As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with His death—we give over our lives to death. Thus it begins; the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.
Every man is as holy as he really wants to be. But the want must be all-compelling... Set aside time to pray and search the Scriptures; surrender wholly to the will of God. You will be surprised and delighted with the results.
How good it is to have the consciousness that we belong to the Lord and are not our own! There is nothing more precious in the world. It is that which brings the awareness of His continual presence.
You yourself may ebb and flow, rise and fall, wax and wane, but your Lord is this day as He was yesterday; and it is your comfort that your salvation is not rolled upon wheels of your own making, neither have you to do with a Christ of your own shaping.
A pastor in India once told me he was researching movements and noticed a common thread: movements of God always start with a leader who knows God deeply, and they always end when the followers know only the leader deeply. Pastors, we must know Him deeply and make disciples whose primary attachment is to Christ Himself.
It is the faith that continually closes its eyes to the weakness of the creature, and finds its joy in the sufficiency of an Almighty Saviour, that makes the soul strong and glad. It gives itself up to be led by the Holy Spirit into an ever deeper appreciation of that wonderful Saviour whom God hath given us--the Infinite Immanuel.
This is definitely not the hour when men take kindly to an exhortation to listen, for listening is not today a part of popular religion. We are at the opposite end of the pole from there. Religion has accepted the monstrous heresy that noise, size, activity and bluster make a man dear to God. But we may take heart. To a people caught in the tempest of the last great conflict God says, “Be still, and know that I am God,” and still He says it, as if He means to tell us that our strength and safety lie not in noise but in silence.
Right now we are in an age of religious complexity. The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart.
To get His best we must give our best. To become men and women after His Own heart, we must let Him have our undivided attention. To win, we must surrender. To live, we must die. To receive, we must give! Oh, the joy of such a life! There is nothing like it. All the success in the world cannot compensate for it. Friends can never mean so much. Even loved ones disappoint. Money brings its burdens, and fame its bitterness. But He satisfies!
"For we walk by faith, not by sight." (2 Corinthians 5:7) All temptation is primarily to look within; to take our eyes off the Lord and to take account of appearances. Faith is always meeting a mountain, a mountain of evidence that seems to contradict God’s Word, a mountain of apparent contradiction in the realm of tangible fact—of failures in deed, as well as in the realm of feeling and suggestion—and either faith or the mountain has to go. They cannot both stand. but the trouble is that many a time the mountain stays and faith goes. That must not be. If we resort to our senses to discover the truth, we shall find Satan’s lies are often enough true to our experience; but if we refuse to accept as binding anything that contradicts God’s Word and maintain an attitude of faith in Him alone, we shall find instead that Satan’s lies begin to dissolve and that our experience is coming progressively to tally with that Word.
There is no proof of the reality of God's love and the blessing He bestows, which men so soon feel the force of, as when the joy of God overcomes all the trials of life.
My giving of myself to the Lord must be an initial fundamental act. Then day by day I must go on giving to Him, not finding fault with His use of me, but accepting with praise even what the flesh finds hard. That way lies true enrichment.
In our desire after God, let us keep always in mind that God also has a desire, and His desire is toward the sons of men, and more particularly toward those sons of men who will make the once-for-all decision to exalt Him over all. Such as these are precious to God above all treasures of earth or sea. In them God finds a theater where He can display His exceeding kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. With them God can walk unhindered, toward them He can act like the God He is.
Go forth, O ye daughters of Zion, lay aside all private and earthly affections, and look upon this glory of Christ. As the daughters of Jerusalem sitting or remaining in their chambers, closets, houses, could not behold the glory of King Solomon passing by, and therefore they were willed to come forth of their doors: even so, if we will behold the great King, Jesus Christ in his most excellent glory (a sight able to satisfy the eye, and to ravish the heart) we must come out of our doors, we must come out of ourselves, otherwise we cannot see his glory. "Go forth, O daughters of Zion, and see King Solomon with the crown with which his mother crowned him on the day of his wedding, the day of the gladness of his heart." Song of Solomon 3:11
He whose life is one even and smooth path, will see but little of the glory of the Lord, for he has few occasions of self-emptying, and hence, but little fitness for being filled with the revelation of God. They who navigate little streams and shallow creeks, know but little of the God of tempests; but they who ‘do business in great waters,’ these see his ‘wonders in the deep.’ Among the huge Atlantic-waves of bereavement, poverty, temptation, and reproach, we learn the power of Jehovah, because we feel the littleness of man. Thank God, then, if you have been led by a rough road: it is this which has given you your experience of God’s greatness and lovingkindness... Praise God that you have not been left to the darkness and ignorance which continued prosperity might have involved, but that in the great fight of affliction, you have been capacitated for the outshinings of his glory in his wonderful dealings with you.
