They Went to Their Own Company

I suppose that each one of you has friends and those whose association you enjoy. If you are a Christian, if you have been brought to Jesus, if you are one who is called by His Name, I wonder if you have yet found your joy in associating with those that love that same Name! Supposing that you were to be let go, that is, if you were given your own will and had some leisure time, where would you go?
I heard a statement the other day to the effect that "what a man is, is what he does in his leisure time,” and I think that there is something in that. We might say that you are putting in eight hours a day as a carpenter and someone asks you what you are. You will answer that you are a carpenter. Is that true? That is what you work at as a means of livelihood in this world. Yes, you are a carpenter, but that does not tell what the man is. In the evening, after your work is done, after you have discharged your responsibility for providing for your own—a responsibility that rests with each one of us and we cannot escape it—what are your interests then? What is your real life? For that is what tells the story "Being let go, they went to their own company.”
What has the strongest grip on you while you are following your vocation, whether in an office, at school, or household duties? Is it the interests of God, the interests that pertain to the things of Christ in this world? Or is it some worldly ambition or interest that you are occupied with? It is astonishing what trivial things Satan can put before us to rob our souls of our privilege in Christ! I am often very much surprised at my own heart, what a vain and empty thing can get and hold my interest, until I wake up to the fact that what I have been occupied with might have been something far more rich and profitable to my soul. "Being let go, they went to their own company.”
A good criterion by which to learn something of the status of our souls is to notice whether we love the association of God's people, and whether we love the companionship of other Christians who are ready to speak about Christ. It is a good sign if we do, and it is a bad sign if we do not.
In John 13 where the Lord Jesus is just about to leave for heaven, there is a very sweet word: "Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end." Could you get anything more personal than that word "His own"? If you possess something that you value very highly, you call it your own. What must the Lord Jesus have thought of that little group there when He said, "Having loved His own which were in the world"! What a choice place that is! Is not that an association worthy of your richest desires, to be in company with those whom the blessed Savior calls Mine? He looks down from heaven and has His eye upon you, and He is saying in His heart, "My own," so should not we choose for association those who love our Lord Jesus?