Category: Devotion of the Day

With or Against?

He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.
Matthew 12:30

It is not correct to ask, “What will you do with Jesus?” Rather, the issue is, “What are you doing about Him now?” There is no neutral ground. We are with Him or against Him. And we gather or scatter.

There are no “inactive” church members. A Negro pastor whose flock numbered one hundred was asked how many active members he had. “One hundred,” he replied; “Fifty active for me and fifty active against me.”

It is not possible to be inwardly and secretly for Christ without being active for Him. “I never work at my religion, but I am not against Christ.” Yes, you are. If you are not gathering you are scattering. If you are not working in some way with the Great Gatherer, winning souls and fishing for men, you are an instrument of division, opposed to the only true unifying force in the universe.

Gatherers and scatterers – it comes down to that, and there are only two kinds of people. The first half of our verse sets forth the real issue today – “with me, against me” – Christ or Antichrist. And we are either Christians or Anti-christians, not just non-Christians.

Are you with Him or against Him? If you gather not with Him you scatter abroad.

The Greatest Far Country

I saw a new heaven and a new earth.
Revelation 21:1

Here is the fairest vista of all after the vision of the Fair King – the life beyond, all eternity “with the Lord.” It is the person who makes the place. Paradise, heaven, the new earth, there is much we do not understand about these, but we know that He said, “Today shalt thou be with me.” “Where I am, there ye may be also.”

For the new creature in Christ “old things are passed away” – the old things of sin. John saw a new heaven and earth, “for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away” – the old creation has gone. He also observed that “there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” The Christian outlasts all that went with the old Adam, for he belongs to the new creation of the last Adam. “The world passeth away and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.”

Just as we first see, then serve, the King in the Far County of the Christian life and the Far Country of Christian witnessing, so in the greatest Far Country of all, the world beyond, “his servants shall serve him.” Not a glorified vacation but a glorious vocation; no longer hindered by the limitations of the old Adam, we shall see Him as He is and serve Him as we should.