Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (For we walk by faith, not by sight:) We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. 2Cor 5:6-8
​
"LONGING TO BE “AT HOME WITH THE LORD”

This mortal life is a pilgrimage, and our body is a tent, so slight, so transitory, so easily taken down; but what does it matter, since there is awaiting us a mansion prepared by God? Often in this veil of flesh we groan. It cages us, anchors us down to earth, hampers us with its needs, obstructs our vision, and becomes the medium of temptation. How good it would be if our physical body could be suddenly transmuted into the glorified ethereal body which should be like the resurrection body of our Lord! It would be sweet to escape the wrench of death. But if not, then through death we shall carry with us the germ of the glorified body. That which shall be quickened will first die, but God will give it a body as it shall please Him.
The gate of death may look gloomy on this side, but on the other it is of burnished gold, and opens directly into the presence-chamber of Jesus. We long to see Him and to be with Him; and such desires are the work of the Holy Spirit and the first fruits of heaven. But remember that just inside the door there is Christ’s judgment seat, where He will adjudge our life and apportion our reward. Prepare, my soul, to give an account of thy talents!
​[F.B. Meyer]

​By faith, not appearance; God never wants us to look at our feelings. Self may want us to; and Satan may want us to. But God wants us to face facts, not feelings; the facts of Christ and of His finished and perfect work for us.
When we face these precious facts, and believe them because God says they are facts, God will take care of our feelings.
God never gives feeling to enable us to trust Him; God never gives feeling to encourage us to trust Him; God never gives feeling to show that we have already and utterly trusted Him.
God gives feeling only when He sees that we trust Him apart from all feeling, resting on His own Word, and on His own faithfulness to His promise.
Never until then can the feeling (which is from God) possibly come; and God will give the feeling in such a measure and at such a time as His love sees best for the individual case.
We must choose between facing toward our feelings and facing toward God’s facts. Our feelings may be as uncertain as the sea or the shifting sands. God’s facts are as certain as the Rock of Ages, even Christ Himself, who is the same yesterday, today and forever. [Streams in the Desert]

"When darkness veils His lovely face
I rest on His unchanging grace;
In every high and stormy gale,
My anchor holds within the veil."
Author Unknown

The believer has ground for constant confidence (2Co_4:6-8).
2Co 4:6  For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 
2Co 4:7  But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. 
2Co 4:8  We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 

Note the confidence which the believer has in reference to his present condition. “Knowing that while we are at home in the body we are from home as to the Lord.”

(1) In the present state we are at home in the body; but it is a home which is not a home, a frail lodging to accommodate us till we reach our true home. It is such a home as a soldier has in the camp, or as a passenger on a journey. In a sense, however, this body is a home, for here dwells the living, thinking, active mind. It is a house for which we have no little affection, and we are loath to quit it.

“This pleasing, anxious being e’er resigned,
Left the warm precincts of this house of clay,
Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind.”

We complain of the infirmities of our bodies, but we are in no hurry to leave them.
(2) But yet this body is not a fitting home for us.
(a) We often discover by experience how inconvenient it is. In the course of years it has become soiled and creased, and worn like the tents of Kedar. We have suffered many inconveniences; often the spirit has been willing, but the flesh has been weak.
(b) According to the Greek, ours is a home in a foreign country. A numerous band of our brothers and sisters are with us, even as the Jews found company of their own race in Babylon; but this is exile to us, we have no inheritance here.
(c) It is a home, too, which keeps us from our true home. To-day we are at school, like children whose great holiday joy is to go home. We are laborers, and this is the work field: when we have done our day’s work we shall go home.
(d) Home is the place where one feels secure; we find no such home spiritually in this world, for this is the place of conflict and watchfulness. In heaven there will be no foes to watch against, nor men of our own household to be our worst enemies.
(e) Home, too, is the place of the closest and sweetest familiarities. Here, alas, our spirits cannot take their fill of heavenly familiarities, for distance comes between; but up there what indulgence shall be accorded to us!

(3) These are the inconveniences, but Paul, despite all, was confident.
(a) He had a hope of the immortality to be revealed. He knew that when he shook off this body his soul would be with Christ.
(b) His confidence came from God’s work in his soul. “He that has wrought us to the self-same thing is God.” When the statuary takes the block of stone, and begins to carve it into a statue, we get the promise of that which is to be. But he may turn aside, or die, and therefore there may be no statue. But God never undertakes what He does not finish; and so if to-day I be the quarried block of marble, if He has begun to make the first chippings in me of genuine repentance and simple faith towards God, I have the sure prophecy that He will work me up into the perfect image of Christ.
(c) Another ground of confidence was “the earnest of the Spirit.”

2. Paul was equally confident about the next state, viz., the condition of a disembodied spirit (2Co_4:8).

(1) It was not because Paul thought it would be better to be without a body that he thus spoke. He has told us already “not for that we would be unclothed.” Our great Creator does not mean us to be maimed creatures for ever.

(2) But if Paul preferred the disembodied state to this, then the spirits of dead saints are not annihilated. Paul could not have counted destruction better than a life of holy confidence. Neither are they unconscious, for who would prefer torpor to active confidence? Neither are they in purgatory. Paul would not have been willing rather to be tormented than to live here and serve his Lord.

(3) He was willing to depart into the disembodied state because he knew he would be at home with the Lord in it.

(4) In that condition to which we are speeding
(a) We shall be beyond all doubt as to the truth of our holy faith. There will be no more mistrust of our Lord or of His promises, and no more shall we doubt the power of His blood or our share in His atoning sacrifice.
(b) We shall communicate with Christ more sensibly than we do now. Here we do speak with Him, but it is by faith through the Spirit of God; in the glory land we hear His voice while He personally speaks to us.
(c) We shall have greater capacity for taking in the glory of our Lord.

The believer has reasons for an absorbing ambition (2Co_4:9,10), From henceforth the one great thing we have to care about is to please our Lord. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
​2Co 4:9  Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; 
2Co 4:10  Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. 

