September 7If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new — 2 Cor. 5:17.
These new creatures in Christ Jesus know each other not according to the flesh but according to the spirit. In each other's spirits or new minds there are the noblest sentiments, the highest aspirations, that which is good, true, noble, pure, whatever may be their weaknesses according to the flesh. They love each other from the new standpoint of intention, will, harmony with God, and their friendship for one another grows increasingly as they perceive each other's energy in fighting the good fight of faith against the evil influences of the world, the flesh and the Adversary. Nor tongue nor pen can properly express the love, the friendship, which subsists between these new creatures in Christ Jesus, to whom old things have passed away, and all things have become new—Z '03, 333 (R 3232). To be in Christ Jesus implies deadness to self and aliveness to God, as a member of the Body of Christ. Such a one is a new creature, because spiritual capacities have been given to every organ of his brain, fitting him to exercise his various faculties of mind and heart on appropriate spiritual objects. Therefore he detaches his affections from the things prized by the natural man and attaches them to the things prized by the spiritual man. Accordingly his former ambitions, desires and aspirations are given up. He now has a new set of desires, ambitions and aspirations, and he bends all his powers, physical, mental, moral and religious to attain the things on which these are fixed, and he finds them decidedly superior to the former objects of his affections—P '33, 147. Parallel passages: 2 Cor. 5:16; Gal. 5:6, 16-24; 6:1, 2, 7, 8, 14-16; Col. 3:1-17; Rom. 8:4-16; Heb. 12:1, 5, 9-16; Rom. 12:2, 9-21; 1 John 2:15-17, 20, 27; 5:4, 5. Hymns: 201, 20, 117, 192, 312, 170, 204. Poems of Dawn, 248: All Things New. Tower Reading: Z '13, 300 (R 5325). Questions: What were this week's experiences connected with this text? How were they met? In what did they result? |
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ALL THINGS NEW
THERE is something in the sunlight
Which I never saw before;
There's a note within the robin's song
I did not hear of yore;
There's something—ah! I know not what!
But something everywhere
That makes the world this morning seem
Most marvelously fair!
I awakened very early
And I watched the sun arise,
And it seemed to me that heaven
Must be dawning in the skies;
For a glory and a gladness,
Passing words of mine to show,
Flashed from out the eastern portals
On the waking world below.
All the water gleamed with gladness;
Every streamer in the sky
Seemed the arms of little children
Flung in joyousness on high;
All the birds on all the bushes
Joined their melody to pour—
Surely never was a morning
Ushered in like this before!
Is it fact or is it fancy?
Doth the secret in my heart
Unto everything it shines on
Spurious joyousness impart?
Or hath the world grown gladder,
As it seems to me today?
Is it true or is it seeming?
Who shall tell? I cannot say.
Ah! I care not! Doth it matter?
'Tis enough for me to know
that the world to me is gladder
Than it was a year ago.
That on earth and sky and water
Lies a radiance, false or true,
That shall never fade or falter,
Never be less strange or new!
If my heart thus gilds creation
Well it may, for it is glad,
Past the power of shade or shining
Any more to make it sad.
Never yet on earth or heaven,
Never yet on land or sea,
Shone the light of that great gladness
Which my God hath given me.
THERE is something in the sunlight
Which I never saw before;
There's a note within the robin's song
I did not hear of yore;
There's something—ah! I know not what!
But something everywhere
That makes the world this morning seem
Most marvelously fair!
I awakened very early
And I watched the sun arise,
And it seemed to me that heaven
Must be dawning in the skies;
For a glory and a gladness,
Passing words of mine to show,
Flashed from out the eastern portals
On the waking world below.
All the water gleamed with gladness;
Every streamer in the sky
Seemed the arms of little children
Flung in joyousness on high;
All the birds on all the bushes
Joined their melody to pour—
Surely never was a morning
Ushered in like this before!
Is it fact or is it fancy?
Doth the secret in my heart
Unto everything it shines on
Spurious joyousness impart?
Or hath the world grown gladder,
As it seems to me today?
Is it true or is it seeming?
Who shall tell? I cannot say.
Ah! I care not! Doth it matter?
'Tis enough for me to know
that the world to me is gladder
Than it was a year ago.
That on earth and sky and water
Lies a radiance, false or true,
That shall never fade or falter,
Never be less strange or new!
If my heart thus gilds creation
Well it may, for it is glad,
Past the power of shade or shining
Any more to make it sad.
Never yet on earth or heaven,
Never yet on land or sea,
Shone the light of that great gladness
Which my God hath given me.