Dec. 17
NEAREST AND DEAREST FELLOWSHIP
"So shall we ever be with the Lord" I Thess. 4:17
While we are here the Lord is with us, and when we are called away
we are with Him. There is no dividing the saint from His Saviour. They
are one, and they always must be one: Jesus cannot be without His own
people, for He would be a Head without a body. Whether caught up into
the air, or resting in Paradise, or sojourning here, we are with
Jesus; and who shall separate us from Him?
What a joy is this! Our supreme honor, rest, comfort, delight, is
to be with the Lord. We cannot conceive of anything which can surpass
or even equal this divine society. By holy fellowship we must be with
Him in His humiliation, rejection, and travail, and then we shall be
with Him in His glory. Before long we shall be with Him in His rest
and in His royalty, in His expectation and in His manifestation. We
shall fare as He fares, and triumph as He triumphs.
O my Lord, if I am to be for ever with thee, I have a destiny
incomparable. I will not envy an archangel. To be for ever with the
Lord is my idea of Heaven at its best. Not the harps of gold, nor the
crowns unfading, nor the light unclouded, is glory to me; but Jesus,
Jesus Himself, and myself for ever with Him in nearest and dearest
fellowship.