He was here right in it, in its throng and press, in its affairs, with everything pressing upon Him; never seeking to live the life of a hermit, detached from the world, but right in it and yet while rubbing shoulder to shoulder with the world, having all the contacts of this world in every form, there was a distinctiveness about Him.
He was not a part of it, but apart from it, a wonderful outward separation.
While being able to talk with the grossest and the most defiled and the people most involved in this world, He was yet by no means a part of their system, their order, their way of life, but outwardly separate from the world.
The most unhappy people in this world are Christians who try to have both worlds.
It is my experience that if you want to find a miserable Christian, you must find what is called ‘a worldly Christian’, one in whom a constant civil war goes on between two kingdoms.
Yes, a Christian in this world, trying to get something out of this world is a miserable creature.
I used to illustrate it by the old border battles between Scotland and England. The people who lived in the border country never had a day’s rest all their lives.
One day it would be the overrunning from one side, the next day from the other side, and these poor people on the border line had the most miserable existence possible.
It is like that. You try to live on a border-line...or border-land Christian life - and you will be a miserable person, without rest or peace or joy or anything else.
You will never know exactly where you are, who is your master, which way you are going, to whom you belong.
It is a miserable existence.
The LORD Jesus was not like that. He was on one side and absolutely on one side. The border line was a very wide one for Him. Indeed, there was no border line.
He was attached to heaven, and He maintained that attachment.
You and I, if we are going to know glory now and glory afterward, will have to be on the same ground as He was in this matter no compromise with the world; in it, having to do our work here, having to meet people here, having to be friendly in a way, yet not one with their nature, their realm, their way.
It is a difficult thing – not as easy to do as to say – it works out in many practical ways.
The point is that Christ was wholly for GOD, and because of that, His Father was the Father of glory, and the Spirit of glory rested upon Him, and the Father could give Him glory.
~T. Austin Sparks~