The “Love” chapter (1 Cor. 13} and the “Faith” chapter (Heb. 11) are well known and loved, but have you ever read the “Go” chapter? Matthew 8 contains five specific miracles and the mention of many others, showing the Lord’s mastery over the human body, the weather, the sea, and demons. Interspersed throughout the chapter are many instances of this word of action—“Go.”

        Go and be a testimony. “And Jesus said unto him, See that you tell no man; but go your way, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded for a testimony unto them” (Matt. 8:4). Let us also go and show to others what our Lord has done for us as a testimony to them.

        Go and obey. “For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me; and I say to this man, Go, and he goes; and to another, Come, and he comes; and to my servant, Do this, and he does it” (Matt. 8:9). This centurion was accustomed to obeying his superiors and to having his words be obeyed. Has the Lord asked you to do something? Are you dragging your feet or are you obeying Him promptly?

        Go and believe. “And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go your way; and as you have believed, so be it done unto you. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour” (Matt. 8:13). The Lord marveled about the faith of only one person in the Scriptures and that is of this Gentile Roman soldier. Go on your way trusting the Lord for each need, casting every care upon Him for He does care for you.

        Go and serve Christ. “And He touched her hand, and the fever left her:and she arose, and ministered unto them” (Matt. 8:15). There are times that we may be laid aside due to illness and not able to do what we did when we were healthy. If the Lord chooses to heal us, we have the opportunity to serve Him and others with renewed strength. The word “minister” also has the thought of “to wait upon” as a waiter or waitress would do. How can we go today and attend to the needs and desires of the Lord?

        Go and avoid. “Now when Jesus saw great multitudes about Him, He gave commandment to depart unto the other side” (Matt. 8:18). The Lord was not impressed nor drawn by great numbers of people. He was on a mission given to Him by His Father and He was not moved by how His popularity ranked with the public. The Lord rewards those who are faithful to Him, not those who are politically correct or otherwise enmeshed with what our culture promotes.

        Go and follow. “Master, I will follow Thee wherever Thou goest” (Matt. 8:19). This bold statement is met with a proclamation of the Lord’s lack of a place to lay His head. A follower of Christ is not promised wealth, position, or power in this world. We are called to come apart and rest awhile when needed, but walking as He walked would keep us actively completing the mission that we are called to do, just as He did.

        Go and serve self? “Lord, suffer [allow] me first to go and bury my father” (Matt. 8:21). “Me first.” This is a common statement that is repeated by children and adults alike through our actions and decisions. It has been said many times by young parents that they never realized how selfish they were until they had children of their own who interrupted their sleep and wouldn’t let them do what they wanted to do. We need to replace “me first” with “Jesus first” and learn the words of the song, “Jesus and Others and You; What a wonderful way to spell JOY.” The Lord’s response to this person’s request is, “Follow Me.” To follow Him requires looking at Him, studying Him, and going where He is going,

        Go to sleep “Behold there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves:but He was asleep” (Matt. 8:24). The only record we have of the Lord sleeping is on a boat during a storm. He knew the importance of sleep to his body and took advantage of this sailing trip to get some refreshment. The National Sleep Foundation’s website states, “Before Thomas Edison’s invention of the light bulb, people slept an average of 10 hours a night; today Americans average 6.9 hours of sleep on week nights and 7.5 hours per night on weekends.” A well-rested body is better suited to resist temptation and serve the Lord cheerfully and energetically.

        Go with God’s Word “If Thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine. And He said unto them, ‘Go’” (Matt. 8:3l,32). The Lord spoke one word and it was instantly obeyed by the demons, just as the wind and waves obeyed the rebuke He gave to them previously. The power in the Word of God is beyond compare! Read it. Memorize it. Speak it.

        Go away “And, behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus; and when they saw Him, they besought Him that He would depart out of their coasts” (Matt. 8:34). If we go out with the gospel, we may be received with open arms, treated with indifference, or told to leave. The Lord didn’t press these people to accept Him. He departed but He left behind a healed man who published in ten cities “how great things Jesus had done for him:and all men did marvel” (Mark 5:20).

The Lord Jesus
Left the glory and love of the
     Father’s presence
To come to earth to be …
Abused, ridiculed, beaten,
Mocked, whipped, humiliated,
     crucified.
Wonderful love!

