The Life Defined

The Higher Christian Life is portrayed as a life of complete surrender and trust in God's care. It emphasizes the importance of letting go of personal burdens — whether spiritual, emotional, or temporal — and allowing God to take control. By living with a childlike faith, Christians are encouraged to abandon their worries and rely fully on God's provision, experiencing a deep, abiding peace that comes from trusting Him comp letely. The chapter underscores the importance of resting in God’s promises and finding true peace in surrender.

In my last chapter, I tried to settle the question of the scripturalness of the Higher Christian Life. I best describe it as the "life hidden with Christ in God." I now, therefore, consider it settled. The Scriptures promise Jesus' believers a life of perfect rest. It will be a constant victory, beyond normal Christian experience. They present a Saviour who can save us from the power of our sins, just as He saves us from their guilt.

The next point to consider is, what this hidden life is. How does it differ from other Christian experiences? It means letting the Lord manage our affairs and carry our burdens, instead of trying to do it all ourselves. Most Christians are like a man, toiling along the road under a heavy burden. A wagon overtook him, and the driver kindly offered to help him. He accepted the offer with great enthusiasm. But, when seated, his burden weighed him down. He still had it on his shoulders. “Why don’t you lay down your burden?” asked the kind - hearted driver. “Oh!” replied the man, “I feel that it is almost too much to ask you to carry me, and I could not think of letting you carry my burden too.”

Christians, who have entrusted themselves to the Lord Jesus, still bear their burdens. They often grow weary and heavy-laden on their journey. By "burdens," I mean anything that troubles us, whether spiritual or temporal.

I mean, first of all, ourselves. The greatest burden we have to carry in life is self. The most difficult thing we have to manage is self. Our daily lives, feelings, and unique flaws and desires trouble us most.

They often lead us into bondage and darkness.

In laying off your burdens, so, the first one you must get rid of is yourself. You must hand over to God your inner self. This includes your temptations, temperament, and feelings. Then, leave them there. He made you, and so He understands you and knows how to manage you, and you must trust Him to do it.

Say to Him, “Here, Lord, I abandon myself to you. I have tried in every way I could think of to manage myself and to make myself what I know I ought to be, but have always failed.

Now I give it up to you. Do take entire possession of me. Work in me all the good pleasure of your will. Mould and fashion me into such a vessel as seems good to you. I leave myself in your hands. I believe you will, as you promised, make me a vessel for your honor. "Sanctified, and fit for the Master's use, and prepared for every good work." Now, you must rest, trusting Him completely. Next, you must lay off every other burden. Your health, reputation, Christian work, houses, children, business, and servants. Everything that concerns you, inward or outward.

Christians always commit their souls to the Lord for eternity. They know, without a doubt, that they cannot keep themselves. But, they take the things of this life into their own keeping. They try to carry them with an unconfessed feeling. It is a lot to ask the Lord to carry them, and they cannot think to ask Him to carry their burdens too.

I knew a Christian lady who had a very heavy temporal burden. It took away her sleep and her appetite, and there was danger of her health breaking down under it. One day, it felt especially heavy. She noticed a little tract called "Hannah's Faith" on the table near her.” Attracted by the title, she picked it up and began to read. She did not know it would revolutionize her whole experience. The story was about a poor woman who had endured great sorrow.

Once, she told a kind visitor the history of her life. At the end, the visitor said, “O, Hannah, I cannot see how you could bear so much sorrow!” "I did not bear it," was the quick reply. "The Lord bore it for me." "Yes," said the visitor. "That is the right way." "You must take your troubles to the Lord."

"Yes," replied Hannah. "But, we must do more; we must leave them there. Most people," she continued, "take their burdens to Him, but they bring them back. They're as worried and unhappy as ever." But I take mine, and I leave them with Him, and come away and forget them. And if the worry returns, I take it to Him again. I do this over and over, until I forget my worries and am at perfect rest.”

My friend was very much struck with this plan and resolved to try it. She could not change her life. So, she took it to the Lord. She handed it over to Him. Then, she believed He took it. She left all her worries and anxieties with Him. Her anxieties returned often. She took them back. So, though things remained unchanged, her soul found perfect peace. She felt she had found a blessed secret. From then on, she tried never again to carry her own burdens or manage anything for herself. The secret worked wonders in her outer affairs. It was even more effective in her inner ones, which were even more unmanageable.

She gave her whole self to the Lord. She trusted Him with all she had. So, she stopped worrying. Her life became happy, for she belonged to Him. And this was the Higher Christian Life! It was a very simple secret she found out.

Only this. One could obey God's commandment in these words: " Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. “Philippians 4 :6. If one obeyed, the result would be, according to the promise, that the "peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." There is more to say about this life hid with Christ in God. Many details exist about what the Lord Jesus does for those who abandon themselves to Him. The gist of the matter is here. The soul that knows this secret has a key.