'As sorrowful yet always rejoicing': these precious golden worlds teach us how the joy of Christ can overrule the sorrow of the world, can make us sing while we weep, and can maintain in the heart, even when cast down by disappointment or difficulties, a deep consciousness of a joy that is unspeakable and full of glory. There is but one condition: 'I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy shall no man take from you'. The presence of Jesus, distinctly manifested, cannot but give joy.
We are often hindered from giving up our treasures to the Lord out of fear for their safety. This is especially true when those treasures are loved relatives and friends. But we need have no such fears. Our Lord came not to destroy but to save. Everything is safe which we commit to Him, and nothing is really safe which is not so committed.
We must learn of Jesus, how He is meek and lowly of heart. He teaches us where true humility takes its rise and finds its strength - in the knowledge that it is God who worketh all in all, and that our place is to yield to Him in perfect resignation and dependence, in full consent to be and to do nothing of ourselves. This is the life Christ came to reveal and to impart - a life to God that came through death to sin and self. The root of all virtue and grace, of all faith and acceptable worship, is that we know that we have nothing but what we receive, and bow in deepest humility to wait upon God for it.
Looking unto Jesus, to receive from Him the task and the cross for each day, with the grace which is sufficient to carry the cross and to accomplish the task; the grace that enables us to be patient with His patience, active with His activity, loving with His love; never asking 'What am I able for?' but rather: 'What is He not able for?' and waiting for His strength which is made perfect in our weakness
Are not they careless of this duty, [that is, looking unto Jesus]. O their excursions from God! Sad dejections of Spirit! Inordinate affections of the world! And in the meanwhile, O the neglect of this gospel-ordinance even amongst saints themselves! I know not whether through lack of skill, or through lack of will, but sure I am this duty lies dormant, neglected of most of the people of God... "I write unto you," saith the apostle "to stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance," (2 Peter 3:1). It is in the original Greek, "to awaken your pure minds," and it was but need. See how David calls upon himself, "Awake, my glory!" (Psalm 57:8). And see how Deborah calls upon herself, "Awake, awake, Deborah, awake, awake, utter a song," (Judges 5:12). Awaking, is a word that imparts rousing, as birds that provoke their young ones by flight, to make use of their wings. Now, how few are there, that thus call upon themselves? It was the prophet's complaint, "No man stirs up himself to take hold of God," (Isaiah 64:7). O what a shame is this! Is it fit that our understandings, which God has entrusted us with, should be no more improved? Is it fit, that our minds (those golden cabinets, which God has given us to be filled with heavenly treasure) should either be empty, or stuffed with vanity, nothing, worse than nothing? O! that such glorious creatures as our souls, should lacquey after every creature, which should be an attendant upon Christ, which should be like angels, waiting and standing in the presence of our God! O that such glorious things as our immortal spirits, should run after vanity, and so become vain; which if rightly improved, should wake with angels, should lodge themselves in the bosom of the glorious God! Do we not see, how Christ is sending out to us continually? The thoughts of his heart are love, eternal love; and shall not we send out our thoughts towards him? Shall not we let our minds run out towards him?
Christ’s call to the soul is four-fold: Come unto Me, Learn of Me, Follow Me, Abide in Me. Come unto Me as Redeemer; Learn of Me as Teacher; Follow Me as Master; Abide in Me as Life. And all that is required of us is the one sufficient and inclusive attitude of soul which the New Testament knows as faith. This attitude and response of trust, self-surrender, dependence, is the essential attitude and response of the soul of man to God. Every sincere man knows full well the impossibility of realizing his true life in isolation, apart from God. Faith as man’s response to God for ever puts an end to the spiritual helplessness and hopelessness of the solitary man. He brings into the heart the assurance of forgiveness and deliverance from the burden of the past, he bestows on the soul the gift of the Divine life, and then he commences a work that is never finished in this life of assimilating our lives to that of Christ, working in us that Christlikeness which is the essential and unique element of the Gospel ethic. As we continue to maintain and deepen the attitude of faith the Holy Spirit is enabled to do His work and we are enabled to receive more of His grace. "That we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith" (Galatians 3:14). By every act of trust and self-surrender we receive ever larger measures of the life of Christ, and all the while we are being changed into the image of Christ "from glory to glory" by the Spirit of the Lord.
