Risen With Christ
"If
ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above,
where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God."
-COLOSSIANS
3:1 [KJV]
How
many there are even of those who desire to fear God who are kept down
by the world, and to whom it has not lost its attractive power; who
are held fast, at least for a time, by worldly business, or entangled
by worldly persons or worldly engagements. Their partners in business
or their partners in life; their carnal relatives or their worldly
children; their numerous connections or their social habits; their
strong passions or their deep-rooted prejudices, all bind and fetter
them down to earth. There they grovel and lie amid, what Milton
terms,
"The
smoke and stir of this dim spot which men call earth;"
and
so bound are they with the cords of their sins that they scarcely
seek deliverance from them, or even desire to rise beyond the mists
and fogs of this dim spot into a purer air, so as to breathe a
heavenly atmosphere, and rise up with Jesus from the grave of their
corruptions. But if, as members of His
mystical body, they are already risen with Christ, as it was not
possible for the Head to be holden of death when God loosed the pains
thereof [ACTS
2:24],
so neither shall they ever be buried in the grave of carnality and
worldliness. They must rise spiritually if they rose mystically. If
interested in the reality of Christ's resurrection, they must know
the power of Christ's resurrection.
-Gospel
report by preacher J.C. Philpot (1802-1869 A.D.)
February
3rd, EARS FROM HARVESTED SHEAVES
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