Things New and Old
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in brightness as we behold it, and as we aspire to grasp it, its height
and depth will ever increase.
Our life is to be bound up with the life of Christ; we are to draw
constantly from Him, partaking of Him, the living Bread that came
down from heaven, drawing from a fountain ever fresh, ever giving
forth its abundant treasures. If we keep the Lord ever before us, allow-
ing our hearts to go out in thanksgiving and praise to Him, we shall
have a continual freshness in our religious life. Our prayers will take
the form of a conversation with God as we would talk with a friend.
He will speak His mysteries to us personally. Often there will come to
us a sweet joyful sense of the presence of Jesus. Often our hearts will
burn within us as He draws nigh to commune with us as He did with
Enoch. When this is in truth the experience of the Christian, there is
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seen in his life a simplicity, a humility, meekness, and lowliness of
heart, that show to all with whom he associates that he has been with
Jesus and learned of Him.
In those who possess it, the religion of Christ will reveal itself as
a vitalizing, pervading principle, a living, working, spiritual energy.
There will be manifest the freshness and power and joyousness of
perpetual youth. The heart that receives the word of God is not as a
pool that evaporates, not like a broken cistern that loses its treasure.
It is like the mountain stream fed by unfailing springs, whose cool,
sparkling waters leap from rock to rock, refreshing the weary, the
thirsty, the heavy laden.
This experience gives every teacher of truth the very qualifications
that will make him a representative of Christ. The spirit of Christ’s
teaching will give a force and directness to his communications and
to his prayers. His witness to Christ will not be a narrow, lifeless
testimony. The minister will not preach over and over the same set
discourses. His mind will be open to the constant illumination of the
Holy Spirit.
Christ said, “Whoso eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath
eternal life.... As the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the
Father; so he that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me.... It is the Spirit
that quickeneth; ... the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and
they are life.”
John 6:54-63
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When we eat Christ’s flesh and drink His blood, the element of
eternal life will be found in the ministry. There will not be a fund