The LORD will perfect that which concerneth me: thy mercy, O LORD, endureth for ever: forsake not the works of thine own hands. Psa 138:8
THE MOST HIGH REGARDS THE LOWLY

This is the first of a cycle of Davidic psalms, based on 2Sa_7:1-29. God’s promised favors are the theme of devout thanksgiving. No idols could have achieved such generous and great results. Even God had outdone Himself by magnifying His word above His name. Prayer had played its part, for in the day that it was offered it had been answered. Even kings in their various spheres would add their praises, Psa_138:4. Yet this would be only the beginning of wonders. God can never rest with an incomplete or an unfinished work. When He puts His hand to the salvation of a soul, He pledges Himself to perfect the good work until the day of Jesus Christ.
Php 1:6  Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: 

​Trust God, amid all disappointment and heartache. He will wipe away all tears, explain all mysteries, and place the topstone on the structure of your life. [F.B. Meyer]

​There is a Divine mystery in suffering, a strange and supernatural power in it, which has never been fathomed by the human reason. There never has been known great saintliness of soul which did not pass through great suffering. When the suffering soul reaches a calm sweet carelessness, when it can inwardly smile at its own suffering, and does not even ask God to deliver it from suffering, then it has wrought its blessed ministry; then patience has its perfect work; then the crucifixion begins to weave itself into a crown.
It is in this state of the perfection of suffering that the Holy Spirit works many marvelous things in our souls. In such a condition, our whole being lies perfectly still under the hand of God; every faculty of the mind and will and heart are at last subdued; a quietness of eternity settles down into the whole being; the tongue grows still, and has but few words to say; it stops asking God questions; it stops crying, "Why hast thou forsaken me?"
The imagination stops building air castles, or running off on foolish lines; the reason is tame and gentle; the choices are annihilated; it has no choice in anything but the purpose of God. The affections are weaned from all creatures and all things; it is so dead that nothing can hurt it, nothing can offend it, nothing can hinder it, nothing can get in its way; for, let the circumstances be what they may, it seeks only for God and His will, and it feels assured that God is making everything in the universe, good or bad, past or present, work together for its good.
Oh, the blessedness of being absolutely conquered! of losing our own strength, and wisdom, and plans, and desires, and being where every atom of our nature is like placid Galilee under the omnipotent feet of our Jesus.
-- Soul Food
The great thing is to suffer without being discouraged. -- Fenelon
[Streams in the Desert]

He will complete what he has begun. He will not begin to interpose in my behalf, and then abandon me. He will not promise to save me, and then fail to fulfill his promise. He will not encourage me, and then cast me off. So of us. He will complete what he begins. He will not convert a soul, and then leave it to perish. “Grace will complete what grace begins.”
Php 1:6  Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: 
​
Thy mercy, O Lord, endureth for ever - See the notes at Psa_136:1.
Psa 136:1  O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. 

Forsake not the works of thine own hands - What thou hast made; what thou hast begun to do. Do not leave me to perish. Prayer is one of the means - and an essential means - by which the saints are to be kept unto salvation. The doctrine of the “perseverance of the saints.” is not inconsistent with prayer, but rather prompts to it; and he who professes to rely on that doctrine, and feels so safe that he does not need to pray, and does not pray, gives certain evidence that he has never been converted, and has no true religion.
​[Albert Barnes]

He is Able-Maranatha Singers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYnE7eTYJqI

God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken,
​and shall he not make it good? Num 23:19
​Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow
​of turning. Jas 1:17
​The Unchangeable God

God is unchangeable. God cannot change; to suppose that He could change would be to suppose Him not Divine. A finite being may refuse to change, adhering rigidly to some purpose; but all the while that being is capable of change, there is n thing in his nature which makes it absolutely impossible that he should change. But it is so with God. We here speak of unchangeableness in regard of God’s dealings with His creatures, though of course it is also in Himself, in His essence, in His own property, that God is unchangeable; and it is an amazing and overwhelming contemplation, that of our Creator as in no respect capable of change, immutable because infinitely perfect.

The contrast between God and man. This unchangeableness is indispensable to the Creator, but incommunicable to the creature. It is indispensable to the Creator, forasmuch as the Creator must he in every respect infinite. But all change ends in addition or diminution: if anything be added, He was not infinite before; if anything be diminished, He is not infinite after. But if indispensable in the Creator, it is incommunicable to the creature. We say nothing against the powers of God, when we say that God could not have made an unchangeable creature. Must not that which is unchangeable be self-existent, and therefore eternal? That which has already had beginning, has already undergone change—the change from nothing to something, so that a creature, because not eternal, cannot be unchangeable. God alone is unchangeable, because God alone is eternal. It is self-evident that He cannot make an eternal creature, and therefore certain that He cannot make an unchangeable creature. The creature, then, is changing, the sun as well as the atom, the archangel no less than the worm (Psa_102:25-27). Was it only of the material fabric of the earth, with its many productions-of the firmament, with its majestic troop of stars, that the Psalmist asserted this? Nay, it is true of the intelligent creation as well as of the material. And spirits are immortal: sparks from the eternal fire, they shall never be quenched; but though immortal, they shall not be the same; indestructible, they shall be always on the march. Angel and man, they shall not, as we have already said, be ever at a stand. Stand! when there are new heights to be scaled, new depths to be fathomed? Nay, it were imperfection, it were wretchedness. It is the glory of the Creator that He never changes; it is the glory of the creature to be always changing. Eternity shall be one mighty progress to all except the Eternal. “I am Jehovah, I change not, the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” (H. Melvill, B. D.)

​"It is not from the lowest but from the highest points that the best things in the world always come.
​
We get from the sky, and not from the earth, all those gracious influences without which our world would be only a gigantic lifeless cinder roiling through space. Light and heat come down to us from above; and so do the sunshine that warms and quickens and beautifies everything, and the rain and the dew that refresh the face of nature. The ground is to the plant mainly the soil in which its roots are fixed; it obtains its food chiefly from above, from the air and the sunshine and the showers of heaven. Then, too, it is from the highest parts of the earth’s surface, not from the lowest, that all the good things come which make the earth such a beautiful and comfortable home for man. The mountains, not the plains, are the sources of our greatest and most precious gifts. Were it not for the mountains there would be no streams to quench our thirst and water our fields—no winds to purify the air—no clouds to overshadow the earth in the heat of the day, and to keep in the warmth from being diffused in space at night. And is it not a very beautiful, as well as a very striking, thought, that all our flowers come to us originally from the mountains—from the highest and not from the lowest parts of the earth? They bloomed on the heights; and when the foul atmosphere of the plains and valleys vanished gradually, and the air and sunshine became so clear and bright that flowers could breathe in them, they descended as God’s good and perfect gifts from above to beautify the lowlands with their lovely presence. Thus you see that even in the natural world every good and perfect gift literally is from above. The things that make this world most beautiful and best fitted to be our abode come from the heights. And is there not a wise lesson for your souls from this fact? If your ordinary natural life is supported and enriched by the good things which come from the sky and the highest parts of the earth, how much more should your true life—the immortal life of your souls—be nourished and enriched by the good things that come to you from the highest of all sources, from the Author of every good and perfect gift—the Father of Lights? The best and most perfect of all gifts has come from above, the unspeakable gift of God’s dear Son; and with the gift of His own Son He gives you the gift of the Holy Spirit, that you may know and appreciate fully all the goodness and perfection of Jesus Christ, and make Him your own; that He may work in you the faith which is the gift of God, by which you may believe in Christ to the saving of your soul, and enjoy all the blessings of salvation. In Christ the blessings of this life itself come to you from above, strained and filtered of all their evil, and made truly satisfying without any sorrow being added. And you will get every good and perfect gift from above—from the Father of Lights, by that wonderful ladder set up between earth and heaven along which the angels are ascending and descending—the new and living way of Christ’s finished work—in answer to that real earnest prayer of yours which brings your heart and mind into closest contact with the mind and heart of God." (H. Macmillan, D. D.)

