We have all seen the tram conductor at the end of a journey lay hold of the arm of the tram with the wheel at the end, swing it round from one end of the car to the other, and carefully seek to make contact between the arm and the live wire, which conducts the electric current from the power station.
The conductor may get it within an inch of the live wire, but within an inch, or even the fraction of an inch, will not do. There must be CONTACT. Without contact the train is dead, inert, without power of movement. With contact the electric current, the power, enters into the machinery of the tram, and three things are the result. First, power; second, light; third, warmth.
Just in the same way we need contact with the Lord Jesus as our personal Saviour, if we are to be truly blessed and saved. It is not sufficient to know about Christ, you must know Him to be blessed. “This is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent” (John 17:3). “If any man thirst, let him come to Me, and drink” (John 7:38). “Come to Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28).
The soul, who really gets contact with Christ, realises the power that comes into his life, giving him new desires, new aspirations, new affections. As a Christian man said to me in a Norfolk village, “The things I loved once, I hate now; the things I hated once, I love now.” That was indeed a testimony that the arm of his faith had contacted the live wire, in other words he had really made contact with Christ.
Not only so, but light had come into his darkened mind. The truly converted man or woman sees things in a new light. I remember a young man, who was led to Christ as the result of an interesting conversation, saying to me, “I cannot understand how it is. I used to find the Bible a dry book with no interest in it for me, now I lad it alive and interesting.”
I replied that the reason was that before he came into contact with Christ, he was a dead man reading a living Book. The fault was not in the Book but in himself. Now a living man was reading a living book. No wonder he had found it the most interesting book in the world.
Thirdly, contact with the live wire caused heat. Warmth is very acceptable in cold weather. When contact is made with Christ, warmth of heart is the result. Believers can say, “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us” (Rom. 5:5). “We love Him, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
Can the reader honestly say that he has made contact with Christ, that he has realised power, light and warmth in a new life of joy and blessedness? If you make a profession of being a Christian and lack these positive traits of a Christian, you may well ask yourself the question, Have I really made contact with Christ, have I true living faith in Him, or do I only believe about Christ, and do not really believe on Him? I may look upon a table laden with appetising food, but merely looking on it and admiring it will not satisfy my hunger. I must eat, in other words appropriate the good things, make them part and parcel of myself in order to benefit by the food. So our Lord said, “As the living Father has sent Me, and I live by the Father: so he that eats Me, even he shall live by Me” (John 6:57). Eating is a symbol of appropriation, of real faith in the atoning sacrifice of our Lord. There must be contact, or I am not blessed. Have you made contact?
It may be you reply, “I really do believe on the Lord, I have made true contact with Him by faith in His atoning sacrifice on the cross, and yet I cannot say that I am characterised by power, light and warmth. Indeed I am more characterised by weakness, ignorance, and coldness, if I speak honestly.
You ask, What is the remedy? The answer is contact. It is possible to be saved and yet be out of touch with the Lord, out of communion. We are living in very evil days. The professing Church has very largely descended to the level of the world. Belief in the inspiration of the Scriptures is largely undermined. No wonder that many Christians have to complain to themselves, of their lack of spiritual power, of their feeble intelligence in the things of God, and of the warmth of soul that should characterise the Christian.
How rejoiced we should be if these plain words were the occasion of some earnestly seeking constant contact with the Lord. If you feel your lack, suppose you get upon your knees and earnestly confess to the Lord your lack, and seek grace from Him that it should be otherwise with you. Our Lord said, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you: for every one that asketh receives; and he that seeks finds; and to him that knocks it shall be opened” (Matt. 7:7-8). Again, “Let us come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16). How encouraging!
Of course if the believer is putting business gains, pleasure seeking, domestic happiness before the Lord and His claims, contact is lost. The Lord must be first surely. If I wish to use the gospel merely as an escape from hell, and to make sure of heaven, and treat the matter from the side of my own convenience and happiness, there can be no joy and victory in such a life. It is bound to be defeat and deadness all along the line. No, the Lord must be first. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness” (Matt. 6:33).
Never was there a day when contact was more necessary than now. There is an interesting touch in 2 Corinthians 8:5. There we read of the Macedonian believers whose “deep poverty abounded to the riches of their liberality.” But what was the secret of this grace? We read “They FIRST gave their own selves to the Lord.” Again we read, “I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service” (Rom. 12:1). Have we surrendered ourselves to do the Lord’s will, to be pleasing to Him? If this is so, contact is easy. Let us seek that this may be maintained in prayerful dependence on the Lord.