By J.R. Miller
The teaching of Christianity, is that God lives in us. On the day of Pentecost we are told that the Disciples of Christ were filled with the Holy Spirit. Every Christian may be, should be, a Spirit filled Christian. We say we are only dust--but we may receive the breath of God into our dust, and then our lives are glorified.
We speak of someone coming into another's life, bringing new impulse, new inspiration, new visions of beauty, and new ideals of character. Many a life is transformed by a rich human friendship. It means far more, however, to have God come into one's life, touching the springs of being with divinity. Yes that is what it is to be a Christian of the New Testament type--that is the privilege of everyone who believes in Christ. A Christian is not merely a man who belongs to a church, who accepts the doctrines of Christianity, and who lives a good life. He is a man in whom God lives.
The result of the Divine indwelling, is the renewal of the nature. "That which is born of the Spirit is spirit." A life that has been only earthly hitherto, grows into blessed sainthood when God enters into it. Someone writes of a man who left flowers blooming about his home which but for him would never have bloomed. The Spirit leaves heavenly flowers blooming which but for His abiding in us would never have bloomed. Paul tells us about these in a well known passage: "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self control."
True religion is not a mere matter of emotion or devout feeling--it is a matter of life. The influence of the indwelling Spirit is not shown merely in holy raptures, in ecstatic experiences--but in most practical ways in every-day living. Jesus said very emphatically that not everyone who says, "Lord, Lord," is in the kingdom of heaven. Obedience, He said, is the test. He alone is in the heavenly kingdom who does the will of the Father. Nothing pleases our Master but obedience. He says very little about emotion--but a great deal about obeying. His friends are known not by their loud professions of love and ardor--but by their doing whatever He commands them to do.
A very little love for our neighbor wrought out in a bit of everyday kindness, is worth a great deal of talk about love which finds no expression in act. To be kind and charitable, to give bread to the hungry, to deny one's self a pleasure in order to help another over a hard place, to go far out of one's way to be of use to another who is in need, are better evidence of the indwelling of the Spirit than any amount of effervescent talk about consecration in a prayer meeting. To be honest in business on Monday, to be a good, tidy and hospitable housekeeper on Tuesday, to pay one's debts on Wednesday, to be patient in enduring wrong on Thursday, is better proof of the Spirit's indwelling than a whole hour's rapturous experience on Sunday, which bears no fruit in the life. If God is in us, the world will know it without being told of it--it will see it in character, in disposition, in act, in service of love, in the diffusion of grace and goodness.
It is not easy to let God into our lives. It is easier to yield to the spirit of the world than to the Divine Spirit. Yet if we knew what Christ could do with our poor lives, what beauty He could awaken in them, what blessings they would become if filled with His Spirit, what heavenly music they would give out if His hands struck their chords, we would welcome Him and surrender ourselves altogether to Him.
"We are but organs mute, until the Master touches the keys;
Harps are we, silent harps that have hung on willow trees
Dumb until our heartstrings swell and break with a pulse divine."
It is not easy in this unspiritual world--to keep the heavenly Guest in our heart day after day, year after year, to the end of life. Too many open to Him on the Lord's Day, and then on Monday let in again the old worldly guests who drive out the Divine Spirit. We all know how easy it is to lose out of our hearts the gentle thoughts and holy desires and spiritual feelings which come to us in life's quiet, sacred moments. You sit down with your Bible in the pure, sweet morning, and as you read the Master's words it seems to you as if angels had come into your heart. You hear words of love spoken out of heaven in your ear. Desires kindled by the Spirit of God, desires for holy things, fill you. As you read and pray and meditate, it is as if you were sitting in the gate of heaven and hearing the songs of the holy beings gathered round God's throne.
But half an hour later, you must go out into the world, where a thousand other voices will break upon your ears--voices of temptation, voices pleasure, voices of care and fret, the calls of business of friendship, of emotion--not all holy voices, many of them calling you away from God. How will you carry with you all the day, through all these distractions and all these allurements, the holy thoughts, feelings, and desires of the moments of devotion in the morning?
It is not easy to maintain the Sabbath peace in the midst of the strifes and competitions of the weekday life. It is not easy to take the blissful raptures of the Holy Communion out into the chill air of the streets, or to keep the glowing emotions of the hour of sacred prayer amid the influences of the shop or the factory. The messengers of heaven are shy and easily driven away, and we need to take most sedulous care lest they fly away and leave us.
There are urgent warnings in the Scriptures against the danger of losing the Divine abiding. We are exhorted not to grieve the Holy Spirit. There are many ways of grieving a friend. We may do it by unkindness, by indifference, by lack of hospitality. Jesus was a frequent Guest in a home in Bethany, and found rest, comfort, and the refreshment of love there. It must have been a home of gentleness and peace, or He would not have entered its doors so often, nor found such gladness there. We cannot think of it as being such a refuge and place of rest to Him if its atmosphere had been one of bitterness and strife.
A little Welsh girl went into a worldly home as a servant. All her life she had been used to, in her own home, of godly ways--family prayers, grace at meals, reverence for God, love, kindness. In this home where she was employed all this was lacking. There was no prayer, no reverence, no love--instead there was profanity, bitterness, strife, heaven-daring sin. After one night the little maid told her mistress that she could not stay--she was afraid to stay where God was not a Guest. If we would keep the heavenly Guest in our heart, we must make a home of love there for Him, with an atmosphere kindly and congenial. In a prayerless, loveless heart the heavenly Guest will not stay.
We are exhorted also not to quench the Spirit. The figure is of a fire burning within us, which we are in danger of putting out. There are many things which tend to quench the flame of Divine love in a heart. Sin always does it. Anger, sensuality, pride, quench the holy flame. Worldliness in feeling and desire produce an atmosphere in which the Spirit of holiness cannot dwell. Fire must have air in which to burn, and only an atmosphere of love and humility will nourish this sacred flame.
It will be a sad thing if the fire of heaven burning in our hearts should be allowed to go out. A writer tells of a conservatory which he saw one morning: "One bitter night the gardener neglected the fire, and what havoc was wrought! The leaves were black, everything drooped, and the rare blossoms would bloom no more. For a few hours the fire was neglected, and the floral treasures were frostbitten beyond recovery." So will it be in any human life, when the heavenly fire is quenched or allowed to go out. All the beauty will be left in ruin.
We cannot guard our spiritual life too carefully. God is infinitely patient. He is not easily driven away. He loves unto the uttermost. But we can keep the Divine joy in our hearts--only by maintaining there always an atmosphere of joy. The angel of peace will abide only where he is welcomed by a son of peace within.