He who did no sin,
Who knew no sin,
Who hated sin because He was holy,
Willingly became sin for us
And bore our sins.
Wonderful love!

He who had been in the bosom of the
     Father,
Who was one with the Father,
Who always did the will of the
     Father,
Who had loved and been loved by the
     Father through all eternity,
Was forsaken by God in order to bear
     the judgment for our sins.
Wonderful love!
Infinitely wonderful love!

“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5-8).

        In order that the mind of Christ may be formed in us, the apostle in this passage presents Christ before us as our perfect Pattern. We have a touching presentation of the lowliness of mind that was expressed in Him in His marvelous journey from Godhead glory to the cross of shame. Let us note that the force of the passage is to present, not simply the downward path He took, but the lowly mind that marked Him in taking the path.

        First, Christ is presented as “being in the form of God.” No man could pretend to describe the form of One “whom no man has seen nor can see” (1 Tim. 6:16); nevertheless we are told what was the mind of Christ while yet in the form of God. His mind was so set upon serving others in love that He thought not of Himself and His reputation, but “made Himself of no reputation,” and laid aside the outward form of God—though never ceasing to be God.

        Second, He exhibits the lowly mind by taking the form of a servant. Not only does He serve, but He assumes the form that is proper to a servant.

        Third, still further does He express the lowly mind by the particular “form of a servant” that He assumed. The angels are servants, but He passed the angels by. He “was made a little lower than the angels” (Heb. 2:9) and took His place in the likeness of men. He passed by the higher form of servant to take the lower. He was made in the likeness of men, a word that surely implies manhood in its full constitution—spirit, soul, and body. However, let it be remembered that His was not manhood in its fallen condition nor even with the capability of sinning (2 Cor. 5:21; John 5:19,30).

        Fourth, still further is the lowly mind expressed in Christ, for when found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself. He did not take occasion by “being found in fashion as a man” to exalt Himself among men according to the natural thought of His brethren who said, “If Thou do these things, show Thyself to the world” (John 7:3,4), but He humbled Himself. He did not claim His rights as a man.

        Fifth, yet further He expressed the lowly mind by becoming “obedient.” He might have become a man and commanded, but He takes the place of obedience. This implies the laying aside of individual will to do the will of another.

        Sixth, then again the lowly mind is seen by the measure of His obedience, for He was “obedient unto death.” This was more than obedience. In obedience He gave up His will; in death He gave up His life.

        Seventh, finally His lowly mind is expressed in the death that He died. There are many forms of death, but of all the deaths that man can die, He died the most ignominious of deaths—“the death of the cross.” This was more than an ordinary death, for while in going to death a man gives up his life, in going to the death of the cross a man gives up, not only his life, but his reputation before men. Thus it was with the Lord. In going to the death of the cross, such was His lowly mind—so truly did He ignore self—that He gave up His reputation before men and “was numbered with the transgressors” (Isa. 53:12).

        Let it be impressed upon our souls once again that the purpose of this wonderful passage is to set forth the pattern that Christ Himself has given for us to follow.

        (From Scripture Truth, 1930.)

“Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knows not what his lord does; but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you” (John 15:15).

        We are in danger on several sides of superficial and shallow conceptions of a religious life. One of these is that it consists in correct doctrinal beliefs, that holding firmly and intelligently to the truths of the gospel about Christ makes one a Christian. Another is the liturgical, that the faithful observance of the forms of worship is the essential element in the Christian life. Still another is that conduct is all, that Christianity is but a system of morality. Then, even among those who fully accept the doctrine of Christ’s atonement for sin, there is ofttimes an inadequate conception of the life of faith, a dependence for salvation upon one great past act of Christ—His death—without forming with Him a personal relation as a present, living Saviour.

        In the New Testament the Christian’s relation to Christ is represented as a personal acquaintance with Him, which ripens into a close and tender friendship. This was our Lord’s own ideal of discipleship. He invited men to come to Him, to break other ties, to attach themselves personally to Him, to leave all and go with Him (Matt. 4:19-22; 8:22; 10:37,38). He claimed the full allegiance of men’s hearts and lives:He must be first in their affections and first in their obedience and service; He must “have the preeminence” (Col. 1:18). He offered Himself to men, not merely as a Helper from without, not merely as One who would save them by taking their sins and dying for them, but as One who desired to form with them a close, intimate, and indissoluble friendship. It was not a tie of duty merely, or of obligation, or of doctrine, or of cause, by which He sought to bind His followers to Himself, but a tie of personal friendship.

