Not I, but Christ be honored, loved, exalted

Revised version:

1. Not I—the Lord be honored, loved, exalted,
Not I—the Lord be seen, be known and heard;
Not I—the Lord in every look and action,
Not I—the Lord in every thought and word.
Oh, to be saved from myself, dear Lord,
Oh, to be lost in Thee,
Oh, that it may be no more I,
But Christ that lives in me.

2. Not I—the Lord, my everything beginning,
Not I—the Lord, the source of the supply;
Not I—the Lord, the one who does the working,
Not I—the Lord, the one who lives thereby.

3. Not I—the Lord—thus no more idle speaking,
Not I—the Lord—self-pity now forego;
Not I—the Lord—thus no more selfish scheming;
Not I—the Lord—thus self-esteem must go.

4. Not I—the Lord—there's nothing self can boast of;
Not I—the Lord—self cannot ruin me;
Not I—the Lord—there's no more heavy burden;
Not I—the Lord—from fear of hardship free.

5. Only the Lord, ere long will fill my vision,
Glory excelling soon, full soon I'll see;
Only the Lord, fore'er my thanks receiving;
Only the Lord, my all eternally.

To have the rings without the overlaying gold is to be poor in gold. It is to have the Triune God as the rings but not as the gold overlaying the boards. To be in such a condition is to be poor in God. We need to learn to confess that we sometimes are poor in God. We may be rich in the self but quite poor in God. Therefore, we need the initial Spirit to spread throughout our being; that is, the initial gold must spread out in order to overlay us. As we grow in the Lord, the Spirit spreads within us and overlays us with Himself.

The gold did not overlay some inferior or corrupt material; it overlaid acacia wood. Although the acacia wood was very good, it was not the purpose of the tabernacle to express the wood. This indicates that God does not want man to be expressed; rather, He wants to see the expression of Himself. God desires for Himself to be expressed upon man. This requires that man be covered with God, even overlaid completely with Him. In our hymnal there is a hymn entitled "Not I but Christ." The chorus goes like this:

Oh, to be saved from myself, dear Lord,
Oh, to be lost in Thee,
Oh, that it may be no more I,
But Christ that lives in me.

To be lost in the Lord is to be overlaid with Him and to be hidden in Him. When we are concealed within the Lord Himself, He becomes the expression.

When the apostle Paul was Saul, he was a very aggressive young man. Everything with him was "I, me, my, and mine." With Saul it was "I first, my and mine in the middle, and me last." Everything was Saul of Tarsus. But the Lord Jesus knocked him down on the road to Damascus, and Saul asked, "Who are You, Lord?" (Acts 9:5). The Lord said, "I am Jesus" (v. 5). The Lord was saying, "I am the great I Am. I am the One that is. You must believe that I am and you are not." Eventually, Saul changed his name. Saul was over, and Paul came up (Acts 13:9 and note 1). This Paul was the one who told us, "It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me." This is to believe that God is.

Nothing can make the unique God happy except one thing. That is faith. Faith is to believe that God is. Then I would check with you, "If only God is, where are you?" The first stanza of Hymns, #483 says, "Buried with Christ, and raised with Him too;/What is there left for me to do?/Simply to cease from struggling and strife,/Simply to walk in newness of life./Glory be to God!" Where are you? You are in the tomb. Today who are you? You need to say, "It is no more I, but Christ." I would like again to refer to what Darby said: "O the joy of having nothing and being nothing, seeing nothing but a living Christ in glory, and being careful for nothing but His interests down here." This is faith. We care for nothing but His interest. We should always say, "Not I, not me, not my, not mine; but He, Him, His. He is the first and the last and everything in between." "Christ, only Christ" (see Hymns, #591—stanza 5).