that the day of glory may be hastened.  I am praying, and the Holy Spirit makes His wrestling in me with unutterable longing, “that God may be all in all.”  Would that we Christians realized in connection with what a grand cause we are working and praying; that we had some conception of what a Kingdom we are partakers of, and what a manifestation of God we are preparing for.  To illustrate what a grand thing it is to belong to the Kingdom of God, and to the glorious Church of Christ on earth, John McNeill tells how when he was a boy twelve years of age, working on a railway line and earning the grand wages of six shillings a week, he used to go home to his mother and sisters, who thought no end of their little Johnnie, and delight them by telling of the position he had.  He would say with great pride, “Oh, our company—­it has so many thousands of pounds passing through its hands every year; it carries so many hundreds of thousands of passengers every year; and it has so many miles of railway, and so many engines and carriages; and so many thousands in its employ!” And the mother and the sisters had great pride in him, because he was a partner in such an important business.  Christians, if we would only rouse ourselves to believe that we belong to the Kingdom that Christ is preparing to deliver up to the Father, that God may be all in all, how the glory would fill our hearts, and expel everything mean, and low, and earthly!  How we should be borne along in this blessed faith!  I am living for this:  that Christ may have the Kingdom to deliver to the Father.  I am living for this, and I will one day see Him made subject to the Father, and then God all in all.  I am living for Him, and I shall be there not only as a witness, but I will have a part in it all.  The Kingdom delivered up, the Son made subject, and God all in all!  I shall have a part in it, and in adoring worship share the glory and the blessedness.

Let us take this home to our hearts, that it may rule in our lives—­this one thought, this one faith, this one aim, this one joy:  Christ lived, and died, and reigns; I live and die and in His power I reign; only for this one thing, “that God may be all in all.”  Let it possess our whole heart, and life.  How can we do this?  It is a serious question, to which I wish to give you a few simple answers.  And I say, first of all:  Allow God to take His place in your heart and life.  Luther often said to people, when they came troubling him about difficulties, “Do let God be God.”  Oh, give God His place.  And what is that place?  “That God may be all in all.”  Let God be all in all every day, from morning to evening.  God to rule and I to obey.  Ah, the blessedness of saying, “God and I!” What a privilege that I have such a partner!  God first, and then I!  And yet there might be secret self-exaltation in associating God with myself.  And I find in the Bible a more precious word still.  It is, “God and not I.”  It is not, “God first, and I second;” God is all, and I am nothing.