        The importance of this personal knowledge of Christ is seen when we think of Him as the Revealer of the Father (John 1:18; 14:9). The disciples first learned to know Christ with His divine glory veiled. He led them on, talking to them, walking with them, winning their confidence and their love, and at length they learned that the Being who had grown so inexpressibly dear to them was the manifestation of God Himself, and that by their relation to Him as His friends, their poor, sinful humanity was lifted up into union with the Father (Rom. 8:15-17; Eph. 1:5).

        But how may we form a personal acquaintance with Christ? It was easy enough for John and Mary and the others who knew Him in the flesh. His eyes looked into theirs; they heard His words, they sat at His feet, or leaned upon His bosom (Luke 10:39; John 13:23; 1 John 1:1-3). We cannot know Christ in this way for He is gone from earth, and we ask how it is possible for us to have more than a biographical acquaintance with Him. If He were a mere man, nothing more than this would be possible. It would be absurd to talk about knowing the apostle John personally, or forming an intimate friendship with the apostle Paul. We may learn much of the characters of these men from the fragments of their stories that are preserved in the Scriptures, but we can never become personally acquainted with them until we meet them in heaven. With Christ, however, it is different. The Church did not lose Him when He ascended from Olivet. He never was more really in the world than He is now. He is as much to those who love Him and believe on Him as He was to His friends in Bethany. He is a present, living Saviour. We may form with Him an actual relation of personal friendship, which will grow closer and tenderer as the years go on, deepening with each new experience, shining more and more in our hearts, until at last, passing through the portal that men misname death, but which really is the beautiful gate of life, we shall see Him face to face, and know Him even as we are known (1 Cor. 13:12; 1 John 3:3).

        Is it possible for all Christians to attain this personal, conscious intimacy with Christ? There are some who do not seem to realize it. To them Christ is a creed, a rule of life, an example, a teacher, but not a friend. There are some excellent Christians who seem to know Christ only biographically. They have no experimental knowledge of Him:He is to them at best an absent friend—living, faithful and trusted, but still absent. However, no word of discouragement should be spoken to such. The Old Testament usually goes before the New, in experience as well as in the Biblical order. Most Christians begin with the historical Christ, knowing of Him before they know Him. Conscious personal intimacy with Him is ordinarily a later fruit of spiritual growth; yet it certainly appears from the Scriptures that such intimacy is possible to all who truly believe in Christ. Christ Himself hungers for our friendship, and for recognition by us, and answering affection from us; and if we take His gifts without Himself and His love, we surely rob ourselves of much joy and blessedness.

        The way to this experimental knowledge of Christ is very plainly marked out for us by our Lord Himself. He says that if we love Him, and keep His words, He will manifest Himself unto us, and He and His Father will come and make their abode with us (John 14:23). It is in loving Him and doing His will that we learn to know Christ; and we learn to love Him by trusting Him. Ofttimes we learn to know our human friends by trusting them. We may see no special beauty or worth in them as we pass through the ordinary experiences of life. But when we enter into difficult and trying circumstances, then the noble qualities of our true friends appear as we trust them, and they come nearer to us, and prove themselves true. In like manner, most of us really get acquainted with Christ only in experiences of need, in which His love and faithfulness are revealed.

        The value of a personal acquaintance with Christ is incalculable. There are men and women whom it is worth a great deal to have as friends. As our intimacy with them ripens, their lives open out like sweet flowers, disclosing rich beauty to our sight, and pouring fragrance upon our spirits. A true and great friendship is one of earth’s richest and best blessings. It is ever breathing songs into our hearts, evoking impulses of good, teaching holy lessons, and shedding all manner of benign influences upon our lives. But the friendship of Christ does infinitely more than this for us. It purifies our sinful lives; it makes us brave and strong; it inspires us ever to the best and noblest service. Its influence woos the most winsome graces out of mind and spirit. The richest, the sweetest, and the only perennial and never failing fountain of good in this world is the personal, experimental knowledge of Christ.

        That Christ should condescend thus to give His pure and divine friendship to sinful people like us is the greatest wonder of the world; but there is no doubt of the fact. No human friendship can ever be half so close and intimate as that which the lowliest of us may enjoy with our Saviour. If we but realize our privileges, the enriching that will come to our lives through this glorious relationship will be better than all gold and gems and all human friendships upon this earth.