The command is clear: Humble yourself... Take every opportunity to humble yourself before God and man. Accept with gratitude everything that God allows from within or without, from friend or enemy, in nature or in grace, to remind you of your need of humbling, and to help you to it. Consider humility to be the mother-virtue, your very first duty before God, the one constant safeguard of the soul, and set your heart on it as the source of all blessing. The promise is divine and sure. He that humbles himself will be exalted. Be sure you do the one thing God asks, and humble yourself. God will be faithful to do the one thing He promised.
God, I saw, demanded my undivided attention. Everything else must take a second place. Friends and loved ones, home, money, work, all—even though legitimate—must give way to Christ! Day and night my undivided attention must be given to Him. God first! Such must be my attitude toward Him. Only then would He be able to bless and use me.
The secret and reality of a blissful life in God cannot be understood without receiving, living, and experiencing it. If we try to understand it only with the intellect, we will find our effort useless. A scientist had a bird in his hand. He saw that it had life, and, wanting to find out in what part of the bird’s body the life was, he began dissecting the bird. The result was that the very life of which he was in search disappeared mysteriously. Those who try to understand the inner life merely intellectually will meet with a similar failure. The life for which they are looking will vanish in the analysis. In comparison with this big world, the human heart is only a small thing. Though the world is so large, it is utterly unable to satisfy this tiny heart. Our ever growing soul and its capacities can be satisfied only in the infinite God. As water is restless until it reaches its level, so the soul has no peace until it rests in God.
"Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, 'I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.'" John 8:12 Many people mistake knowledge, doctrine, theology and teaching as the light of life. The real light is not mere knowledge. It is none other than the Lord Himself. May the Lord be merciful to us that by His light He may take away our self-reliance, so that we no longer dare to trust in our own knowledge and judgment. Oh that we may come to Him saying, "Lord, You are the light. In seeing You, I now realize that what I have seen in the past have been but things". If doctrine is what we preach, doctrine will be received by people; but this is a dead object, not the light of life. If the light of life is what we dispense, it will not only enlighten people's life, it will also be shone through them.
Did you ever think of the awful dishonor done not only to the Spirit of God, but to Christ by the denial of the permanency of His abiding in the believer? If the Spirit could leave, after having taken up His abode in us, it would involve a denial of the work of Christ. His work would have ceased to avail before God. It cannot be too clearly understood that this indwelling is not because of anything in us, either at the beginning, or at any stage of the Christian life. From first to last, the Spirit dwells with us because of the unchanging value of the work of Christ. Cease forever to dishonor the value of that work by doubting the presence of this Holy Person. Your feelings, your faithfulness have nothing to do with this basic fact.
How many of us know that, because Christ is risen, we are therefore alive “unto God” and not unto ourselves? How many of us dare not use our time or money or talents as we would, because we realize they are the Lord’s not ours? How many of us have such a strong sense that we belong to Another that we dare not squander a shilling of our money, or an hour of our time, or any of our mental or physical powers?
You probably know the illustration of Fact, Faith and Experience walking along the top of a wall. Fact walked steadily on, turning neither to right nor left and never looking behind. Faith followed and all went well so long as he kept his eyes focused upon Fact; but as soon as he became concerned about Experience and turned to see how he was getting on, he lost his balance and tumbled off the wall, and poor old Experience fell down after him.
The blessings He bestows are all connected with His 'Come to Me', and are only to be enjoyed in close fellowship with Himself.
If you go to Jesus, He may ask of you far more than you originally planned to give,—but He can give you infinitely more than you dared ask or think.