It will unlock God's treasure-house. I hope I have made you long for this blessed life.

Would you not like to get rid of your burdens? Do you not long to hand over the management of your unmanageable self into the hands of one who can manage you? Are you not tired? Does the rest I speak of not look sweet to you? Do you recall the blissful rest you felt after a tiring day, before bed? How delightful it was to relax every muscle. To let my body go in perfect ease and comfort. The strain of the day had ceased for a few hours at least, and the workers had thrown off the work of the day. You no longer had to hold up an aching head or a weary back. You trusted the bed completely. It held you up without any struggle. You rested. But suppose you had doubted your bed's strength. And, you feared it would give way and drop you to the floor. Could you have rested then? Wouldn't every muscle have strained to hold yourself up? Wouldn't the weariness have been greater than not to have gone to bed at all?

Let this analogy teach you what it means to rest in the Lord. Let your souls lie down upon His sweet will, as your bodies lie down in your beds at night. Relax every strain and lay off every burden.

Abandon all ease and comfort. Trust that, when He holds you up, you are safe. Your only task is to rest. His part is to sustain you, and He cannot fail. Or, take another analogy, which our Lord has sanctioned: that of the child- life said, “And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, 'Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Mathew 18:2 -3 Now, what are the characteristics of a little child, and how does he live? He lives by faith, and his primary characteristic is thoughtlessness. His life is one long trust from year’s end to year’s end. He trusts his parents, caretakers, and teachers. He even trusts some unworthy people, due to his confiding nature. And his trust receives a generous response. He provides nothing for himself, and yet he receives everything. He makes no plans for tomorrow. Yet, he plans his life. His paths open up to him as he reaches them, hour by hour, day by day. He enters and leaves his father's house with ease and freedom.

He enjoys its treasures, having spent nothing to get them.

Plague may walk through the streets of his city, but he regards it not. Famine, fire, and war may rage around him. But, under his father's care, he rests in perfect peace. He lives in the present, accepting life as it comes. I once visited a wealthy house with an adopted only child. He received all the love and care that human hearts and means could provide. Watching that child run in and out, day by day, I saw a picture of our wonderful position as children in our Father's house. The child was free and light- hearted, with the happy carelessness of childhood.

I thought, "If nothing could grieve her loved ones, it would be to see this child worry about herself."

How much more must our God's loving heart grieve at His children's worries? I understood the reason our Lord had emphasized, "Take no thought for yourselves." Who is best cared for in every household?

Is it not the little children? And does not the least of all, the helpless baby, receive the largest share? A late writer said that the baby "toils not, neither does he spin; nor yet someone feeds him, clothes him, loves him, and rejoices in him." No one rejoices in him more than he does.

This life of faith, then, about which I am writing, consists in this: being a child in the Father’s house.

When someone says this, they say enough. It can transform every weary, burdened life into one of blessedness and rest.

Let the carefree confidence of your little ones teach you how to be with God. It pleases you and wins your hearts. Leave yourselves in His hands. "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

Philipians4:6-7 Notice the word 'nothing' in the above passage. It covers all possible grounds for anxiety, both inward and outward. We often feel pressured to believe it is our duty to be anxious about certain matters.

We will think, "it's right to give up all anxiety. In spiritual matters, anxiety is wrong. But we must be anxious about some things. It would be a sin not to be. We must worry about our children, those we love, our church, the truth, and our business." It would show a great want of right feeling not to be anxious about such things as these.” Or, we may think, "Ye s, it's right to trust the Lord with our loved ones and affairs. But we should worry about our inner lives, our faith, our temptations, and our sins. If we don't, they will neglect them."

We find the answer to such suggestions, and to all similar ones, in our text: “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Isn't life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘what shall we wear?’’ Mathew 6:25-31 “For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” I n Matt. 6:32-34, our Lord illustrates this being without anxiety, by telling us to behold the fowls of the air and the lilies of the field, as examples of the sort of life He would have us live. We must, without anxiety or fear, be like the birds and lilies. The birds rejoice in God's care and receive food. The lilies grow in His sunlight. Let the sparrows speak to us: "I am a tiny sparrow, a bird of low degree. My life is of little value, but the dear Lord cares for me. I have no barn nor storehouse. I neither sow nor reap. He gives me a sparrow's portion, but never a seed to keep. "I know there are many sparrows. People find them all over the world. But our heavenly Father knows when one of us falls to the ground. "Though small, we are never forgotten. Though weak, we are never afraid. For we know the dear Lord keeps the life of the creatures he made. "I soar above the densest trees and settle on many branches." I have no chart nor compass, but I never lose my way."

I fold my wing at twilight, wherever I may be. The Father is always watching. No harm will come to me. I am only a little sparrow, a bird of low degree. But I know the Father loves me. Have you less faith than we?”