1. It is because we are not our own, but Christ's, that all things are ours. How should we, poor creatures of yesterday, have all things if it were not for our connection with Christ? Has not God given all things to Christ ? As the Word has it, " The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand." And how should we have all things, if they were not given us by Christ, whose we are ?
2. We are truly our own only when we are Christ's. The highest truth ever lies in the completest paradox. There are many things that we never truly possess till we give them up.
1 Hugh Bhck, Comfort, 179. 2 77^ 191#
i CORINTHIANS in. 21-23 *37
It is only when we relinquish the world that we possess it. It is only when we let pleasure go that we obtain it. It is only when we give money away that we enjoy it. It is only when we lose our life that we find it. And it is only when we become Christ's that we become our own.
Lord, Thou art mine, and I am Thine, If mine I am; and Thine much more Than I or ought or can be mine. Yet to be Thine doth me restore, So that again I now am mine, And with advantage mine the more, Since this being mine brings with it Thine, And Thou with me dost Thee restore: If I without Thee would be mine, I neither should be mine nor Thine.
Lord, I am Thine, and Thou art mine; So mine Thou art, that something more I may presume Thee mine than Thine, For Thou didst suffer to restore Not Thee, but me, and to be mine: And with advantage mine the more, Since Thou in death wast none of Thine, Yet then as mine didst me restore:
0, be mine still; still make me Thine;
Or rather make no Thine and mine.1
3. All things are ours to serve us, and we are Christ's to serve Him. Service is the golden thread that runs through all creation, making it one. The ancient fable told that all things were bound by golden chains about the feet of God : and surely the real deep connection of which the fable spoke is to be found in the service which each lower order of creation renders to the one above, the service becoming rarer and more refined as the pyramid of existence tapers to a point.
Our Lord was also the servant of God, and we are His servants. We are, of course, His, in the sense of being owned by Him : He made us ; He bought us ; He claims us. But how many of us resemble Onesimus, the runaway slave of Philemon ! — who probably bore the brand of his master, and had certainly been purchased by his gold, but who withheld from him his
1 George Herbert.
r38 YET POSSESSING ALL THINGS
service, following the bent of his own wayward will, and herding with the most abandoned of the populace that rotted in the criminal quarters of ancient Eome. We too have been bought by the Lord, at priceless cost ; but we are far from serving Him with the same sort of loyal and whole-hearted ministry as that with which He, in His unwearied solicitude for us, serves the Father.
4. Whenever we get into this right attitude towards our Lord Jesus, we shall find that all things begin to minister to us in a constant round of holy service. Each event or circumstance in life becomes an angel, laden with blessed helpfulness, bringing to us the gifts of our beloved Master. That title, " Eabboni, Master," the sweetest name by which the prostrate soul can address its Saviour, does not degrade or demean it ; but enables it, like the babe Christ, to be the recipient of costly presents sent from afar — gold, frankincense, and myrrh. If we have been chafing at our lot, thinking that time and things are robbing us, we may be sure that we are not as we should be towards Christ ; and the true cure will be to get as a slave to His feet. Then all things will be ours in this deep sense.
5. " And Christ is God's." If Christ is at the right hand of God, then the world is ours. The world is transformed from a prison into a home, and life from a dream into a reality. All that we know and love and strive for is given permanence and worth.
To see the glorious fountain and the end,
To see all creatures tend To thy advancement, and so sweetly close
In thy repose : to see them shine In serviceable worth; and even foes,
Among the rest, made thine : To see all these at once unite in thee
Is to behold felicity.
To see the fountain is a blessed thing,
It is to see the King Of Glory face to face : but yet the end,
The deep and wondrous end, is more; In that the Fount we also comprehend,
The spring we there adore: For in the end the fountain is best shewn,
As by effects the cause is known.
i CORINTHIANS in. 21-23
From one, to one, in one, to see all things,