p. 179 | The Secret of Joy and Power

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 19, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 12.

The Secret of Joy and Power.

By Theodore Ledyard Cuyler

NOTHING is so actually ours as that which we contain within us. A burglar may steal the silver from my table, or the flour from my pantry, but he cannot carry off the bread which I ate at my breakfast this morning. That is mine; it has gone into blood and bone and become a part of my physical fabric. Must not that be what our Master meant when he said, "I am the bread of life"? Of what use is bread to us until we take it into our systems? and one reason why so many church members are but walking skeletons is that they do not feed on Christ. Sermons, sacraments, and services are only profitable according to the amount of Christ Jesus that we take in and carry away with us. All that I can do in my pulpit is to present Christ; if my hearers do not accept him and possess him, they will starve to death in full sight of the great supper. Blessed are the unceasing hungrers after him, for they are constantly filled out of his fullness.

Here, too, we may discover the secret of the darkness and the despondency that so many complain of. How can a heart be otherwise than dark when it shuts out the light? This morning when I awoke, a few rays of light were stealing in through the shutters of my chamber; there was a glorious sun up in the eastern sky, but I got just as much of it as could creep through the blinds and no more. When I flung them wide open, in poured the radiance and filled the room. As it depended entirely on me how much sunshine I received, so I verily believe that it depends on themselves whether Christians shall have full inflowings of Christ's Spirit, and large measures of joy, and shall walk in the light as children of the light. If selfishness begrudges only a small crevice for the Sun of Righteousness, or if unbelief bars up the windows, then the owner of that heart is accountable for being a cold, gloomy, and well-nigh useless specimen of the Christian. "Christ in you" is the "hope of glory;" and you will not even get a glimpse, or a foretaste, of the glory if you bar up the doors and windows of the soul.

Lest any of us should throw the blame on Christ, for our coldness, or our weakness, or our lack of spiritual peace and power, he distinctly says to us, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him." This amazing offer of the King of Heaven, to come and lodge in such huts as we are, is usually applied to the unconverted. It is a stock text for awakening sermons to impenitent sinners. But it is addressed in the Bible to a church,—to a backsliding, lukewarm church. The strenuous appeal from the Master to those worldly and almost worthless professors at Laodicea was to "repent," and to open their hearts to him. That same voice comes ringing down to all of our churches, and to all of us ministers, and teachers, and parents; if we want light, heat, joy, power, we must fling open our hearts to Jesus. A great deal must go out of us if we want him within us. Professor Finney always said that he never got any inlet and inflow of spiritual power until he emptied himself. Satan and Christ, self and Christ, will not occupy the same quarters.

When we get a whole Christ into the whole heart, when we open room after room and let Jesus own us, train us, cleanse us, and have full sway, then we shall get a tide from Heaven's ocean of love; then our joy will be full; then converting power will kindle our lips and clothe our lives; then comes a revival that lasts; then we shall realize what Paul meant when he said, "CHRIST IN YOU, the hope of glory."—T. L. Cuyler, D. D.