Daily Devotionals

Devotional: November 27th

THE EVER-ACTIVE HELPER OF THE SAINTS

Thou hast ascended on high, Thou hast led Thy captivity captive; Thou hast received gifts among men, yea, among the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell with them. - Psalms 68:18

The "right hand of God" is the Omnipotent energy of God; and howsoever certainly the language of Scripture requires for its full interpretation that we should firmly hold that Christ’s glorified body dwells in a place, we are not to omit the other thought, that to sit at the right hand also means to wield the immortal energy of that Divine nature over all the field of the Creation and in every province of His dominion. So that the ascended Christ is the ubiquitous Christ; and He who is "at the right hand of God" is wherever the power of God reaches throughout His whole universe.

Remember that it was once given to a man to look through the opened heavens (through which Christ had " passed ") and to " see the Son of man standing (not sitting) at the right hand of God." Why to the dying proto-martyr was there granted that vision thus varied? Wherefore was the attitude changed but to express the swiftness, the certainty of His help, and the eager readiness of the Lord, who starts to His feet, as it were, to succour and to sustain His dying servant?

And so we may take that great joyful truth that, both as receiving gifts for man and bestowing gifts upon them, and as working by His providence in the world, and on the wider scale for the well-being of His children and of the Church, the Christ that sits at the right hand of God wields, ever with eager cheerfulness, all the powers of omnipotence for our well-being, if we love and trust Him. We may look quietly upon all perplexities and complications, because the hands that were pierced for us hold the helm and the reins, because the Christ who is our Brother is the King, and sits supreme at the centre of the universe. Joseph’s brethren that came up in their hunger and their rags to the land, and found their brother next the throne, were startled with a great joy of surprise, and fears were calmed and confidence sprang in their hearts. Shall not we be restful and confident when our Brother, the Son of man, sits ruling all things? "We see not yet all things put under" us; "but we see Jesus," and that is enough. Therefore, set your affections on things above. Our hearts travel where our dear ones are. Oh, how strange and sad it is that professing Christians, whose lives, if they are Christians at all, have their roots and are hid with Christ in God, should turn so few, so cold thoughts and loves thither! Surely, "where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." Surely, if Christ is your treasure, you will feel that with Him is home, and that this is a foreign land! " Set your affections, then, " on things above," while life lasts; and when it is ebbing away, perhaps to our eyes, too. Heaven may be opened, and the vision of the Son of man standing to receive and to welcome us may be granted, and when it has ebbed away. His will be the first voice to welcome us, and He will lift us to share in His glorious rest, according to His own wondrous promise, "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father in His throne."

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