"The great glory of our Christian faith is that we have not to do with a dead Christ, but with a Christ who is living still, and who is to all disciples to-day just what He was to disciples who saw and heard Him twenty centuries ago. His biography is not the biography of one who sleeps now, and has slept for ages, in a Syrian tomb; it is the biography of an earthly life that is continued in the heavens, the life of a Divine Redeemer who is “alive for evermore,” the same in love and power as once He was, the unchanged and unchangeable One. The sinful to-day find Him the same Forgiver as of old; the ignorant find Him the same Teacher, the sorrowful the same Comforter, the despairing the same Deliverer, as He ever was. And what He is to-day the same He will be found to be when heaven comes. Every disciple, seeing Him as He is, will recognize at once the same Jesus who loved him, and whom he loved, long before.
​
Whatever may have been the original grounds of the faith of the great majority of Christian people, their faith has been verified in their own personal experience. They trusted in Christ for the remission of sins, and they have been liberated from the sense of guilt; for deliverance from sin, and the chains of evil habits have been broken or loosened, and the fires of evil passion have been quenched or subdued. They trusted in Christ for a firmer strength to resist temptation and to live righteously, and the strength has come. They have received from Him—they are sure of it—a new life, a life akin to the life of God. They have been drawn into a wonderful personal union with Christ Himself; “in Christ” they have found God, and have passed into that invisible and eternal order which is described as “the kingdom of God.” Whatever uncertainties there may be about the historical worth of the four narratives which profess to tell the story of Christ’s earthly ministry, their faith in Him is firm, because they know by their experience that the Living Christ is the Lord and Savior of men.… For Christian faith it is enough to know the Living Christ; a knowledge of Christ “after the flesh”—in His place in the visible and earthly order—is not indispensable. But for the perfect strength and joy of the Christian life we must know both the Christ who lived and died in the Holy Land eighteen hundred years ago, and the Christ who, ever since His resurrection, has been saving and ruling men."  [R.W. Dale, The Living Christ and the Four Gospels.]

​Heb 13:8  Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever. 

A talebearer revealeth secrets: but he that is of a faithful spirit
​concealeth the matter. Prov 11:13​
Tale-bearers Traders in Scandal

"Whatever was confided to him he is sure to publish abroad. The word means a hawker, or travelling chapman. Such are always great newsmongers; and will tell even their own secrets, rather than have nothing to say." [Adam Clarke]

A talebearer. One celebrated nation of antiquity used to express this man’s character by a very significant figure. They called a talebearer a "seedpicker." There are men in the world who live by their seed-collecting: by going about here and there, from house to house, from street to street, through a town large or small, and gathering together all the little stories which can be told or made about the neighbors who are dwelling securely by them, and ignorant of the calumnies by which they are assailed.

A talebearer reveals secrets. Many motives go to make up a talebearer.
(1) Perhaps he is a witty man. He can intimate, rather than express, a scandal. His representations of character are pungent. His imitations, his caricatures of manner and of speech, are irresistibly comic. In society he is the life of his company. It is not till he is silent and departed—perhaps not even then—that you begin to feel that there has been virtually a talebearer among you, and that he has been revealing unkind secrets.
(2) Or he may be a man in whose own conscience there is a sore place. He knows something against himself. He is conscious of some lurking, some secret, some bosom sin. And it is a relief to him to hope that others are not so much better than himself. He finds a solace in his wretchedness in making company for his sin.
(3) There are others who cannot bear superiors. They do not like superiors in station, but superiors in character they cannot brook. Their only comfort is in a general disbelief of virtue. A ridiculous story to tell of the eminently good is to them as a draught of water to the thirsty.

III. "He that is of a faithful spirit concealeth the matter." He does not say what matter. But we may understand it to include two things: that which has been entrusted to him in the secrecy of confidence, and that which has become known to him to another’s disparagement.
​
If we could part forever with the disposition of the talebearer, we should have parted with that which, more than anything else, confuses and perplexes and embitters human life. It is the want of self-knowledge which makes us so keen-sighted. It is the want of acquaintance with Christ, as our Propitiation first, and then as our Example, which makes it possible for us to sit in the tribunal of judgment.
[C. J. Vaughan, Lessons of Life and Godliness, p. 1.]

And withal they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not. 1Ti 5:13
For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies. 2Th 3:11
​
Conduct of the Disorderly

There are marked traits of these kinds of people, and are found in both men and women alike. Both have the same troublemaking traits, that cause a great deal of problems in communities, and destroys peoples lives, if they are allowed to. These type of people need to be blocked, and boundaries against their activities put into place. 

Their traits are - Doing every thing they should not do - impertinent meddlers with other people’s business; prying into other people’s circumstances and domestic affairs; magnifying or minifying, mistaking or underrating, every thing; newsmongers and telltales; an abominable race, the curse of every neighborhood where they live, and a pest to religious society. There is a fine paronomasia in the above words, and evidently intended by the apostle.

Though they work not at their own business, yet are very busy in other men's matters, and have the affairs of kingdoms, and cities, and towns, and neighborhoods, and churches, and families, upon their hands; which they thrust themselves into, and intermeddle with, though they have no business at all with them: these wander from house to house, and curiously inquire into personal and family affairs, are tattlers, full of prate and talk, and, like the Athenians, spend all their time in telling or hearing new things; and they also speak things which they should not; they carry tales from one to another, and privately whisper things to the disadvantage of their fellow creatures and Christians, and backbite and slander them. These are the pests of nations and neighborhoods, the plagues of churches, and the scandal of human nature." [John Gill]
​
​​What does scripture tell us to do:
2Th 3:6  Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us. 
2Th 3:7  For yourselves know how ye ought to follow us: for we behaved not ourselves disorderly among you;

In this passage the Apostle teaches the Thessalonians that in tranquility, sedateness of heart and life, they are severally, not only to work, but to do their own work, and so have need of no man. Thus the bread which is their own will be doubly sweet to them. If we revert to the military metaphor which underlies the word "disorderly," and may also underlie the word "withdraw," we may place another saying of the Apostle into connection with these injunctions. "Every man shall bear his own burden,"—his own proper and personal load. The word is used to signify a soldier’s kit or knapsack. In Christian warfare, then, each faithful soldier must see that he has his own weight, and that he does not encumber another with it, or take up another’s instead of his own. All acts of this kind are walking disorderly.
​
Believers then have daily work to do; not only Christian work, but all work done in a Christian spirit. The record of their days must never be like that said to have been found in the diary of Louis XVI., after the first French Revolution, the simple word occurring on almost every page, "Nothing, nothing!" Time rather must be redeemed, not wasted.

