1.
What is the standard of our walk? God Himself. It sounds immense; but when we think of it in an honest conscience, we see that is what it must be; for Christ is our example.
2.
You cannot separate standing and state if you bring in resurrection; but you can if you think only of the blood of Christ. When I say I am risen, I say I have a nature that cannot find its pleasure in the things of the world. Of course the blood of Christ gives us strong motives too, for we are "bought with a price."
3.
Christ seen in glory is the spring of energy to Christian life, to win Christ, so that all else is loss; as Christ making Himself of no reputation is the spring of Christian graciousness of walk - the two parts of Christian life which we are too apt to sacrifice one to another, or at least to pursue one forgetful of the other. In both Paul singularly shines.
4.
The Father's house is a different thing to God's house, for it puts us in the relationship of children. When He speaks of sovereignty, it is God; but when He speaks of grace, it is the Father. John 4:23-24. The Father first, then God; so also in 1 John 1:3-5.
J. N. Darby.
It is remarkable in John, that, while he speaks of love, he always guards it in the most definite way by what he calls "the truth." Real charity is in God Himself. He is love, and wherever love is real it must be guarded by the truth as it is in Jesus, or it is not of God.
If you want to know what makes a Christian happy in life and death, it is that the Christ he has got now is the Christ he will have in heaven. He has got his home there, where the One he loves and knows best is already.