Daily Devotionals

Music For the Soul

Devotional: November 8th

THE COMPANION OF THE LONELY CHRIST

I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent Me. - John 8:16

One cannot but feel the sudden change in the words from plain time to exulting notes, from the pathetic minors of an Aeolian harp to the joyous clang of the trumpet. " Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with Me." Here is the reality of the perpetual Divine presence with Christ and through Him with us. That is the first point: "the Father is with Me." Now, we are not concerned here with that mysterious and Divine union between the Divine Father and the Divine Son, which, as I believe, is a distinct revelation of Scripture, taught in such words as, "The only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father"; or, "I and My Father are One"; or, by His Name, "the Son of Man which is in Heaven." All that belongs to another region, where thought and language can safely go no farther than as His own declarations lead them. But here it is the presence of God with Christ’s perfect manhood which is spoken of - a presence the same in kind, however different in degree, which is granted to all loving and pure hearts.

Take the words, then, as a wonderful utterance or our Lord’s own consciousness. That nature, perfect in mind, in will, in heart, was always conscious of an unbroken union with God. The mind was filled with His truth; the will ever consciously bowing to His supreme law; the heart ever at rest in His perfect love and goodness. Like some pure mirror of steel, on which there is no dint nor scratch nor stain, but every portion of it capable, and equally capable, of receiving and flashing back in brightness the rays of the sun, the whole Man, Christ Jesus, spread Himself out, if I may so say, beneath the lustre of God, and was shone upon with the unvarying radiance of His unclouded presence.

And that is possible for us through Him. " I do always," said He, "the things that please Him." And, therefore, "the Father hath not left Me alone." We can come to Him, though our natures, as compared with His, be like the same shield - all battered and bruised, and stained with evil, and eaten into with rust, and incapable of catching the light or of throwing it back. We can go to that Christ in whom we come near to God, and in whom God comes near to us; and, holding by Him, we can enter into the fellowship, the wondrous fellowship, of the Father God, who will draw near to our minds and hearts and wills, and make all the fitful and fleeting days of our earthly existence stately and noble, and happy with the benediction and the elevation of His felt presence. "The Father is with Me." My brother, is He with you, or has He ever been with you in such a fashion as this? It is possible that He should be. Christ has brought God near to us; He will bring us near to God. He is near us in His own gracious presence, and in Him God is near. His Name is Immanuel - God with us. He that hath the Son hath the Father also. He lived alone, and went down into death alone, that no soul need ever be solitary any more.