We must be so completely hidden away in Christ that the world will no longer see us, but the Christ who lives in us. How can we approach men with a divine message when the old man is all they can see in us? Like the shoe salesman who always wore the same goods that he sold and always exhibited them to all to whom he tried to sell, so we must always exhibit Christ to those to whom we testify of Christ; and this we can never do until we get to the place where we are willing to acknowledge that we are nothing and He is all. He must actually be our all in our daily conscious experience, or we can never show a dying world how sufficient he is for all their need. We must be able to show the goods we advertise. This we not only can do, but will do from the moment we so yield that Christ can really live his life in us and thus become our character in daily living, and our power in daily service. This is the life “hid with Christ in God.” This is the life in which we are literally nothing and He is all. This is the life through which the world can see Him who reveals the Father.
Just so much as the world prevails in us, so much is God's love abated both in us, and towards us. "Ye adulterers and adulteresses, (saith James) know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?” (James 4:4)
Is the living Person now in heavenly glory really the Object of our hearts? For some time after I knew the Savior I used to think of Him as One who had lived and died on earth long years ago, and I well remember the day when I knelt down with a dear brother who prayed that we might know the Lord Jesus as a living Person in heavenly glory, and it dawned on me that there was a present Object for my heart in heaven. Our hearts will never be satisfied until that glorified Lord Jesus becomes our object, bright and fair.
Sometimes I consider myself as a stone before a carver, whereof He is to make a statue. Presenting myself thus before God, I desire Him to make His perfect image in my soul and render me entirely like Himself
Looking unto Jesus—and not to our brethren, not even to the best among them and the best beloved. In following a man—we run the risk of losing our way. In following Jesus—we are sure of never losing our way. Besides, in putting a man between Jesus and ourselves, it will come to pass that insensibly the man will increase, and Jesus will decrease; and soon we no longer know how to find Jesus when we cannot find the man, and if he fails us, all fails. On the contrary, if Jesus is kept between us and our closest friend, our attachment to the person will be at the same time less enthralling, and more deep; less passionate, and more tender; less necessary, and more useful; an instrument of rich blessing in the hands of God, when He is pleased to make use of him; and whose absence will be a further blessing, when it may please God to dispense with him, to draw us even nearer to the only Friend who can be separated from us by “neither death nor life”
Let us get it crystal clear in our hearts and mind that the only Person who ever lived the Christian life was Jesus Christ, and the only Person that God ever intended to live the Christian life was Jesus Christ. The only part that you and I play on earth today is to provide Him with human vehicles to that end. Hands and feet and lips; hearts to love with and eyes to see with. That is our part, and it is in the infinite, unspeakable mercy of God that even this privilege may be ours. But what a wonderful thing to consent to this fact and to know that Jesus Christ lives His life through you. What are the limits? What are the possibilities? This is the place where you quit begging and start praising God. You need not come, cap in hand, asking God for this and asking God for that. You only have to know that at any given moment Jesus Christ has the right of way in your life and you’re in the place where God wants you. You don’t have to beg for blessing. You thank Him in anticipation. It is inevitable.
Do not let us be in a hurry to run before God. When the Israelites were crossing the Jordan, they were told to leave a great space between themselves and the guiding ark, that they might know how to go, because they had 'not passed that way heretofore.' Impatient hurrying at God's heels is apt to lead us astray. Let Him get well in front, that you may be quite sure which way He desires you to go, before you go. And if you are not sure which way He desires you to go, be sure that He does not at that moment desire you to go anywhere. We need to hold the present with a slack hand, so as to be ready to fold our tents and take to the road, if God will. We must not reckon on continuance, nor strike our roots so deep that it needs a hurricane to remove us. To those who set their gaze on Christ, no present, from which He wishes them to remove, can be so good for them as the new conditions into which He would have them pass. It is hard to leave the spot, though it be in the desert, where we have so long encamped that it has come to feel like home. We may look with regret on the circle of black ashes on the sand where our little fire glinted cheerily, and our feet may ache, and our hearts ache more, as we begin our tramp once again, but we must set ourselves to meet the God-appointed change cheerfully, in the confidence that nothing will be left behind which it is not good to lose, nor anything met which does not bring a blessing, however its first aspect may be harsh or sad. A heart that waits and watches for God's direction, that uses common-sense as well as faith to unravel small and great perplexities, and is willing to sit loose to the present, however pleasant, in order that it may not miss the indications which say, 'Arise, this is not your rest,' fulfills the conditions on which, if we keep them, we may be sure that He will guide us by the right way, and bring us at last to 'the city of habitation.'
