I speak only for myself when I say that the more I can feel round me the
atmosphere of omnipotence the less I am aware of fear. It is a matter of
course that the one should exclude the other. The sense of being myself,
in a measure, the inheritor of omnipotence, as an heir of God and a
co-heir with Christ, becomes, therefore, one to cultivate. This I can do
only in proportion as I see that my Standard and Example cultivated it
before me. In my capacity as a son of God I take as applying to myself
the words reported by St. John: "In most solemn truth I tell you that
the Son can do nothing of Himself--He can only do what He sees the
Father doing; for whatever He does, that the Son does in like manner."
While sayings like these, of which there are many in the New Testament,
apply doubtless, in the first place, to Him who best exemplifies the
Sonship of God, they must apply, in the second place, I suppose, to all
who exemplify that Sonship to any degree whatever. Man is the Son of
God; and it is worth noting that He who is specially termed the Son of
God is also specially termed the Son of Man. "Dear friends," St. John
writes, elsewhere, "we are now God's children, but what we are to be in
the future has not been fully revealed to us." I take it, therefore, as
no presumption on my part to emphasise in my daily thought my place as a
co-heir with Christ, feeling that not only is God's almightiness
exercised on my behalf, but that as much of it as I know how to use is
placed in my hands.
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