His face, and
thrilled by the music of His voice, and thralled by the spell of His
presence.

God at His Best.

John goes on: _and this wondrous One was with God_. There were two of
them. And the two were together. They were companions, they were
friends, fellows together. _And this One was God_. Each was the same as
the other. _This is the same One who was in the later creative beginning
with God. It was through this One that all things were made. And, of all
things that have been made, not any thing was made without Him_.

You remember that John's Gospel and Genesis begin in the same way,--"in
the beginning." But John's "in the beginning," the first one, is not the
same as the Genesis "in the beginning." John's is the beginning before
there was any beginning. It is the beginning before they had begun
making calendars on the earth, because there wasn't any earth yet to
make calendars on. Then this second time the phrase is used John comes
to the later creative beginning with which Genesis opens. This is what
John is saying here.

"_In Him was life_." Out of Him came life. Out of Him comes life. There
was no life, there is none, except what was in this One, and what came,
and comes out from Him all the time. How patient God is! There walks a
man down the street. He leaves God out of his life. He may remember Him
so far as to use His name blasphemously to punctuate and emphasize what
he is saying. Yonder walks a woman in the shadow of the street at night.
And her whole life is spent walking in the dark shadow of the street of
life. And her whole life is a blasphemy against her personality, and
against the God who gave her that precious sacred personality.

Take these two as extreme illustrations. There is life there; life of
the body, of the mind, life of the human spirit. Listen softly, all the
life there is there, is coming out all the time from this One of whom
John is talking. It is not given once as a thing to be taken and stored.
It is _being_ given. It is coming constantly with each breath, from this
wondrous One. This is what John is saying here.

How _patient_ God is! Only we don't know what patience is. We know the
word, the label put on the outside. We don't know the thing, except
sometimes in very smallest part. For patience is love at its best.
Patience is God at His strongest and tenderest and best.

I think likely when we get up yonder, we'll stop one another on the
golden streets. There'll