        (From Reiner Publications, Swengel, Pennsylvania.)

In this passage we find the One who was presenting all the value and preciousness of that work that was yet to be accomplished in His own holy Person down here, and who could attract by His grace a poor, wretched, miserable creature into the one place where she was least likely to be welcome. There was not one spot where this woman could expect to find so little interest and appreciation as in the house of Simon the Pharisee, and there was no person on this earth that was less likely to be tolerated in such a place than this woman of the city.

        Observe the contrast between Simon and the woman. The Pharisee probably thought very highly of his own goodness, and, no doubt, wanted to gain some credit for himself by asking the Lord into his house. At the same time, this poor woman, owning herself as a miserable and brokenhearted creature, had Christ filling her thoughts. What was it, beloved, that first of all drew her in there? She did not know the forgiveness of sins—she did not bring that in, for as yet she did not possess it. But what did she bring in? only a broken heart. And let me assure you of this one thing, a broken heart is the very condition that gets the knowledge of the blessedness of the Person of Christ. It was the misery of man that brought Christ here.

        It is a wonderful thing to think of it, and yet it is true of us all, saints as well as sinners, that in our joys we were far away from Him, but in our miseries He came near to us. You will find it was nearly always a scene of sorrow and misery that was the occasion for His displaying the grace of His Person down here in this world. I have often thought that it was in the Lord that that word found its fullest and most blessed verification, “It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting” (Eccl. 7:2). Was it not to the house of mourning that He came? What is this world but a great scene of misery? It was that which attracted Him, and He made known in it all the grace of His Father and all the love of His heart. It was that which brought this woman in to Him—the grace that shone in His blessed Person. And now see the effect of it. The first thing is that she must get where He is. That is always the effect of grace; the desire to know Christ is not natural to any of us.

        There is a possibility of our attempting to work up feelings of love and affection for Christ in our hearts by our own efforts. I feel increasingly the need of being watchful as to this. That which Christ delights to receive from us is the affection of the new man that is called out and satisfied by His own Person. It is not a matter of working up feelings in our hearts for Christ; instead it is the objective presentation to faith of the Person of Christ which is the spring of the subjective affection of the new man; and therefore you find that you have desires after Christ and long to know Christ just in proportion as He is objectively before your soul. If He is the One before your soul, you will long to be with Him; but it is all formed by Him, and gratified by Him, and therefore Christ Himself becomes the spring and maintainer of the affections of the new man.

        It was grace that drew this poor woman in. What is so beautiful in it is to see how she faced all the difficulties; all that stood in her way in Simon’s house were never once thought of. Oh, the power of having One who is above all the difficulties simply before you! You never then think of difficulties. Mary Magdalene, in John 20, was the same way; she was so intent upon finding Him that nothing deterred her—nothing would keep her away.

        May the Lord, by His grace, grant that we may know what has been called the “expulsive power of a new affection,” even that blessed Person of Christ in the soul. It is that alone which drives all other things out.

1. The Passover (Exod. 12:1-14;

Lev. 23:5)

        When God wanted to deliver the Israelites out of Egyptian slavery, He told Moses that each family should select a perfect male lamb from their flock and pen it up for four days to make sure it was healthy. At the end of the four days, on the fourteenth day of the first month, they were to kill the lamb and put the blood on the two door posts and on the lintel (making an outline of the cross).

        God told Moses that He would destroy the firstborn of every family in the land unless He saw the blood on the door posts and lintel; if the blood was there He would pass over that house and spare the firstborn.

        We know that the spotless Passover lamb whose blood saved from judgment is a type of the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 5:17; 1 Pet. 1:19,20) who shed His blood “for many for the remission of sins” (Matt. 26:28) on a Passover Day many hundreds of years after the first one. It is the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, that cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7). Have you come to Jesus, counting upon His precious blood to wash your sins away?

