Chapter 1.
ALL YOU WHO HAVE COME TO HIM
"Come unto me."-MATT.11:28
"Abide in me."-JOHN 15:4
IT IS to you who have heard and hearkened to the call, "Come unto
me," that this new invitation comes, "Abide in me." The message
comes from the same loving Saviour. You doubtless have never
repented having come at His call. You experienced that His word was
truth; all His promises He fulfilled; He made you partakers of the
blessings and the joy of His love. Was not His welcome most hearty,
His pardon full and free, His love most sweet and precious? You more
than once, at your first coming to Him, had reason to say, "The half
was not told me."
And yet you have had to complain of disappointment: as time went
on, your expectations were not realized. The blessings you once
enjoyed were lost; the love and joy of your first meeting with your
Saviour, instead of deepening, have become faint and feeble. And
often you have wondered what the reason could be, that with such a
Saviour, so mighty and so loving, your experience of salvation
should not have been a fuller one.
The answer is very simple. You wandered from Him. The blessings
He bestows are all connected with His "Come to ME," and are only to
be enjoyed in close fellowship with Himself. You either did not
fully understand, or did not rightly remember, that the call meant,
"Come to me to stay with me." And yet this was in very deed His
object and purpose when first He called you to Himself. It was not
to refresh you for a few short hours after your conversion with the
joy of His love and deliverance, and then to send you forth to
wander in sadness and sin. He had destined you to something better
than a short-lived blessedness, to be enjoyed only in times of
special earnestness and prayer, and then to pass away, as you had to
return to those duties in which far the greater part of life has to
be spent. No, indeed; He had prepared for you an abiding dwelling
with Himself, where your whole life and every moment of it might be
spent, where the work of your daily life might be done, and where
all the while you might be enjoying unbroken communion with Himself.
It was even this He meant when to that first word, "Come to me," He
added this, "Abide in me." As earnest and faithful, as loving and
tender, as the compassion that breathed in that blessed "Come," was
the grace that added this no less blessed "Abide." As mighty as the
attraction with which that first word drew you, were the bonds with
which this second, had you but listened to it, would have kept you.
And as great as were the blessings with which that coming was
rewarded, so large, yea, and much greater, were the treasures to
which that abiding would have given you access.
And observe especially, it was not that He said, "Come to me and
abide with me," but, "Abide in me." The intercourse was not only to
be unbroken, but most intimate and complete. He opened His arms, to
press you to His bosom; He opened His heart, to welcome you there;
He opened up all His divine fulness of life and love, and offered to
take you up into its fellowship, to make you wholly one with
Himself. There was a depth of meaning you cannot yet realize in His
words: "Abide IN ME."
And with no less earnestness than He had cried, "Come to me," did
He plead, had you but noticed it, "Abide in me." By every motive
that had induced you to come, did He beseech you to abide. Was it
the fear of sin and its curse that first drew you? the pardon you
received on first coming could, with all the blessings flowing from
it, only be confirmed and fully enjoyed on abiding in Him. Was it
the longing to know and enjoy the Infinite Love that was calling
you? the first coming gave but single drops to taste'tis only the
abiding that can really satisfy the thirsty soul, and give to drink
of the rivers of pleasure that are at His right hand. Was it the
weary longing to be made free from the bondage of sin, to become
pure and holy, and so to find rest, the rest of God for the soul?
this too can only be realized as you abide in Him-only abiding in
Jesus gives rest in Him. Or if it was the hope of an inheritance in
glory, and an everlasting home in the presence of the Infinite One:
the true preparation for this,as well as its blessed foretaste in
this life, are granted only to those who abide in Him. In very
truth, there is nothing that moved you to come, that does not plead
with thousandfold greater force: "Abide in Him." You did well to
come; you do better to abide. Who would, after seeking the King's
palace, be content to stand in the door, when he is invited in to
dwell in the King's presence, and share with Him in all the glory of
His royal life? Oh, let us enter in and abide, and enjoy to the full
all the rich supply His wondrous love hath prepared for us!
And yet I fear that there are many who have indeed come to Jesus,
and who yet have mournfully to confess that they know but little of
this blessed abiding in Him. With some the reason is, that they
never fully understood that this was the meaning of the Saviour's
call. With others, that though they heard the word, they did not
know that such a life of abiding fellowship was possible, and indeed
within their reach. Others will say that, though they did believe
that such a life was possible, and seek after it, they have never
yet succeeded discovering the secret of its attainment. And others,
again, alas! will confess that it is their own unfaithfulness that
has kept them from the enjoyment of the blessing. When the Saviour
would have kept them, they were not found ready to stay; they were
not prepared to give up everything, and always, only, wholly to side
in Jesus.
To all such I come now in the name of Jesus, their Redeemer and
mine, with the blessed message: "Abide in me. " In His name I invite
them to come, and for a season meditate with me daily on its
meaning, its lessons, its claims, and its promises. I know how many,
and, to the young believer, how difficult, the questions are which
suggest themselves in connection with it. There is especially the
question, with its various aspects, to the possibility, in the midst
of wearying work and continual distraction, of keeping up, or rather
being kept in, the abiding communion. I do not undertake to remove
all difficulties; this Jesus Christ Himself alone must do by His
Holy Spirit. But what I would fain by the grace of God be permitted
to do is, to repeat day by day the Master's blessed command, "Abide
in me," until it enter the heart and find a place there, no more to
be forgotten or neglected. I would fain that in the light of Holy
Scripture we should Meditate on its meaning, until the
understanding, that gate to the heart, opens to apprehend something
of what it offers and expects. So we shall discover the means of its
attainment, and learn to know what keeps us from it, and what can
help us to it. So we shall feel its claims, and be compelled to
acknowledge that there can be no true allegiance to our King without
simply and heartily accepting this one, too, of His commands. So we
shall gaze on its blessedness, until desire be inflamed, and the
will with all its energies be roused claim and possess the
unspeakable blessing.
Come, my brethren, and let us day by day set ourselves at His
feet, and meditate on this word of His, with an eye fixed on Him
alone. Let us set ourselves quiet trust before Him, waiting to hear
His holy voice-the still small voice that is mightier than the storm
that rends the rocks-breathing its quickening spirit within us, as
He speaks: "Abide in me." The soul that truly hears Jesus Himself
speak the word, receives with the word the power to accept and to
hold the blessing He offers.
And it may please Thee, blessed Saviour, indeed, to speak to us;
let each of us hear Thy blessed voice. May the feeling of our deep
need, and the faith of Thy wondrous love, combined with the sight of
the wonderfully blessed life Thou art waiting to bestow upon us,
constrain us to listen and to obey, as often as Thou speakest:
"Abide in me." Let day by day the answer from our heart be clearer
and fuller: "Blessed Saviour, do abide in Thee. "
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