In the Acts of the Apostles various glories of the Person of Jesus are brought before us. In chapter 1 we see Him companying with His own for forty days, speaking to them of those things pertaining to the kingdom. Then the moment of His departure comes, when He goes back to the Father, and He gives them His final instructions (Acts 1:7-8). It must have been a wonderful moment for those faithful few, as they beheld, with fixed gaze, Jesus ascending into heaven. He had been their Comforter, and had richly unfolded to them the love and affection of the Father's heart, with the grace that was to sustain them during His absence. What a lesson is here for each one of us, to test our hearts before Him. Are our eyes fixed steadfastly on Him in that place into which He has gone? If they are, we shall be changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. This is the Christian's true attitude, and should be ours day by day, and moment by moment. How much we should be saved from if Christ was thus continually before us; and we would be able to say in the words of the Psalmist "Thou art at my right hand, I shall not be moved."
Heavenly messengers are sent to tell His disciples where Jesus had gone, and note what they say, "Ye men of Galilee" They do not say Ye men of Jerusalem: they are addressed as the poor of the flock, the few in whom the Lord had found His joy and pleasure and belonging to the place where He loved to walk in the manifestation of the Father's grace (John 7:1). This surely touches our hearts, recalling the poverty of His own circumstances, who had nowhere to lay His head, and who, when all went to their own homes, went to the mount of Olives. Although He was heir of all things, He entered into the depths of poverty to reach us and bring us in spirit to that place where He now is. The Lord forbid that we should seek or aspire to anything in man's world, but rather should we walk as belonging to the Father's world, even as we some-times sing:
Oh fix our earnest gaze
So wholly, Lord, on Thee,
That, with Thy beauty occupied,
We elsewhere none may see.
There is another precious thought; "This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven." What a prospect! He is coming again, to take His loved ones home, and to shine forth in His glory. The same Jesus, Who was here manifesting all those moral excellencies and heavenly perfections for the glory of God — the same Jesus, lowly, meek, gentle, and long-suffering, shall set up His kingdom, and the meek shall inherit the earth; and all those lovely features shall shine out in the same moral excellency and perfection. Till then, it is our privilege, to manifest in some feeble way, for the delight of the Father's heart, those same features, so that He might be glorified in us.
R. Duncanson.