| The Best Things in Life |
Chapter 6 |
Page 4 |
But that is not all that is meant when it is said that Persis laboured in the Lord. It means that there was such a vital relation between Christ and Persis that wherever she spoke, Christ was in her words, that when she loved, Christ’s love mingled in hers, that whatever she did in trying to help, bless, and save others, Christ’s power wrought in and through her feebleness, making it effective. That is what St. Paul said about himself to the Galatians. “It is no longer I that live, but Christ that liveth in me.” A distinguished scientific man believes that the seeds of living things now growing on the earth were first brought to our planet by aerolites, meteoric stones. The thought is very beautiful. But whether true or not, we are sure that the seeds of the beautiful things of spiritual life which grow now wherever the gospel has gone, the plants and flowers of grace and love, have come from heaven, not borne to us on meteoric stones, but in the life of Jesus Christ. Every true Christian is a new incarnation – Christ lives in him. When it said of Persis that she laboured much in the Lord, the meaning is that she had Christ in her, and that it was Christ who did the things that Persis did. The much labour she wrought for Christ was divinely inspired. An old writer says–
“Though Christ a thousand times in Bethlehem be born,
If he’s not born in thee, thy soul is all forlorn.
God’s Spirit falls on me as dewdrops on a rose,
If I but, like a rose, my heart to him disclose.
In all eternity no tone can be so sweet
As when man’s heart with God’s in unison doth beat.”
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