III. "But ye, brethren, be not weary in well-doing." The Apostle exhorts them not to lose heart, not to faint as cowards, in doing whatever is honorable and good—all actions which are fair in themselves and blissful in their results. An implied commendation is in the injunction. They are even now engaged in well-doing, and they are urged, by perseverance therein, to show forth "the patience of Christ." There is to be well doing in the widest sense of the word. Surveying the huge circumference of human love, Christ’s people are never to faint in the work of leaving the world better than they found it. "In due season we shall reap if we faint not."
[J. Hutchison, Lectures on Thessalonians, p. 322.]

"Have no fellowship with those who will not submit to proper discipline; who do not keep their place; ατακτως, such as are out of their rank, and act according to their own wills and caprices; and particularly such as are idle and busybodies. These he had ordered, 1Th_4:11, 1Th_4:12, that they should study to be quiet, mind their own business, and work with their hands; but it appears that they had paid no attention to this order, and now he desires the Church to exclude such from their communion."
[Adam Clarke]
Conclusion:
When you hear someone slandering and gossiping about someone else, you should take note of this, and realize that when you are out of ear shot, you will be talked about the same way. When anyone ever comes to me, and starts talking about someone else in a degrading way, I stop them, and make it clear I'm not interested in hearing it. I put an end to it right then. If you do this, you'll make enemies, and few friends. But, if someone is talking about you behind your back, they're not your friend anyway, they are an enemy you don't need in your life.
Lorna Couillard

If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.
​Joh 8:36
​How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them
​that heard him;  Heb 2:3

By the promise of God, true spiritual liberation is available in Jesus Christ. "Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed." If this saving work of the Lord is neglected there is no rescue from the devastating consequences of sin and self. "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation." As we previously noted, this delivering grace of God is so great that it not only provides a rescue "from," but it also supplies a rescue "unto."

This great salvation, which is experienced by coming to Jesus in humble faith, includes a setting free from innate sin unto imputed righteousness. "For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2Co_5:21).
2Co 5:21  For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

​This great salvation in Christ includes deliverance from the kingdom of darkness unto the kingdom of light. "Giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love" (Col_1:12-13).
Col 1:12  Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: 
Col 1:13  Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: 

​This great salvation also includes liberation from enmity toward God unto friendship with God. "When we were enemies we were reconciled (turned from enemies into friends) through the death of His Son" (Col_1:21-22).
Col 1:21  And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled 
Col 1:22  In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight: 

​This great salvation also includes deliverance from alienation from God unto union with Him. "And you, who once were alienated... For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection" (Rom_6:5).
Rom 6:5  For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: 

​This great salvation also includes liberation from our own weakness unto God's mighty power. "And He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong" (2Co_12:9-10).
2Co 12:9  And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 

​Lastly, this great salvation includes a rescuing from a self-produced life unto Christ living in us. "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me" (Gal_2:20).
​Gal 2:20  I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. 
[Day by Day by Grace]

God is-A Consuming Fire
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. ​Gal 2:20

"The Apostle goes on to describe how he is freed from sin; how far he is from continuing therein. I am crucified with Christ - Made conformable to his death; "the body of sin is destroyed." Rom 6:6. And I - As to my corrupt nature. Live no longer - Being dead to sin. But Christ liveth in me - Is a fountain of life in my inmost soul, from which all my tempers, words, and actions flow. And the life that I now live in the flesh - Even in this mortal body, I live by faith in the Son of God - I derive every moment from that supernatural principle; from a divine evidence and conviction, that "he loved me, and delivered up himself for me."​  [John Wesley]

I am crucified with Christ - The death of Christ on the cross has showed me that there is no hope of salvation by the law; I am therefore as truly dead to all expectation of justification by the law, as Christ was dead when he gave up the ghost upon the cross. Through him alone I live - enjoy a present life, and have a prospect of future glory.

Yet not I - It is not of my natural life I speak, nor of any spiritual things which I myself have procured; but Christ liveth in me. God made man to be a habitation of his own Spirit: the law cannot live in me so as to give me a Divine life; it does not animate, but kill; but Christ lives in me; he is the soul of my soul; so that I now live to God. But this life I have by the faith of the Son of God - by believing on Christ as a sacrifice for sin; for he loved me, and because he did so he gave himself for me - made himself a sacrifice unto death, that I might be saved from the bitter pains of death eternal.
[Adam Clarke]

Consuming Love
O Life divine--
Poured out instead of mine--
O Sacrifice--
Who by Thy death hast paid my ransom price--
In whom I see
The righteousness which God accepts for me--

Pour out Thyself within me now:
Life of my life be Thou:
As deeper in Thy death I die,
Rise Thou within, and sanctify
Thy temple—working in me, to fulfil,
O living Christ, Thy Father’s will.
[Edith H. Divall, A Believer’s Songs, 105.]

Follow the Master
For the glory and passion of this midnight,
I praise Thy name, I give Thee thanks, O Christ!
Thou that hast neither failed me nor forsaken,
Through these hard hours with victory overpriced;
Now that I too of Thy passion have partaken,
For the world’s sake called, elected, sacrificed.

Thou wast alone through Thy redemption vigil,
Thy friends had fled;
The angel at the garden from Thee parted,
And solitude instead,
More than the scourge, or Cross, O tender-hearted,
Under the crown of thorns bowed down Thy head.

But I, amid the torture and the taunting,
I have had Thee!
Thy hand was holding my hand fast and faster,
Thy voice was close to me,
And glorious eyes said, “Follow me, thy Master,
Smile as I smile thy faithfulness to see.”
[H. E. Hamilton King.]

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am,
there ye may be also. Joh 14:1-3

The Reception

​One of the best tests of the truth and reality and vigour of our Christian life lies in this, that when we anticipate the great life to come, however far speculation may endeavour to trace its course in the province of that mysterious land, we return to this thought, which satisfies completely all the deepest and best desires of our hearts,—that where Christ is, we are to be also. But there is a personal delight in these words of Christ’s: His joy would be incomplete if we were not with Him in the Father’s house. It would diminish our gladness, our anticipation of supreme bliss, if we did not know that our presence with Him would heighten His own happiness. He is not so absorbed in the splendours of His Eternal Throne, or in the great tasks which belong to Him as the Lord of the heaven and the earth, as to be indifferent to the affection that binds Him to us and to God. Nor is He so absorbed even in the blessedness of His eternal fellowship with the Father. If on the one side of His nature He is eternally one with God, on the other side of His nature He is eternally one with us; and fellowship with us, in the perfection of our righteousness and the perfection of our blessedness, is as necessary to the heavenly glory of Christ as His fellowship with the Father Himself. The joy that was set before Him when He endured the Cross, despising the shame, was this,—that He might redeem us from sin; and knowing as only He knows the blessedness of living in the eternal love of God, He wanted us in our measure to know that blessedness likewise.
Heaven is the Father’s house, where we shall be young again, the ideal home life here revived and sanctified, where friend will meet with friend, where the many mansions will extend their ample hospitality to people of every kindred and tongue and nation; yet even this is not the chief feature of that life to come. Its chief feature is the fellowship not of friend with friend, but of all with Christ—“That where I am, there ye may be also.” The Father’s house is not a perfect place to Christ until He gathers into its mansions all those for whom He died. Not until He has His loved ones beside Him where He is, and has made them what He is, will He be satisfied. That is heaven,—to be with Christ, to see Him as He is, to be as He is. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.”  [Excerpt from John G. Paton]