Holiness is the very nature of God, and that alone is holy which God takes possession of and fills with Himself. God's answer to the question, How could sinful man become holy? is, "Christ, the Holy One of God". There is no other way of our becoming holy, but by becoming partakers of the holiness of Christ. And there is no other way of this taking place than by our personal spiritual union with Him, so that through His Holy Spirit His holy life flows into us. In your flesh dwells no good thing, and that flesh, though crucified with Christ, is not yet dead, but will continually seek to rise and lead you to evil. But the Father is the Husbandman. He has grafted the life of Christ on your life. And now, if you would live a holy life, abide in Christ your sanctification. Look upon Him as the Holy One of God, made man that He might communicate to us the holiness of God. Listen when Scripture teaches that there is within you a new nature, a new man, created in Christ Jesus in righteousness and true holiness. Remember that this holy nature which is in you is singularly fitted for living a holy life, and performing all holy duties, as much so as the old nature is for doing evil. Look not upon a life of holiness as a strain and an effort, but as the natural outgrowth of the life of Christ within you. And let ever again a quiet, hopeful, gladsome faith hold itself assured that all you need for a holy life will most assuredly be given you out of the holiness of Jesus.
The whole Christian life depends on the clear consciousness of our position in Christ. Most essential to the abiding in Christ is the daily renewal of our faith's assurance, 'I am in Christ Jesus.'
I have a pen in my pocket, and that pen is absolutely surrendered to the one work of writing. That pen must be absolutely surrendered to my hand if I am to write properly with it. If another holds it partly, I cannot write properly.... And now, do you expect that in your immortal being, in the divine nature that you have received by regeneration, God can work His work, every day and every hour, unless you are entirely given up to Him? God cannot. The temple of Solomon was absolutely surrendered to God when it was dedicated to Him. And every one of us is a temple of God, in which God will dwell and work mightily on one condition-absolute surrender to Him.
God is God. If He is God, He is worthy of my worship and my service. I will find rest nowhere but in His will, and that will is infinitely, immeasurably, unspeakably beyond my largest notions of what He is up to.
The most excellent subject to discourse or write of is Jesus Christ. Augustine, having read Cicero's works, commended them for their eloquence; but he passed this sentence upon them, “They are not sweet, because the name of Jesus is not in them.” … Indeed all we say is but unsavory, if it not be seasoned with this salt, “I determined not to know any thing among you, (saith Paul) save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” He resolved with himself, before he preached among the Corinthians, that this should be the only point of knowledge that he would profess himself to have skill in.
God never uses a person greatly until He has wounded him deeply. The privilege God offers you is greater than the price you have to pay. The privilege is greater than the price.
Oh how should all hearts be taken with this Christ? Christians, turn your eyes upon the Lord; Look, and look again unto Jesus: Why stand ye gazing on the toys of this world, when such a Christ is offered to you in the Gospel? Can the world die for you? Can the world reconcile you to the Father? Can the world advance you to the Kingdom of Heaven? As Christ is all in all, so let him be the full and complete subject of our desire, and hope, and faith, and love, and joy; let him be in your thoughts the first in the morning, and the last at night.
The world has yet to see what God will do with a man fully consecrated to Him.
Plenty of experiences confirm to us that many who are skillful in creating hot atmosphere know very little of the Lord, many excitable persons are quite lacking in the knowledge of the Lord. Only Christ is life, the rest is not. For life depends not on how enthusiastic is our emotion or on how manifold is our thought; it rests exclusively on whether the Lord has manifested His own self. There is therefore nothing more important than to know the Lord. If we know the Lord as our life, we realize the utter futility of all natural efforts in spiritual matters. Hence we look to Him alone.
