The Secret of Life

J. Rufus Moseley wrote the following article for the December 15, 1929 issue of The Macon Telegraph. It's republished in the book A Heavenly View compiled by Wayne McLain:

"A strikingly brilliant and interesting young minister, writing of his first year as a pastor, in the December Scribner's Magazine, has a question mark about almost everything else, but is sure enough that Christianity as lived and taught by Jesus, 'is the only practical thing on earth', and that 'Jesus of Nazareth has the secret of life, not merely to happiness, success, or ease, but to that full life He promised.' He speaks authoritatively. Only today I read, 'without Me ye can do nothing.' Either the writer misrepresented Him, which is not likely, for there are so many of these statements, or Jesus knew whereof He spoke. He had found the good news. I believe that.

"The young minister is not at all troubled about the way the brethren look after his human needs, but is troubled about the apparent fact that he and most other ministers who have a Ford, a comfortable place to live, and three meals a day are living in luxury in comparison to the way that John the Baptist, Jesus, St. Paul, Francis of Assisi, Francis Xavier, George Fox, and all of the heroes of faith and love have lived. The trouble with him is that he and others are living too much like the selfish world lives and so little like Jesus lived.

"Jesus not only has the secret of life but is Himself the secret. As we receive Him we receive life, abundant and eternal life. 'He that hath the Son hath life.' In receiving Him, we receive God, for He is God with us, God on the plane of our need, God embodied, made visible, tangible, and real.

"Before attempting to give some of the secrets of life in the order that they have come or been given to me, I want to share the last secret given to me. The other night after praying for some of the very best things of Christ, I was made aware that my greatest need was for Jesus to be vitally and consciously real to me. So I said, 'Jesus, make yourself as real to me as possible.' With the asking came the answer of His sweet enveloping presence, and as He revealed Himself to me my whole being burnt with His ineffable presence. Every time I pray it is answered, no matter where I am, whom I am with, or what I am doing.

"As much as Jesus wants us to ask for all good things, He seems most pleased of all when we ask for Jesus to come within and to be real all the time and to be all in all. Of course, with the prayer for Jesus to be as real as possible and everything possible to me, also comes the prayer for Him to make Himself as real and blessed to others and everyone as He possibly can.

"The first secret that was given me that I was conscious of was that the only way to have real success, victory, and joy; in a word, real life, was through meeting all evil with good, and meeting everything in love. So long as evil is met with evil, or hate with hate, evil increases. Evil can only be overcome with good. While there are many virtues, perfect love is the climax, inspiration, and fulfillment of every one of them. So as we love God, love one another, and go on to loving one another like Jesus loved and loves, we enter into His abundant life.

"Later in life, it was made clear to me that the Spirit of truth and the Spirit of love is the true guide, teacher, and authority, and that to have the best life I must cut loose from the authority of religious leaders, creeds, sects, and all partial statements of the truth and be led by the Spirit. Still later I read about people receiving the Holy Spirit as a supernatural gift, presence, and control. Soon after this, I met some friends who were under the inspiration and control of the Spirit, were speaking in tongues, and had in their, 'face such light as never shone on land or sea.' I prayed for the truth about the Holy Spirit and for the Holy Spirit, if He was God's best for me to receive.

"During the days of seeking and tarrying for the Holy Spirit, I was made deeply conscious that Jesus lived and taught the true life and that my greatest need was for Him to come and abide within. I asked Him to do this if it were possible. In a few hours, the Holy Ghost came in power, control, and glory, and in the midst of this the Lord Himself made Himself real and came within. Through the gift of the Holy Spirit. the coming of Jesus within, through living in Jesus, walking in the Spirit, and bearing the fruit of the Spirit continually, we have the secret of life and of everything.

"The things urged all the way have been to abide in Him and to live in love. The love teaching and the love urge is perpetual, that is if we are open for God's best. After we know Jesus, the perpetual call is to abide and increase in Him. Every advance in life registers a deeper union with Jesus and an increase in love.

