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Music For the Soul
Devotional: March 11th

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A MUTUAL INDWELLING

That life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. - Galatians 2:20.

I NEED not remind you how the great thought of mutual indwelling is, through John’s writings particularly, extended not only to our relation to Christ, but to our relations to God the Father and God the Spirit. The Apostle almost as frequently speaks about our dwelling in God and God’s dwelling in us, as he does about our dwelling in Christ and Christ’s dwelling in us. And he reports to us that Christ spoke about the Spirit dwelling with us, and being in us, and that for ever. So it is the " whole fulness of the Godhead," in all the phases of its manifestation and possible relation to humanity, that is thus conceived of as entering into this deep and most real relation to Christian souls. Into that fire of God we may pass, and walk in the midst of the flame unharmed, with nothing consumed except the bonds that hold us.

Let me say one word about the ways by which this mutual indwelling may be procured and maintained. You talk about the doctrine as being mystical. Well, the way to realise it as a fact is plain and unmystical enough to suit anybody. There are two streams of representation in John’s writings about this matter. Here is a sample of one of them: "He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood abideth in Me, and I in him." Similarly, he says: "If that which ye have heard from the beginning abide in you, ye also shall abide in the Son and in the Father." And, still more definitely, "Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God." So, then, the acceptance, by our understandings and by our hearts, of the truth concerning Jesus Christ, and the grasping of these truths so closely by faith that they become the nourishment of our spirits, so that we eat His flesh and drink His blood, is the condition of that mutual indwelling.

And if that seems to be too far removed from ordinary moralities to satisfy those who will have no mysteries in their religion, and will not have it anything else than a repetition of the plain dictates of conscience, take the other stream of representations: " If we love one another, God abideth in us." "He that abideth in love abideth in God." "If ye keep My commandments, ye shall abide in My love." The harm of mysticism is that it is divorced from common pedestrian morality. The mysticism of Christianity enjoins the punctilious discharge of plain duties. " He that keepeth His commandments abideth in Him and He in him."

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