"The departure for such a purpose necessarily involved the return again. Both are stages in the process, which is perfected by complete union-’That where I am there ye may be also.’
Christ, as I have been saying, is Heaven. His presence is all that we need for peace, for joy, for purity, for rest, for love, for growth. To be ‘with Him,’ as He tells us in another part of these wonderful last words in the upper chamber, is to ‘behold His glory.’ And to behold His glory, as John tells us in his Epistle, is to be like Him. So Christ’s presence means the communication to us of all the lustre of His radiance, of all the whiteness of His purity, of all the depth of His blessedness, and of a share in His wondrous dominion. His glorified manhood will pass into ours, and they that are with Him where He is will rest as in the centre and home of their spirits, and find Him all-sufficient. His presence is my Heaven.
That is almost all we know. Oh! it is more than all we need to know. The curtain is the picture. It is because what is there transcends in glory all our present experience that Scripture can only hint at it and describe it by negations-such as ‘no night,’ ‘no sorrow,’ ‘no tears,’ ‘former things passed away’; and by symbols of glory and lustre gathered from all that is loftiest and noblest in human buildings and society. But all these are but secondary and poor. The living heart of the hope, and the lambent centre of the brightness, is, ‘So shall we ever be with the Lord.’
And it is enough. It is enough to make the bond of union between us in the outer court and them in the holy place. Parted friends will fix to look at the same star at the same moment of the night and feel some union; and if we from amidst the clouds of earth, and they from amidst the pure radiance of their heaven, turn our eyes to the same Christ, we are not far apart. If He be the companion of each of us, He reaches a hand to each, and, clasping it, the parted ones are united; and ‘whether we wake or sleep we live together,’ because we both live with Him.
Brother! Is Jesus Christ so much to you that a heaven which consists in nearness and likeness to Him has any attraction for you? Let Him be your Saviour, your Sacrifice, your Helper, your Companion. Obey Him as your King, love Him as your Friend, trust Him as your All. And be sure that then the darkness will be but the shadow of His hand, and instead of dreading death as that which separates you from life and love and action and joy, you will be able to meet it peacefully, as that which rends the thin veil, and unites you with Him who is the Heaven of heavens.
He has gone to prepare a place for us. And if we will let Him, He will prepare us for the place, and then come and lead us thither. ‘Thou wilt show me the path of life’ which leads through death. ‘In Thy presence is fullness of joy, and at Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.’ "
[Excerpt from  Alexander Maclaren]

As He neared the end, our Lord could speak of little else than the Father. Heaven was His Father’s house, where a prepared mansion awaits each of us, perfectly adapted to the peculiarities of our temperament. The yearning of the heart of man was truly set forth by Philip in his request to see the Father; but never before had it dawned upon human intelligence that the divine can find its supreme revelation in the simplicities and commonplaces of human existence. While Philip was waiting for the Father to be shown in lightning and thunder and the splendor of Sinai, he missed the daily unfolding of the life with which he dwelt in daily contact. To see Jesus was to see the Father. Nothing could more certainly prove the need of the Holy Spirit, by whom alone we can know the Lord.  [F.B. Meyer]

​Joh 14:6  Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. 1Co 13:11-12

When I was a child. In these verses the change he has declared will take place is illustrated by the change from childhood to manhood. The speech, thoughts and feelings of the child give way to those of the man. So it will be when the church moves on from childhood to full development.

For now we see in a glass. In a "mirror." The mirrors of the ancients were of polished metal, and were far inferior to ours. The images were indistinct in comparison. They were seen darkly, indistinctly, imperfectly. Thus in this state of our knowledge of divine things imperfect and incomplete.

But then face to face. We will not look in a glass in the coming state, but will see face to face, without a veil, or obscurity.

Now I know in part. There were limitations upon the knowledge even of Paul; only a part was seen.

But then, when the veil is taken away, and the full revelation has come in the presence of Christ, he shall know fully, know God, eternity and its secrets, even as he is known to God. Thus it is shown that all these spiritual gifts are fleeting.  [B.W. Johnson]

"This future state of blessedness is as far beyond the utmost perfection that can be attained in this world, as our adult state of Christianity is above our state of natural infancy, in which we understand only as children understand; speak only a few broken articulate words, and reason only as children reason; having few ideas, little knowledge but what may be called mere instinct, and that much less perfect than the instinct of the brute creation; and having no experience. But when we became men-adults, having gained much knowledge of men and things, we spoke and reasoned more correctly, having left off all the manners and habits of our childhood."
[Adam Clarke]

Continuing in this verse from Paul:
​2. ​Illustrations of the temporary nature of the gifts and the permanence of love.
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

