From J. C. Philpot's Daily Portions
August 18 "And this is the record, that God has given to us eternal
life, and this life is in his Son." 1 John 5:11 How often we are looking and looking in vain for life in
ourselves. True it is that if God has quickened our souls we are partakers
of life divine, of life spiritual, of life eternal, of the life that is in
Christ and comes from Christ; and yet how often we vainly seek to find it
warm and glowing in our breasts. If once given it never dies; but it is
often hidden beneath the ashes, and thus though it slowly burns and dimly
glows, yet the ashes hide it from view, and we only know it is there by some
remains of warmth. "Your life is hidden with Christ in God" (Col. 3:3); and
therefore not only hidden as treasured and stored up safely in God, but
hidden from the world, and even hidden from the eyes of its possessor. Christ is our life. There is no other. To look, then, for
life in ourselves independent of and distinct from the fountain of life is
to look for that in the creature which is lodged in the divine Creator, is
to look for that in man which dwells in the God-man; to look for that in
self which is out of self, embosomed in the fullness of the Son of God. And
it is not merely that life is in him, but he is the life itself. As the sun
not only has light and heat, but is light itself and heat itself, so the
blessed Lord not only grants life, but he himself is what he grants. As a
fountain not only gives water, but is itself all water, so Christ not only
gives what he is, but is all that he gives. Not only, therefore, is he the
"resurrection," centering in himself everything, both for time and eternity,
which resurrection contains and resurrection implies, but he is "the life,"
being in himself a fountain of life, out of which he gives from his own
fullness to the members of his mystical body.