The idea of cultivation and exercise, so dear to the saints of old, has now no place in our total religious picture. It is too slow, too common. We now demand glamour and fast flowing dramatic action. A generation of Christians reared among push buttons and automatic machines is impatient of slower and less direct methods of reaching their goals. We have been trying to apply machine-age methods to our relations with God. We read our chapter, have our short devotions and rush away, hoping to make up for our deep inward bankruptcy by attending another gospel meeting or listening to another thrilling story told by a religious adventurer lately returned from afar. The tragic results of this spirit are all about us. Shallow lives, hollow religious philosophies, the preponderance of the element of fun in gospel meetings, the glorification of men, trust in religious externalities, quasi-religious fellowships, salesmanship methods, the mistaking of dynamic personality for the power of the Spirit: these and such as these are the symptoms of an evil disease, a deep and serious malady of the soul. For this great sickness that is upon us no one person is responsible, and no Christian is wholly free from blame. We have all contributed, directly or indirectly, to this sad state of affairs. We have been too blind to see, or too timid to speak out, or too self-satisfied to desire anything better than the poor average diet with which others appear satisfied. To put it differently, we have accepted one another's notions, copied one another's lives and made one another's experiences the model for our own. And for a generation the trend has been downward. Now we have reached a low place of sand and burnt wire grass and, worst of all, we have made the Word of Truth conform to our experience and accepted this low plane as the very pasture of the blessed. It will require a determined heart and more than a little courage to wrench ourselves loose from the grip of our times and return to Biblical ways. But it can be done.
Looking unto Jesus—and not at our faith. The last device of the adversary, when he cannot make us look elsewhere, is to turn our eyes from our Savior; to our faith; and thus to discourage us if it is weak, to fill us with pride if it is strong. Either way weakens us. For power does not come from the faith, but from the Savior by faith. It is not looking at our look, it is "Looking, looking unto Jesus!"
This mystery of union is God's work by which the unsearchable riches of Christ become ours. Do we believe this? All that is Christ's is ours. Do we believe that God has given us His holiness, perfection, life, power and riches? God has joined us to Christ causing Him to be our head, our trunk and our food. Do we believe that Christ is now our righteousness and sanctification and redemption? Do we believe He is presently living out His life in us? God has indeed invited us, nay, He has commanded us to believe. Our union with Christ is patterned after the union of Christ with God; therefore, His patience, gentleness, purity and goodness are all ours. Just as in initial salvation we previously believed Him to be our righteousness, so today let us likewise believe Him to be our holiness. Yet how many fail in this respect. They know God's way of victory, but they do not have the faith. They know their inability, but they do not know Christ's ability. They see the total corruption of their flesh, but they do not see the riches of Christ as God's gift to them.
The Bible is a supernatural book and can be understood only by supernatural aid.
Some things may be neglected with but little loss to the spiritual life, but to neglect communion with God is to hurt ourselves where we cannot afford it.
If we give ourselves unreservedly to God, many adjustments may have to be made: in family, or business, or church relationships, or in the matter of our personal views. God will not let anything of ourselves remain. His finger will touch, point by point, everything that is not of Him, and He will say: 'This must go.' Are you willing?
We are to live the life of the cross experientially. In going through to the place where we are made "conformable to His death," His Cross must become our cross. Then, what others see and hear of us bears the mark of the Cross which crucifies all manifestations of the fleshly life. All those who are progressing in the pursuit of the Lord and who live in the world should have no other compelling purpose but to receive constantly the power of resurrection life and to live out before men the life of the Cross. This is what gives the Lord full satisfaction and is so well-pleasing to Him.
We all know the value of joy. It alone is the proof that what we have really satisfies the heart.
Before we were saved, worldly objects and affairs usurped the place of Christ; but after being saved, spiritual objects and affairs now tend to occupy Christ’s place. Hence God must show us one day that “Christ is my world.” Earlier He took from us the things of this world; presently He is taking away our spiritual thing or things. He removes our personal patience, love, power, gentleness, humility. Indeed, He removes all, that we may not live by these good things but live by a Person instead. We are patient not because we have received a power to be so, but because we have got a Person. So is it with humility and the rest: not a power but a Person. It is for this very reason that God engages in a destroying work daily in the lives of His children that He may also do the work of a daily building up. Daily destroy things and daily build up Christ. Brethren, God will take away all things in order to give you one Person who is to be simultaneously your humility, your patience, your gentleness, and your love. For Christ is all. And this is what Christianity actually is.
Looking unto Jesus—to go forth from ourselves and to forget ourselves—so that our darkness may flee away before the brightness of His face; so that our joys may be holy, and our sorrow restrained; that He may cast us down, and that He may raise us up; that He may afflict us, and that He may comfort us; that He may despoil us, and that He may enrich us; that He may teach us to pray, and that He may answer our prayers; that while leaving us in the world, He may separate us from it, our life being hidden with Him in God, and our behavior bearing witness to Him before men.