• a. ​When I was a child: Childish things are appropriate for children, and the gifts are appropriate for our present time. But the gifts of the Holy Spirit will not be appropriate forever.
• i. Paul is not trying to say that if we are spiritually mature, we will not need spiritual gifts. But he is saying that if we are spiritually mature, we will not over emphasize spiritual gifts, especially at the expense of love.
• b. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face: When we can fully see Jesus (not as in a poorly reflected image) the need for the gifts will have vanished, and so the gifts will pass away. The gifts of the Holy Spirit will be overshadowed by the immediate presence of Jesus. When the sun rises, we turn off the lesser lights.
• c. Face to face: Paul is using this term to describe complete, unhindered fellowship with God. 1Jn_3:2 tells us when we get to heaven, we shall see Him as He is. There will be no more barriers to our relationship with God.
• i. In Exo_33:11, it says the LORD spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. In Exodus 33, face to face is a figurative expression, meaning free and open fellowship. Moses had not - and could not - see the actual face of God the Father in His glory. This is the sense in which John says No one has seen God at any time (1Jn_4:12). In the spiritual sense which Moses had a face to face relationship with God, we can have a free and open relationship with God. But in the ultimate sense, it will wait until then, when we are united with Jesus in glory.
• ii. So, in a passage like Num_12:8, where the Lord says of Moses, I speak with him face to face, the phrase face to face is a figure of speech, telling of great and unhindered intimacy. Moses’ face was not literally beholding the literal face of God, but he did enjoy direct, intimate, conversation with the Lord. But the face to face Paul speaks of here is the “real” face to face.
• d. For now we see in a mirror: This speaks again to the perfect fellowship with God we will have one day. Today, when we look in a good mirror, the image is clear. But in the ancient world, mirrors were made out of polished metal, and the image was always unclear and somewhat distorted. We see Jesus now only in a dim, unclear way, but one day we will see Him with perfect clarity. We will know just as I also am known.
• i. The city of Corinth was famous for producing some of the best bronze mirrors in antiquity. But at their best, they couldn’t give a really clear vision. When we get to heaven, we will have a really clear vision of the Lord.
• i. We couldn’t handle this greater knowledge on this side of eternity. “If we knew more of our own sinfulness, we might be driven to despair; if we knew more of God’s glory, we might die of terror; if we had more understanding, unless we had equivalent capacity to employ it, we might be filled with conceit and tormented with ambition. But up there we shall have our minds and our systems strengthened to receive more, without the damage that would come to us here from overleaping the boundaries of order, supremely appointed and divinely regulated.” (Spurgeon)
• e. God knows everything about me; this is how I also am known. But in heaven, I will know God as perfectly as I can; I will know just as I also am known. It doesn’t mean I will be all-knowing as God is, but it means I will know Him as perfectly as I can.
• i. Heaven is precious to us for many reasons. We long to be with loved ones who have passed before us and whom we miss so dearly. We long to be with the great men and women of God who have passed before us in centuries past. We want to walk the streets of gold, see the pearly gates, see the angels round the throne of God worshipping Him day and night. However, none of those things, precious as they are, make heaven really “heaven.” What makes heaven heaven is the unhindered, unrestricted, presence of our Lord, and to know just as I also am known will be the greatest experience of our eternal existence.
• ii. “The streets of gold will have small attraction to us, the harps of angels will but slightly enchant us, compared with the King in the midst of the throne. He it is who shall rivet our gaze, absorb our thoughts, enchain our affection, and move all our sacred passions to their highest pitch of celestial ardour. We shall see Jesus.” (Spurgeon)
• d. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are necessary and appropriate for this present age, when we are not yet fully mature, and we only know in part. There will come a day when the gifts are unnecessary, but that day has not come yet.
• i. Clearly, the time of fulfillment Paul refers to with then face to face and then I shall know just as I also am known speaks of being in the glory of heaven with Jesus. Certainly, that is the that which is perfect spoken of in 1Co_13:10 as well. According to the context, it can’t be anything else.  [Excerpt from David Guzik comm.]

Consider our love of the pleasures of life. I am willing to allow that there is an innocent love of the world, innocent in itself. God made the world, and has sanctioned the general form of human society, and has given us abundant pleasures in it. I do not say lasting pleasures, but still, while they are present, really pleasures. It is natural that the young should look with hope to the prospect before them. They fancy themselves rising in the world, distinguished, courted, admired, securing influence over others, and rewarded with high station. James and John had such a dream when they besought Christ that they might sit at His side in the most honorable places in His kingdom. Now, such dreams can hardly be called sinful in themselves and without reference to the particular case; for the gifts of wealth, power, and influence, and much more of domestic comfort come from God, and may be religiously improved. But, though not directly censurable, they are childish—childish in a Christian who has infinitely higher views to engross his mind, and as being childish excusable only in the young.

But there are other childish views and habits besides which must be put off while we take on ourselves the full profession of a Christian, and these, not so free from guilt as those which have been already noticed; such as the love of display, greediness of the world’s praise, and the love of the comforts and luxuries of life. Let us take it for granted, as a truth which cannot be gainsaid, that to break with the world and make religion our first concern, is only to cease to be children; and again, that, in consequence, those Christians who have come to mature years, and yet do not even so much as this, are in the presence of the angels of God an odious and unnatural spectacle and mockery of Christianity. God knows no variableness, neither shadow of turning; and when we outgrow our childhood, we but approach, however feebly, to His likeness, who has no youth nor age, who has no passions, no hopes, nor fears, but who loves truth, purity, and mercy, and who is supremely blessed, because He is supremely holy.  [J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons]

"The salutation by the hand of me Paul. Remember my bonds.
​Grace be with you. Amen." — Col 4:18

​At the close of his dictation, St. Paul took the stylus from the hand of his amanuensis, and appended his signature to the letter, which was awaiting that necessary endorsement. As he did so, he contrasted his irregular and clumsy writing with the flowing current-hand of his scribe, and in excuse, said pathetically, "Remember my bonds!" It was as though he said, "You cannot expect a man who for thrice years has had his wrist fettered by an iron chain to write as well as when he was a student at Gamaliel's feet!" He makes reference to the same subject in Gal_6:11, where he speaks of the "large letters" which he had written with his own hand; but in this case it was caused by his failing eyesight rather than the iron fetter.
​
There are other bonds than iron chains which impose on us their restraints and limitations. Many of us, as we review our work at the close of the day, are overwhelmed with the sense of failure. As we kneel before our Lord, we are constrained to say, "Alas, we have inscribed Thy Name on the hearts which lay open to us, as paper the hand, in very clumsy and unworthy style. Forgive us, and remember our bonds."

Let us accept our limitations as from the Will of God. There is no way to peace or power, save in accepting the Will of God, making no distinction between what He appoints or permits, but believing that in either we are in contact with the Eternal purpose for us. Paul never forgot that he was the prisoner of Jesus Christ. He believed that for every limitation on the earthward side there would be enlargement on the other and spiritual side. Weakness here, added strength there; the being hourly delivered unto the cross, and from the ground the blossoming of endless life. 

Let us do all the good we can in spite of fetters. St. Paul could not continue his travels over the world, but there were many avenues of service open to him. He could pray, and he did (Col_1:3; Col_2:1; Col_4:12). He could influence others (Php_1:11-14).
Php 1:11  Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God. 
The Advance of the Gospel
Php 1:12  But I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel; 
Php 1:13  So that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace, and in all other places; 
Php 1:14  And many of the brethren in the Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.
​
He employed his leisure in writing the epistles that have been the perennial solace of sorrowful hearts. There is a door, nearer to you than you think, opening out of your prison, through which God will enable you to render helpful service for Him.  [Our Daily Walk]

Being bound by a chain, Paul had to employ a secretary, and then at the close of the letter he would raise his own manacled hand, and add a few words of loving salutation. Under these circumstances his writing would be awkward and ill-formed. He looks at the: MS. He sees his friend’s work so neat, and his own writing disfiguring the MS. “What will the Colossians think of this? They may regard it as an indication of carelessness. I will tell them the reason—my bonds. They will not misunderstand now.” This is a small circumstance, but there is this in it: If the great apostle needed consideration, and had something which spoiled the perfection of his work, and which, being remembered, accounted for the imperfection, may it not he true of others also? We have all a chain of some kind.

How many chains there are that need to be remembered.
1. Temperament often hinders men from being and doing what others expect of them. Some are impulsive, others slow; some are irritable, others placid; some must work spasmodically, others are dogged; some are sanguine, others despondent. You see all this in the family circle, where you make allowance. You see it in the Church; remember it there.

