Reading: “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection.” Philippians 3:10
Of the downward tendency of our hearts we are, alas too conscious! We need something to counteract the overworking influence of an ungodly world. Where shall we meet with it? We answer, in the power of Christ’s resurrection, felt, realized, and experienced in the soul.
This is the argument of Paul: “You are a risen people, risen in union with Christ. If this be so, then seek after heavenly mindedness, setting your affections on things above.” What a heaven-attracting power, then, has this glorious truth! What is Christ? He is alive. Where is Christ? He is in heaven, at the right hand of God, as my head—my representative. Then, let me rise!
My business is a snare—my domestic blessings are a snare—my friendships are a snare. Why admit—as I appear to do—that there is an object upon earth whose claims to my love are paramount, whose beauty to my eye is greater, whose attraction to my soul is stronger, than my risen, ascended, and glorified Lord? Is there upon earth one who loves me as Jesus loves me? Is there one who has done for me what Jesus has done? Is there one who is doing for me now what Jesus is doing? Is there one who is to me such a friend, such a brother, such a counselor as Jesus? No, not one! Then, why should not my thoughts be more with Him? Why should not my heart cling closer to Him? Why this vagrancy of mind, this truancy of affection, this wandering of desire; why this forgetfulness, coldness, and cleaving to earth, when my Lord is risen, and I am professedly risen with Him? Oh, to feel more sensibly, more deeply, more constantly the power of His resurrection! Lord, I detect my heart settling down on creature things— objects of sense and sin.
“If you stop and ask yourself why you are not so devoted as the (early) Christians, your own heart will tell you that it is neither through ignorance nor inability, but purely because you never thoroughly intended it.”—William Law
Adapted from Octavius Winslow
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