being in this same Spirit, of living, moving and having our being in Him. It is a good thing, physically,
to be filled with the air; hut it is a better thing to
be, not only filled with air, hut also to live in the air
with which we need to he filled. Likewise, it is a good
thing to be filled with the Spirit. But it is a better
thing to live and walk in the Spirit, that is, to have
our life's environment nothing less than God the Holy
Ghost, so that so far as our choice is concerned, we
may only live the life which He would have us live,
that we may only speak the words which He would
have us speak, that we may only think the thoughts
which He would have us think, yea, so that all that
we do may be begun, continued and ended in Him.
Such a life in the Spirit calls for deep experiences.
But there is no other way of being fully "preserved
in Jesus Christ," and of being abandoned to the will
and glory of God.
And finally, we need to dwell deep in the holiness
of God. A distinction is generally made between
God's holiness and His righteousness. To put it simply : holiness is what God is ; and righteousness
is what He does. At the same time, between God's
holiness and righteousness there is always an exact
equivalent ; that is, the one never is less than, or never exceeds the other, but is ever equal to the other.
Judicially, the same is true of the Christian, for
Christ's holiness and righteousness are equally im-.
puted to him. But, experimentally, this is not always
the case, for it is a lamentable fact that the Christian's inner life does not always correspond to His
outw-ard life. Actually, of course, a man's righteousness can never exceed his holiness ; but in appear- ance it may very much exceed it. So it is that there
may come to pass a difference between profession
and possession. Here then, is the call to a deeper
life, wherein w
r e shall pass into such a true experi- ence of God's holiness that we shall be within, all
that we profess to be without. A quest like this may
give the soul deep heart-searching. But, before it
is over, it will have an infinite rewarding.
A man once bought a farm, and by hard work he
eked out a poor existence from it. At last he died, at
which time his son inherited the farm. This son, by
hard toiling, supported himself and family, though
he had this advantage over his father that he found
on his place some black stuff which would burn, and
with which he fed his fires. Finally, this second farmer died, when his son inherited the place. After
this, he too toiled and labored, and fed his fires. But
one day an engineer passed that way and pointed out
to the farmer that the out-cropping of that black stuff
meant that there was a coal mine beneath the farm.
So a company was formed, and they dug deep. That
last farmer is now a millionaire. His grandfather
and father had lived over that illimitable wealth for
all their lives. But they had never known it and had
died poor. And the last man would have repeated
the sad experience had not his engineer-friend told
him to leave his petty, surface farming, and to dig
deep. And there is One who speaks to us, who bids us to go deeper down. May we have done, therefore,
with surface living. In dwelling deep we shall find,
not only safety, but also riches untold.