2. The bondage of education, the training of a lifetime, leads to misunderstandings. One man has had a rough, and another a gentle, bringing up. They meet as brethren—the one hearty, the other reserved. The one thinks the other rude; the other thinks his brother cold. Yet both are equally friendly and loyal. What they want is to remember one another’s bonds.

3. Family ties are sometimes bonds. How many live in unsympathetic homes which restrain their better impulses, and act as a clog to their activities. How many have claims upon them of which others know nothing, and which make them appear frugal, to the point of being stingy.

4. What a chain, too, is some forgiven sin. It hinders men from taking positions which others in ignorance would thrust upon them. Just such a sin barred David from building the Temple. There is a sense in which we should forget a man’s past—in kindness; but there are times when we should remember it in love. It will thus account for much that is unaccountable.

How important it is that these bonds should be remembered. When a man is appointed to do some work in a public observatory, he is set to take some well-ascertained observations, that any deviation on his part from the average vision may be ascertained. And this deviation is called his “personal difference,” and is allowed for. If forgotten it would make his work useless. Something like this should be done by Christians. Allowance should be made for each man’s “personal difference.” Our brother’s chain should be remembered. [  J. Ogle - Excerpt from Biblical Illustrator]

​2Ti 1:8  Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God; 
2Ti 1:9  Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, 
​Heb 13:3  Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body. 

If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake,
because they know not him that sent me. John 15:18-21
​The Hatred of the World

The servant is not greater than the Lord: nor so great, and consequently not more, nor so: much deserving of respect, or to be treated in a better manner; suggesting, that Christ was their Lord and master, as he was, and they were his servants; and therefore were not greater than him, but much inferior to him, and could not expect better usage from men than he had:
if they have persecuted me; as they did, both by words and deeds, as before observed:
They will persecute you; and so they did in like manner, and from place to place:
If they have kept my saying; which is either ironically spoken, or designs that insidious malicious observation of Christ's words, made by the Jews, with an intent to catch and lay hold on something to improve against him:
They will keep yours also; that is, either they will attend to your doctrines, or they will make the same spiteful remarks, and put the same evil constructions on your words as on mine.  [John Gill]

Unregenerate humanity is here presented. Let's unpack it, and glean what it contains:
I. AS GLOWING WITH HATE.
1. It was a hatred of goodness. To hate the mean, the selfish, the false, the dishonest, and morally dishonorable would be right. But evil was not the object of their hatred.
(1) It was good as embodied in the life of Christ. “It hated Me before it hated you.” How deep, burning, persistent, and cruelly operative was this enmity from Bethlehem to Calvary.
(2) It was good as reflected in His disciples. Just so far as they imbibed and reflected the Spirit of Christ were they hated. “For My name’s sake.”

2. It was a hatred developed in persecution. It was not a hatred that slumbered in a passion or that went off even in abusive language, it prompted the infliction of the greatest cruelties. The history of true Christians in all ages has been a history of persecution.

3. It was a hatred without a just reason. “Without a cause.” Of course they had a “cause.” The doctrines of goodness clashed with their deep rooted prejudices, its policy with their daily procedure, its eternal principles flashed on their consciences and exposed their wickedness. But their
“cause” was the very reason why they ought to have loved Christ. Christ knew and stated the cause of the hatred (Joh_15:19).

4. It was a hatred forming a strong reason for brotherly love amongst the disciples. Christ begins His forewarning them of it by urging them to love one another (Joh_15:17). As your enemies outside of you are strong in their passionate hostility towards you, be you compactly welded together in mutual love. Unity is strength.

II. AS LOADED WITH RESPONSIBILITY (Joh_15:22). These words must, of course, be taken in their comparative sense. Before He came amongst them the guilt of their nation had been augmenting for centuries, and they had been filling up the measure of their iniquities. But great as was their sin before He came it was trifling compared to it now since His advent amongst them.
​
1. Had He not come they would not have known the sin of hating Him. Hatred towards the best of beings, the incarnation of goodness, is sin in its most malignant form, it was the culmination of human depravity. But had they not known Him they could not have hated Him, the heart is dead to all objects outside the region of knowledge.

2. Had He not come they would not have rejected Him. “He came to His own and His own received Him not.” The rejection of Him involved the most wicked folly, the most heartless ingratitude, the most daring impiety. “If they which despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two witnesses”.
​
3. If He had not come they would not have crucified Him. What crime on the long black catalogue of human wickedness is to be compared to this?
Conclusion:
1. Good men accept the moral hostility of the unregenerate world. Your great Master taught you to accept it. It is in truth a test of your character and an evidence of your Christlikeness.
2. Nominal Christians read your doom. (D. Thomas, D. D.)

​Perhaps there is no word more commonly in our mouths than "the world," and yet hardly any to which we attach less clear and certain meaning—indeed, the sense intended by it varies according to the character of the person that uses it. Let us therefore endeavor to come at something better than mere floating notions about it. The world out of which the disciples were taken was not the Gentile world, but the disobedience of the visible Church.

I. First, it is true to distinguish between the body of Christ, the Church and the world, as between things antagonistic and irreconcilable. For the Son of God, by His incarnation and atonement, and by the calling and mission of His Apostles, has founded and built up in the earth a visible kingdom, which has no other head but Him alone. That visible kingdom is so taken out of the world that a man must either be in it or out of it, and must, therefore, either be in the Church or in the world. In the visible kingdom of Christ are all the graces and promises of life; in the world are the powers and traditions of death. We know of no revealed salvation out of that visible kingdom; we can point to no other way to life. There is but one Saviour, one Mediator, one Sacrifice for the sin of the world, one baptism for the remission of sins, one rule of faith, one law of holiness. There can be no real fellowship or intercourse between those that are of the body of Christ, and those that are not. The only intercourse the Church has ever held with the heathen has been either such as Paul permitted to the Christians in Corinth, who might still maintain the relations of outward kindliness with unbelievers, or direct missions for the conversion of unbelievers. There could be no closer fellowship; for there was a moral and formal contrariety between the rules of conduct and aim on both sides, which held the Church and the world apart.
​
II. But farther, it is no less true to say that the world, which in the beginning was visibly without the body of Christ, is now invisibly within it. So long as the world was heathen, it warred against the Church, in bitter and relentless persecutions. It was when the conversion of individuals drew after it, at last, the whole civil state—when the secular powers, with all their courts, pomps, institutions, laws, judicatures, and the entire political order of the world, came into the precinct of the Church—then it was that the great tradition of human thought, passion, belief, prejudice, and custom, mingled itself with the unwritten usages of the Church. The world is now inside the fold, baptized, catechized, subdued, specious, and worshipping. This is a far more dangerous antagonist. There is but one safeguard for Christ’s servants; to be like Him, in whom the prince of this world in the hour of temptation had nothing he could make his own. Our safety is not so much where as what we are.  [H. E. Manning, Sermons, vol. ii., p. 239.]

