Higher spiritual life.
"Let us go up to the mountain of the Lord." We are too prone to be content with living at a very low level of spiritual attainment. We need to hear and heed the voice of God's own Spirit addressing us through our own consciences, and through all the holy influences encompassing us, and bidding us leave the ordinary plain on which we have been content to dwell, and to ascend the mount of the Lord, and thus to rise to the nobler heights of spiritual privilege and goodness. "Let us go up," etc.
I. WHAT IS THIS HIGHER SPIRITUAL LIFE? It is a life of obedience to God and of faith in him. It is a life of holy and hallowed fellowship with the invisible. It is a life sustained and strengthened by hidden Divine springs. It is not perfect life, but life characterized by constant endeavour after the perfect. It is a life characterized by the patient endurance of trial, the successful resistance of temptation, and the cheerful performance of duty. It is a life animated by hopes entering "within the veil," and in which is increasingly realized union with the spiritual world.
II. HOW MAY IT BE REACHED?
1. The ministration of the truth is designed to this end. The advancement of the good in Divine knowledge and in the varied graces of the Christian character is one aim of the Christian ministry (Ephesians 5:11-13).
2. The commonest duties of our daily life may be so discharged as to be made to contribute to our spiritual elevation. The aim should be to make every duty subservient to the great end of our spiritual advancement.
3. The sorrowful experiences of our life are all designed to secure to us "more life and fuller." These constitute the threshings of the spiritual man by means of which God would separate his servants from evil, and enable them to enter into the higher joys of his kingdom.
4. And this soul elevation is to be secured not only by receiving, but also by imparting, holy influences. We rise ourselves as we invite others to rise; as we speak to them the encouraging word, and hold out to them the helping hand. Ruskin reminds us that the name which of all others is most expressive of the being of God is that of "the Helpful One," or, in our softer Saxon, "the Holy One." And we may each know what one has beautifully called the holiness of helpfulness.
III. WHAT ADVANTAGES WILL ACCRUE FROM ITS ATTAINMENT?
1. There will be greater enjoyment in connection with religious privileges than can otherwise be experienced.
2. Tranquillity will possess the heart amidst the disappointments, changes, and bereavements of life.
3. A clearer apprehension of the truth of God will be gained. (Micah 4:2.)
4. More effective service to God in the world will be rendered. Certain saints of God belonging to the past are sometimes set forth as having been specially eminent, and as though the same altitude could not be reached nowadays; whereas we are to be "followers" of such (Hebrews 6:12), and the "helps" they used am as available to us. Use them, and say
"Go up, go up, my heart!
Be not a trifler here;
Ascend above these clouds,
Dwell in a higher sphere.
Let not thy love go out
To things so soiled and dim:
Go up to heaven, and God
Take up thy love to him."