"According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that
with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by
life, or by death" (Phil. 1:20).

The heart of a believer attentive to the Spirit’s teaching cannot read this verse without seeing that
Paul had a practical connection with the Nazarene in heaven, and that he believed in a Christ who
was not in heaven only, but in his own soul, so that he could think of nothing but this Christ. His
only thought in everything was that "Christ should be magnified in my body, whether it be by life,
or by death." Can I say that my earnest desire, and that on which my heart is set as the only thing,
is that Christ may be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death? Ah, Paul, that desire
was not thine, but God’s thought; and if thine, only because Christ’s Spirit was in thee, leading
all in thee captive to that Christ. Paul was led and sustained by another_Christ. Can you and I
say that we have only one simple desire, i.e., that through us Christ should be magnified? We
should shrink from saying so lest it should not be truth. Paul did not shrink for it was truth. To
magnify something is to make it appear larger than it is; that could not be so in connection with
Christ. But Paul wanted all to shine out in him so that Christ should be magnified through him.
He desired to live so that all should be able to say, "What a marvelous thing! there is a man so
spending his life for Christ that he does not care to live if he can but magnify Christ by his death!
What a marvelous Person that Christ must be!"

Paul in prison had God’s thoughts to carry out. Oh, let us see how far the anointing that made the
soul of Paul in prison so full of joy_whether cast there for life or death-has made us fellow-
workers with Paul! How far is that anointing enabling us to maintain our Nazariteship, enabling
us to live out Christ, so that whatever our circumstances the power of the Hie of Christ in us may
be seen as in Paul? How far is the mind of Christ seen in us, from day to day? The same mind that
led Him down, even to the death of the cross, is the mind that we ought to have. We are the
Lord’s free men; man could not bind Paul. I beseech you, let that specimen of what it was to have
every desire and hope of the heart fixed on Christ be ever before your souls. As Christ’s eye rests
on you, how far can He say, as He could with respect to Paul, "Well, there is an individual who
has but one desire, but one hope, to magnify Me, whether by life or by death"? Could He say of
any here that all their thoughts and actions in their own little circle are all for Him? We are to let
the power of the grace that found us and gave us life tell its own tale by the manifestation of that
life in all our circumstances in our wilderness path.

(From Memorials of the Ministry Vol. 1.)