1. Reckon it as a sign and test of our true union with Jesus Christ. Let us count the reproach of Christ as a treasure to be proud of, and to be guarded.
2. Be sure that it is your goodness, and not your evils or your weakness, that men dislike. The world has a very keen eye, and it is a good thing that it has, for the faults of professing Christians. Many bring down a great deal of deserved hostility upon themselves and of discredit upon Christianity; and then they comfort themselves and say they are bearing the reproach of the Cross. Not a bit of it. Be careful for this, that it is Christ in you that men turn from, and not you yourself and your weakness and sin. Ministers find themselves preaching to themselves often, in regards to this. God knows how to keep us dependent on Him.
3. But, also meet this antagonism by not dropping your standard one inch. If you begin to haul it down where are you going to stop? Nowhere, until you have got it draggling in the mud at your foot. It is no use trying to conciliate by compromise. All that we shall gain by that will be indifference and contempt.
4. Meet hostility with unmoved, patient, Christ-like, and Christ-derived love and sympathy. The patient sunshine pours upon the glaciers and melts the thick-ribbed ice at last into sweet water. The patient sunshine beats upon the mist clouds and breaks up its edges and scatters it at the last. And our Lord here tells us that our experience, if we are faithful to Him, will be like His experience, in that some will hearken to our word though others will persecute, and to some our testimony will come as a message from God that draws them to the Lord Himself. The only conqueror of the world is the love that was in Christ breathed through us. The only way to overcome the world’s hostility is by turning the world into a church.
This was Jesus intent, to mold and make His people into His body, which He declared to Peter "The gates of hell, will not prevail against it."
(A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that
​I desire beside thee. 
My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of
my heart, and my portion for ever. Psa 73:25-26

“Whom have I in heaven but Thee?” Not “what.” Not in things, but in persons, the personal soul must find its portion. Not in many, but in One, to whom the soul can look, and to whom, as here, it can lift up its cry.
​
I. God alone can meet our sinfulness. This is our first need, for we are sinners, and this fact affects everything else. There may be any amount of slumbering grandeur in us, but it cannot get out for sin. None of us would be willing or able to reveal to another all that he is conscious of in himself. Hence men are reserved with one another. A man is accosting his neighbor in neighborly kindness, and thinking the while, “He does not know me, and I durst not tell him what I think and what I feel and what I am. If I were sure he would understand everything just as it is, I might be able to tell him; but being sure that he would not understand, I cannot.” Now we are not speaking of any great sins or vices which particular men may have committed, and the remembrance of which they carry within, like ghastly skeletons shut up in closed rooms, but just of the secret of sinfulness which is in every heart. A terrible secret! A secret which must be told, which cannot be shut up for ever. But to whom? To Him who is greater than the heart, and who knoweth all things. To Him, in fact, because He knoweth all things. And then, according to His own promise, He will meet us and take all our sin away. “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper; but he that con-fesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.” God is for ever declaring His willingness to forgive. Thus He makes Himself our God by meeting our sinfulness.

II. God alone can meet our feebleness. We are compassed with infirmities, we are made up of needs. Some are so utterly blinded and bewitched that for a while they seem to indulge the hope that this world is the foundation-rock on which they can rest. How we should pity such men! And how pitiable indeed they become when they are undeceived; when the seeming rock shows itself to be but shifting sand; when the fair house shivers itself to atoms in their hands, and they stand houseless and homeless in the storm.

III. God only can meet our nobleness. For we are noble, as well as frail and sinful. Things high and low meet strangely in our nature. We are made in the image of God. The image is marred but not erased. We belong to a fallen but also to a rising race. And this is our nobleness that we are still God’s sons, and that we are awakening to this consciousness. And God alone can meet us in this. As He alone can understand the vastness of our needs, so He only can understand the greatness of our desire and the strength of our endeavor to be like Him, and with Him again. We misread, and then we misreport, each other woefully. We are on the homeward way together, and no doubt there is thus great mutual help, but there is mutual hindrance as well. One often casts a shadow on the path of another. He seems to see nothing but the wrong things, and the weaknesses; the rightness and the growing strength are within, and are seen only by Him who looks from above. It is not only that the wrong things are seen, and the weaknesses are noted, but often the right is called the wrong, and treated so. No doubt the temper of suspicion and distrust is fostered by the publicity which everything now receives, or rather by the malign prominence given in our daily literature to the vile and the wrong things. For the good things are not published; they are put into quiet corners; a thousand of them may be enacted by effort and by sacrifice, by patience and perseverance and love, and no notice will be taken of them. This uncandid temper, this extreme unwillingness to see moral inequalities among men, this strange desire to strike down the lofty and lay them with the low, rather than toil for the elevation of the low to the level of the lofty, is becoming quite one of the operative principles of our intellectual and social life, and of course it affects the Church also. Suspicion is bred among Christian men. One does not see how God is working in another, how the glorious image is shining out again. All this is trying enough, but at least it should enhance and endear to us the truth we are now enforcing, that God alone can meet our nobleness. How precious the privilege of being able to turn to Him when we can turn to no one else.

IV. God alone can meet and satisfy our immortality. He only is “the strength of our heart, and our portion for ever.” Even if the things and the persons we are so apt in our haste and blindness to put in the place of Him could be to us what we hope, the question still remains, “For how long?” and turn where we will, we can find no answer of such a kind as to furnish the ground of confidence for a single day. Try to apply the great language of the text to any person, to anything, but Him, and what a mockery it will be! Turn, then, from sin to God, from frailty to God, from trouble to God, from baffled endeavors to God, from unrequited love to God, from self to God, from men to God, from the world to God, from heaven to God, from eternity to God; and standing, separated and alone, on the height of this decisive hour, say, while heaven hears the cry, and angels register the vow—“Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none,” etc. (A. Raleigh, D. D.)

​“Whom have I in heaven but thee?” Thus, then, he turns away from the glitter which fascinated him to the true gold which was his real treasure. He felt that his God was better to him than all the wealth, health, honour, and peace, which he had so much envied in the worldling; yea, He was not only better than all on earth, but more excellent than all in heaven. He bade all things else go, that he might be filled with his God. “And there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee,” No longer should his wishes ramble, no other object should tempt them to stray; henceforth, the Everliving One should be his all in all.
Psa_73:26
“My flesh and my heart faileth.” They had failed him already, and he had almost fallen; they would fail him in the hour of death, and, if he relied upon them, they would fail him at once. “But God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.” His God would not fail him, either as a protection or a joy. His heart would be kept up by divine love, and filled eternally with divine glory. After having been driven far out to sea, Asaph casts anchor in the old port. We shall do well to follow his example. There is nothing desirable save God; let us, then, desire only him. All other things must pass away; let our hearts abide in him, who alone abideth for ever.