"Every time I have sought for other things, I have been brought back to the need of the abiding and increasing life in Jesus and to the continuous and increasing life of love. About seven years ago, when I sought for the fullest measure of redemption of the body that I was prepared to receive, and offered to confess the secret sins and errors of my life from the house tops, I was put in such glory, happiness, and rest that I went on my face to inquire of Him how I could keep in such blessedness. The answer came, 'My Presence shall go with thee and I will give thee rest; go in love and I will always be with thee.' A year later when I felt the responsibility of things beyond me, He whispered into my spiritual consciousness these words, 'Your only responsibility is the responsibility of being in union with Me.'

"About a year ago, when a friend bore testimony of having received a baptism, envelopment of fire, and marvelous release when he sought for redemption and made the most entire dedication he could to do God's will, I sought for this as I have had a way of seeking for everything good I have ever heard about. As I waited upon and yielded to Him, I felt the heavenly fire and presence, but the message given me was, 'Let all anxiety and fear go, live in the Spirit, abide in Me.' We are greatly blessed every time we seek and make a deeper surrender. If the next thing for us is not what we ask for, the Lord is good enough to let us know what it is. He not only gives us His best as we open and yield to Him, but He gives in the order and to the measure adapted to our preparation and needs. There is no limit to the blessed experiences that the Lord has for us as we walk with and live in Him. But He wants us to seek Him first of all and not to allow our experiences to be made the basis of any sects and divisions among those who have received Him, been baptized unto Him, and are living in union with Him. He wants all to increase in love and in fellowship with one another as they increase in fellowship with Him and in gifts from Him.

"As Miss E. Speers, 5525 Echo Street, Los Angeles, California, who reports such blessed experiences from seeking to be dead to self and the self life and to be swallowed up in Christ puts it, experiences are, 'the camel that carries us over the desert,' but we must be changed, 'from the natural to the divine, into the life of God. The real thing is the life. Jesus was a life and He was swallowed up of the Divine.' The words He spoke were God's words, the works that He did were God's works. He denied Himself completely and completely revealed God.

"As Jesus, by perfect obedience even unto literal death and resurrection, became the perfect body of God forever and ever, so we too have God's best, to be of the Body, bride, and wife of Jesus, to be of the one hundred forty-four thousand seen on Mt. Zion as the first fruits of the Lamb, we must, says Miss Speers, be obedient unto 'the death of the self life.' We must follow Jesus all the way.

"In some of the things that Miss Speers has written, she so emphasized the death of self that she almost seemed to deny personality to everyone. But when I wrote her and asked her about it, she replied, 'No, I do not mean that Jesus had not a personality . . . What was given me was that He continually denied self, the human self, the human personality that it might be the Father continually in and through Him. Thus He was swallowed up of the Father,' as we have to be swallowed up of Him. But in being swallowed up, Jesus was completely revealed and glorified. As Miss Speers says, when we see God, we will see Him in the body that Jesus rose and ascended in.

"Everyone who denies himself and is lost in God is found in God. It does not destroy individuality and personality wholly to surrender, but it is the way that we attain to perfection, immortality, and glorification of personality. As Jesus put it, he who seeks to save his life in this world, loses it, and he who loses his life for His sake and for the gospel, finds it everlastingly.

"But the point I want to make in closing is, Jesus gives me prayers to pray in terms of my own needs and of what I am ready to receive. When I pray in terms of the experiences of others, He brings me back to praying in terms of what He has to give me.

"As I understand Him, He wants to lead everyone directly as soon as the individual is ready for it. He wants to lead everyone to be ready for this leading, so that all may be taught of Him, 'from the least to the greatest.' His great peace and assurance and His most abundant life can only come as we are led and taught of Him; and as all are led and taught of Him, there will be 'one fold and one Shepherd.'"