhood. No; we are called to move up and down in the varied relations of life, and to act to the glory of God in our divinely-appointed spheres. It is not a question of what we are doing, but of how we do it. All depends on the object that governs our hearts. If Christ be the commanding and absorbing object of the heart, all will be right. If He be not, nothing is right. Two persons may sit down at the same table to eat; the one eats to gratify his appetite, the other eats to the glory of God – eats simply to keep his body in proper working order as God’s vessel, the temple of the Holy Spirit, the instrument for Christ's service.
It is our privilege to set the Lord before us in everything. He is our model. As He was sent into the world, so are we. What did He come to do? He came to glorify God. How did He live? We live by the Father. “As the living Father hath sent me, and I Live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me” (John 6:57).
This makes it all so simple. Christ is the standard and touchstone for everything. It is no longer a question of mere right and wrong according to human rules. It is simply a question of what is worthy of Christ. Would He do this or that? Would He go here or there? “He left us an example that we should follow His steps;” and we should not go where we cannot trace His blessed footsteps. If we go here and there to please ourselves, we are not treading in His steps, and we cannot expect to enjoy His blessed presence.
Here is the secret of the whole matter. The grand question is this: Is Christ our one object? What are we living for? Can we say, “The life that I live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me?” Nothing less than this is worthy of a Christian. It is a miserable thing to be content with being saved, and then to go with the world, living to please self and for self-interest – to accept salvation as the fruit of Christ’s toil and passion, and then live at a distance from Him. What would we think of a child who only cared about the good things provided by his father's hand, and never sought his father’s company – preferring the company of strangers? We would justly despise him. How much more despicable is the Christian who owes his present and eternal to the work of Christ, and is still content to live at a cold distance from His blessed Person, caring not for the furtherance of His cause – the promotion of His glory!
