Is Christ the Object of Your Heart?

More and more I am made to feel that Christ does not have His proper place among the children of God. Something beside Christ is their object — a doctrine, a dogma, a party, a denomination, or their experience. Very few seem to have been “on their faces” and then risen to see nothing but Jesus.

“Christ is everything” (Col. 3:11), but do we indeed make Him this? We know that we are saved through belief in Him (Acts 16:31), but our cry should be, Oh to know Him (cf. Phil. 3:10). In our selfishness, we cry and beg for blessing when it is the Blesser Himself we need. Let us taste with the Father the delight He takes in His Son. Christ is infinitely higher than doctrine or experience!

Let me say here: The Spirit never occupies us with His work in us. If we are thus occupied, the experience is not of the Spirit! Indeed, the work of Christ itself, blessed as it is, can never be the object of my heart, only His Person. And oh, how His Person can satisfy our hearts!

The Father directs our attention to Him (Mt. 17:5) and the Holy Spirit would occupy us with Him (Acts 7:55-56). Whatever does not make Him the object is spurious and unreal. He is not on the cross, not in the grave, but He is on the throne. And He who died for us lives as our Advocate and will come for us as the Bridegroom for His Church.

May it be with us, Christ, Christ, Christ — every affection, everydesire, every thought, and every aim centered in Him.

F.C.B.