2. The Feast of Unleavened Bread

(Exod. 12:15-20; Lev. 23:6-8)

        The seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread points to the whole course and character of the believer’s life on earth, from the day of his/her conversion onward. It speaks of communion with God based upon redemption, sustained by feeding on Christ, and maintained in holiness and separation from evil. The apostle Paul makes this connection:“Therefore, let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Cor. 5:8). This is followed by instructions to the Corinthians concerning purging the one from their midst who was living an unholy life. The purging is the negative aspect of the feast. Eating the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, examining ourselves according to God’s standards, would be the positive aspect of the feast and the basis for communion and fellowship with God and our fellow Christians (1 John 1:5-9).

3. The Feast of Firstfruits

(Lev. 23:9-14)

        The Feast of Firstfruits marked the beginning of the spring grain harvest. (In the Mediterranean lands, such as Israel, with rainy, mild winters and hot, dry summers, wheat was planted in the late fall or early winter and harvested in the spring.) Although no specific day or month, such as is given for the Passover, is mentioned for this feast, it would probably have occurred close in time to the Passover. It was always on the first day of the week, “on the morrow after the Sabbath.” The sheaf of firstfruits is a type of Christ risen from the dead. The Lord Jesus hinted at the analogy between grain harvest and His resurrection in John 12:23-26. The apostle Paul stated the analogy clearly in 1 Corinthians 15:20-23. Because Christ was raised, we can look forward to being raised at His coming. Even now we have been raised with Christ and seated “together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6).

4. The Feast of Weeks or Pentecost

(Lev. 23:15-21)

        This feast is a type of the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2). The two loaves, waved before Jehovah as the sheaf of firstfruits, point to the fact that by the Holy Spirit Jews and Gentiles were formed into one body (1 Cor. 12:13), “one new man” (Eph. 2:15). These two loaves were baked with leaven (usually a type of sin), further indicating that they are a type of Christ’s people, not of Christ Himself. No sin offering was offered with the sheaf of firstfruits, but a sin offering was to be offered with the two wave loaves (Lev. 23:19). God’s people are “accepted in the Beloved” (Eph. 1:6), but only in the Beloved.

5. The Feast of Trumpets

(Num. 29:1-6)

        The first four feasts took place in the first two months of the Israelite year. After an interval of four months, the Feast of Trumpets began a series of three feasts, all taking place in the seventh month. The Feast of Trumpets took place on the first day of the seventh month. In Numbers 10:1-10, Jehovah gave Moses instruction for making two trumpets which were to be used to gather the people together. This feast, a holy “calling together” or assembly, looks forward to the raising of those who have died in Christ, the changing of those Christians still living, and the gathering of both groups of believers together to meet the Lord in the air at the time of the rapture (or Lord’s coming). “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment … at the last trump” (1 Cor. 15:51,52). “The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout … with the trump of God; … so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words” (1 Thess. 4:13-18).

6. The Day of Atonement

(Lev. 16:1-34; 23:26-32)

        The characteristic aspects of the Day of Atonement are the blood taken within the veil and sprinkled on the mercy seat and the ceremony of the scapegoat. These ceremonies were performed once a year on the tenth day of the seventh month, the Day of Atonement, and at no other time. We have boldness now “to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus” (Heb. 10:19). After the rapture we will be in the very presence of God and we will appreciate the value of the blood of Christ as we never did before. So also will we understand the exceeding sinfulness of sin, the marvelous grace of God, and the fullness of Christ’s redemption. Our songs in glory will express eternal praise for the blood of the Lamb (Rev. 1:5,6; 5:9,10).

7. The Feast of Tabernacles

(Lev. 23:33-36,39-43)

        The Feast of Tabernacles was celebrated for eight days beginning on the fifteenth day of the seventh month. The first day was a day of rest and the eighth day was a day of rest. It was a harvest festival after the grain and the wine had been gathered in and rejoicing was expected (Deut. 16:13-15). A unique aspect of this feast was the requirement to make tabernacles or booths out of tree branches and to live in these booths for seven days. This was a reminder of the temporary dwellings the people of Israel had lived in during the journey from Egypt to Canaan.

        This feast is a picture of Christ’s millennial reign on the earth when the earth will be more fruitful than ever before and God’s people will rejoice that their beloved Lord and Saviour is at last being given the honor He deserves. Part of the joy of this time will be the remembrance of God’s care and grace during our own “wilderness journey.” The eighth day, the last “great day of the feast” (John 7:37), points to the dawn of the eternal day, the long Sabbath of Eternity, where, in a new heaven and a new earth, righteousness will dwell (2 Pet. 3:13) and God will be “all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28).