“Come and Dine”
Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2014 5:08 pmLove delights in the one it servers. This is illustrated in the fifteenth of Luke in a wonderful way in which it unfolds the Father. The prodigal is first kissed by Him; next robed; and then feasted. A kiss is the intimation of affection on the part of him who gives it. The heart of God, which was denied by Satan and doubted by man in the Garden of Eden, is the first thing He brings out.
The first impression of having to do with God is what Scripture calls a kiss, though grace has already worked in him. The second thing is the robe; “Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him.” This robe is what fits him to enter the house; it is the new life. The moment you have the new-creation life you are qualified to enter—actually your life is hid with Christ in God. Then it is, “Bring hither the fated calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry.”
We are brought inside. He has made us “meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light” (Col 1:12). There is not a saint on earth who is not fit for heaven; but there is not one who is really fit for earth. The only one who was fit for earth was the Lord Jesus, who was “the Son of Man who is in heaven” (John 1:18 - KJV). You are left here heavenly people upon the earth; there is no provision made for your being earthly ones. This is the marvelous place you are positioned in; you cannot understand what it is to be fit for earth until you have been to heaven.
We have “boldness to enter into the holiest by the Blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which He has consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh” (Heb 10:19, 20). Have you entered the holiest? Has your heart ever entered that wondrous scene in glory? Having entered, there you eat “the old corn of the land” – there you feed on the Lord Jesus at the Father’s right hand in glory. Is that what you are doing, or is all that only future for you? Is that union with Him there to be by-and-by? It is grand to know that it is now! It will make you superior to all here.
The lack that is now current in Christendom to hinder souls getting to the supper is the thought that they will get heaven when they die. Now, that is not true. I shall be in heaven when I die, that is true enough; but, as to position, I am in heaven now*. But if you say I shall get heaven when I die, then you imply this – you have not got it now; and that it is the earth you have got now. That is the device of Satan, “the god of this world.” He put heaven in the future, and presents earth to you now.
Eternal life is that I have the capacity and position now to enjoy the things of my Father, and, because I have it, I pass into a scene where I can fellowship with Him – where I find perfection, quietness, satisfaction, and the Lord Himself. I dwell where I can enjoy Him, where, by “beholding . . . the glory of the Lord,” I am “changed into the same image form glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
My Father, in His grace, has come in and ended my history as man in the flesh, by the Cross, and now by the Spirit I am brought into association and fellowship with His beloved Son at His own right hand in heaven. The Lord Jesus wins my heart in humiliation; He satisfies it in glory. A won heart is not necessarily a satisfied heart. But if a heart is truly won by the Lord Jesus it will never be satisfied but in the company of the One who won it. Absence does not “make the heart grow fonder!” You only discover in absence what you have gained in presence.
- J B Stoney
Poster’s Notes:
* “I am in heaven now”: The inevitability of the believer entering Heaven is as certain as his presence is here and now (Eph 2:6; 1John 4:17).
Daily Devotional by Miles J Stanford
http://www.abideabove.com/hungry-heart/
The first impression of having to do with God is what Scripture calls a kiss, though grace has already worked in him. The second thing is the robe; “Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him.” This robe is what fits him to enter the house; it is the new life. The moment you have the new-creation life you are qualified to enter—actually your life is hid with Christ in God. Then it is, “Bring hither the fated calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry.”
We are brought inside. He has made us “meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light” (Col 1:12). There is not a saint on earth who is not fit for heaven; but there is not one who is really fit for earth. The only one who was fit for earth was the Lord Jesus, who was “the Son of Man who is in heaven” (John 1:18 - KJV). You are left here heavenly people upon the earth; there is no provision made for your being earthly ones. This is the marvelous place you are positioned in; you cannot understand what it is to be fit for earth until you have been to heaven.
We have “boldness to enter into the holiest by the Blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which He has consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh” (Heb 10:19, 20). Have you entered the holiest? Has your heart ever entered that wondrous scene in glory? Having entered, there you eat “the old corn of the land” – there you feed on the Lord Jesus at the Father’s right hand in glory. Is that what you are doing, or is all that only future for you? Is that union with Him there to be by-and-by? It is grand to know that it is now! It will make you superior to all here.
The lack that is now current in Christendom to hinder souls getting to the supper is the thought that they will get heaven when they die. Now, that is not true. I shall be in heaven when I die, that is true enough; but, as to position, I am in heaven now*. But if you say I shall get heaven when I die, then you imply this – you have not got it now; and that it is the earth you have got now. That is the device of Satan, “the god of this world.” He put heaven in the future, and presents earth to you now.
Eternal life is that I have the capacity and position now to enjoy the things of my Father, and, because I have it, I pass into a scene where I can fellowship with Him – where I find perfection, quietness, satisfaction, and the Lord Himself. I dwell where I can enjoy Him, where, by “beholding . . . the glory of the Lord,” I am “changed into the same image form glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
My Father, in His grace, has come in and ended my history as man in the flesh, by the Cross, and now by the Spirit I am brought into association and fellowship with His beloved Son at His own right hand in heaven. The Lord Jesus wins my heart in humiliation; He satisfies it in glory. A won heart is not necessarily a satisfied heart. But if a heart is truly won by the Lord Jesus it will never be satisfied but in the company of the One who won it. Absence does not “make the heart grow fonder!” You only discover in absence what you have gained in presence.
- J B Stoney
Poster’s Notes:
* “I am in heaven now”: The inevitability of the believer entering Heaven is as certain as his presence is here and now (Eph 2:6; 1John 4:17).
Daily Devotional by Miles J Stanford
http://www.abideabove.com/hungry-heart/