Merely resident in world: 'I have it all, undivided'

Last night, I quoted Norman Baldwin Harrison (1874-1960), a well-known pastor, evangelist and New Testament expositor with many writings, without knowing who in the world he was.

I didn’t find much through searching on the internet (including no Wikipedia entry), but I found a site where his messages from Philippians were made available.

Here are some outtakes that actually provided much-needed uplifting for my unexpected sadness today, which was such that I cried, making my clogged right ear (two-plus weeks and counting with no antibiotic or ointment, etc., working) that much more clogged:

This duality is the key to victorious living. “In Me . . . peace. In the world . . . tribulation; but . . . I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). To live in the world is to be subject to its vicissitudes, which are many. To live in Christ, merely resident in the world, is to live in His complete, perpetual victory.

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Christian's dual sphere of life, “in Christ Jesus at . . .” involves a paradox of experience. He may have Joy in the Lord while utterly lacking in Happiness at (the place of his residence). The paradox rests upon the separateness of the two spheres. Happiness is external. Etymologically, it is derived from “happenings.” So is it practically. If the external happenings of life suit us, we say we are “happy.” If they shift or become uncertain, we are unhappy. It is a miserable chameleon existence. Yet it is the lot of all who merely live “at” their physical abode. Joy is inward. It is “in the Lord”—in the inner sphere of the heart where He indwells. Its source is spiritual. Its resources are independent of circumstance. The degree of joy is often heightened and accentuated by the adversity of circumstance.

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A PROMISED PEACE (7). “The peace of God which passeth knowledge (surpasseth our natural powers of understanding, so unaccounted for by our circumstances, so contrary to them), SHALL keep (guard over) your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” It is military language. As a garrison of soldiers God will have His peace take possession of our hearts and minds. He will throw the cordon of His peace about us to ward off every worrying, vexatious thought that would infest us.

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We need more than peace; we need the Person—the God of peace. OUR IDEAL IN CHRIST. Paul is addressing himself to the Greek mind, with whom the pursuit of “virtue” was a habitual occupation. He would have them know that the Christian faith has not only the loftiest ideal of all that is virtuous and praiseworthy, but the provision for realizing that ideal. This exemplary life, all the qualities he has enumerated, has already found expression in the Man Christ Jesus. And if the Pattern life seem too remote, Paul is emboldened to direct them to a measurable realization of that model character, even in himself.

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“Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be IN HIM a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:14). “He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38). That is, from “within him.” As this tact unfolds in experience, how wondrously PERSONAL He becomes. Christ is in Heaven; yes. Christ is common to all Christians; yes. But—He is mine. He is all mine, personal to me. As I kneel in prayer, though a thousand others be similarly engaged, I do not share my Christ with them, claiming but a thousandth of His thought, His time, attention and love. I have it all, undivided. He is mine, all mine. Yet this is just as true in the experience of the other thousand, if they are truly His. How wonderful.”