Who comes again to give
Himself — the Life that fills my soul with Thee ! ^
2. To be filled with God we must first be emptied. Such emptying we fear. What will God wish of us if He has entire occupancy of our desires and purposes ? It may be that He will ask us to change our desires, to give up present ambitions, to enter upon entirely new courses of business, and study, and pleasure. Perfect surrender to the infilling of God may mean a sacrifice as great on our part as was Abraham's when he was called to go out he knew not where ; it may necessitate the sub-
^ T. Waugh, Twenty -Three Years a Missioner, 109. ' Edith Hickman Divall, A Believer's Songs, 108.
EPHESIANS III. 19 199
version of all our past and the adoption of a wholly new standard of procedure. Many a man is unwilling to face such a situation. We wish some standing ground, some reservation somewhere, for ourselves. We are ready to let God have a portion of our heart, that portion where honesty, gentlemanly conduct, purity, and even benevolence are ; but we dare not let Him " fill " us, for then not one inch would be left for anything of our own.
Yet it is absurd for any of us to think of being filled with God's fulness so long as we are under the dominion of any purely earthly or temporal wishes, or desires, or ambitions, or passions, or tastes. The words imply a totality of self -surrender to God. In praying to be filled with God the Father's fulness, we pray that all our powers and faculties and desires and energies and likes and dislikes may be just what they would be if all our merely earthly desires were taken out of us, all that is selfish and mean and bad were emptied out of us, and the vacant space filled up by a pouring in of the character of God our Father. It is the same as praying that we may be just what God would be if we could imagine God to be put in our place.
^ If we say that religion is the absolute surrender of the soul to God, the surrender derives its meaning and value from this, that it is a conscious self-surrender — that it is not the meaning- less rapture of the mystic striving after an impossible self-anni- hilation, but the " joy in God " of the spirit which, in the inmost depths of its being, thrills with the consciousness of unimpeded union with the life of the Infinite.^
^ The evil seed sown in me when a child — a relative having thoughtlessly taken me to the pantomime in London — grew into an overshadowing passion for the theatre. The good seed of my godly old schoolmaster was not altogether expelled by it, some- times I experienced searching heart questionings on this matter which would not be silenced, and gradually so worked within me that, as a young man, I have sat in the pit, seeing not, hearing not, save the stirring Spirit of God bringing me into condemnation for refusing to yield up my darling pleasure, whilst I trembled with fear for disobedience. At last I yielded partially, making a compromise that I would cease regular attendance, and be present only on those occasions when Helen Faucit, that supremely gifted actress, came to Manchester. But the voice would not be silenced,
^ John Caird.
200 OUR HIGH CALLING
and at last I utterly broke from the toils, and resolved to visit the theatre no more, no matter what temptation it held out. Then peace flowed into my soul. Few of this age will read this with any understanding, but I know this passion for theatrical entertainments was gradually eating away all spiritual desires, and that, " If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him," and that indulgence in it would have made me unfit for the labour God purposed for His servant eventually.^
^ This is the supreme necessity — a definite self-surrender. You remember the story of John Newton's conversion. In early manhood he was a profligate sailor on board an African slaver. " I was," he says, " a wild beast on the coast of Africa, but the Lord caught and tamed me." The Holy Spirit had long dealings with him, and one night he had a dream. He dreamed that he was handling a rope on deck and a ring which he prized slipped off his finger and sank in the sea. He was greatly distressed, when he felt a hand on his shoulder, and, turning round, he saw a stranger with the ring in his hand. " You have lost it," said the stranger, " and you will lose it again. Let me keep it for you." He understood the parable when he awoke, and gave his precious soul into the keeping of Jesus and left it with Him. This is the way of peace : Commit yourself to Christ, and keep on renewing the deposit day by day.^
3. But we must remember how St. Paul leads up to these words. We shall then better understand their meaning. The Apostle prays God for his disciples at Ephesus that they may be " strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man ; that Christ may dwell in their hearts by faith " ; and that they; " being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth ; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge " ; that they may " be filled unto all the fulness of God." Now the whole of this prayer helps to explain these last words.