December 27
Daily Gleanings of the Saintly LifeTwenty-third Friday after Trinity
Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious Body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself. Philippians 3:21.
Not new are these blessed words, but if we meditate upon them, they will be full of new life, new hopes. "The working whereby He is able to subdue all things to Himself," that is, His Spirit working within us a new body and the power of the Resurrection. It was to set forth this that our Lord went forth working His miracles on dead bodies. For this did He after the Resurrection manifest so often His own risen Body. How is He forming this change? It is by His Spirit within us, first working the living change in our souls, that thus taking up His abode with us, He may quicken us into a spiritual body, casting off this vile body, with all its evil lusts and affections. It is therefore by His thus working this change within us that we are "raised together with Him," "made to sit in heavenly places," and to "have our conversation in heaven." As citizens of heaven, we have a heavenly King, for Whose kingdom we daily, hourly pray. He is our King now, for our very calling and state as Christians is termed "the kingdom of heaven and of God."
Redeemed spirits, they who near Thy throne, They, and Thy suffering Saints, who wait below, 'Mid sins, temptations, weariness, and woe, Swell the same chorus; every tongue and tribe To Thee all might, all majesty ascribe; Thine is the kingdom, reign in every heart.