To me, to live is Christ. (Philippians 1:21 NIV)
In the wilderness the whole of our
natural life is brought out, and we come to know our weakness and emptiness;
that we have nothing. Thus it is that we now find everything in Christ and so
can go over and possess. What is the secret of possession, of coming into our
inheritance? It is that we have come to the place where all things are "in
Christ" and He is everything – our very Life and being. Our flesh is cut off and
we know as the deepest thing in our being, that unless God does everything in us
by His Spirit, all is of no value. We must come to an end of our own working
in order to come into His fullness. It is so easy to sit down in our weakness
and nurse ourselves, but the Lord says at that point, "Arise and possess." Your
inheritance is not here on earth, it is in Christ in the heavenlies; not in
yourselves, your fullness is in Him. It is ever His Fullness over against your
emptiness; His Strength over against your weakness; your inheritance is all He is, as typified to Israel by the land flowing with milk and honey.
Paul says of Timothy, "he worketh
the work of the Lord" (1 Cor. 16:10). There is to be an end of our works so far
as we are concerned, nothing of us, as out from ourselves; but God says,
in effect: "with your nothingness I will possess the heavens and the earth." Oh,
to be such a people, chastened and emptied of self, for the Holy Spirit by His
energies to display the moral glories of the Lord Jesus in us and so
through us. "To the intent that now unto principalities and powers might
be made known through the Church the manifold wisdom of God" (Eph. 3:10,11).
"That in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace... for
we are His workmanship" (Eph. 2:7,10).