O when a soul comes to know what an eternal God is, and what an eternal Jesus is, and what an eternal crown is; when it knows that great design of Christ to save poor souls, and to communicate himself eternally to such poor creatures, this takes off the edge of its desires as to visible temporal things; what are they in comparison?
We have before us three things: a fact—“our old man was crucified with him”; a consequence—“that the body of sin might be done away”; and a design—“that so we should no longer be in bondage to sin.” (Romans 6:6) Nevertheless, even after we take the action and maintain the attitude of reckoning our old man to be dead, the sinful nature in us does not henceforth become annihilated and disappear. For as long as we live in this mortal body, the sinful nature will co-exist with us. To say that our sinful nature can be annihilated in this life is a great heresy. We can deliver the old man to death by the power of the cross of Calvary and render it powerless and withered as though dead, but we cannot annihilate it. Whenever we are careless and unwatchful, whenever we do not stand on the death ground of Calvary, our old man will renew its activities and resume its office. Satan is always looking for an opportunity to reactivate the old man. And as soon as there is a loophole, the old man will recover its original position.
In the way of thy judgments, O LORD, have we waited for thee. That will prove true in our inner experience. If we are honest in our longing for holiness and in our prayer to be wholly the Lord’s, His holy presence will arouse and discover hidden sin and convict us of our evil nature, its opposition to God’s law, and its inability to fulfill that law. The words will come true: "Who may abide the time of his coming? And who shall stand when he appears? For he shall be like a refiner’s fire" (Malachi 3:2). "Oh that thou would... come down... as when the melting fire burns" (Isaiah 64:1-2). God executes His judgments upon sin within the soul in great mercy, as He makes it feel its wickedness and guilt. Many try to flee from these judgments; the soul that longs for God and for deliverance from sin bows under them in humility and in hope.
This absolute surrender to God will wonderfully bless us... But do remember, there must be absolute surrender. At every tea-table you see it. Why is tea poured into that cup? Because it is empty, and given up for the tea. But put ink, or vinegar, or wine into it, and will they pour the tea into the vessel? And can God fill you, can God bless you, if you are not absolutely surrendered to Him? He cannot. Let us believe God has wonderful blessings for us, if we will but stand up for God, and say, be it with a trembling will, yet with a believing heart: "O God, I accept thy demands. I am thine and all that I have..."
In this knowledge of Christ, there is an excellency above all other knowledge in the world; there is nothing more pleasing and comfortable, more animating and enlivening, more ravishing and soul contending; only Christ is the Sun and centre of all divine revealed truths, we can preach nothing else as the object of our faith, as the necessary element of your soul's salvation, which doth not some way or other, either meet in Christ, or refer to Christ; Only Christ is the whole of man's happiness, the Sun to enlighten him, the Physician to heal him, the Wall of fire to defend him, the Friend to comfort him, the Pearl to enrich him, the Ark to support him, the Rock to sustain him under the heaviest pressures... Only Christ is that ladder between earth and heaven, the Mediator between God and man, a mystery which the angels of heaven desire to pry, and peep and look into (1 Pet. 1:12). Here is a blessed subject indeed; who would not be glad to pry into it, to be acquainted with it? 'This is life eternal, to know God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent' John 17:8. Come then, let us look on this Sun of righteousness: we cannot receive harm but good by such a look; indeed by looking long on the natural sun, we may have our eyes dazzled, and our faces blackened; but by looking unto Jesus Christ, we shall have our eyes clearer, and our faces fairer... As Christ is more excellent than all the world, so this sight transcends all other sights; it is the epitome of a Christian's happiness, the quintessence of evangelical duties, Looking unto Jesus.
Some may give a glance at Christ, but they are presently wheeled off again: but why don't the eyes abide there, at least till it come to some profitable issue? Is not Christ worthy on whom our souls should dwell? Certainly, if we love our Jesus, that love will hold us: Christ then will be in our thoughts and minds, and we cannot be off him... Christ himself acknowledged such an operation of love upon himself, "Turn away thine eyes, for they have overcome me. Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse, with one of thine eyes," (Song of Songs 6:5, 4:9). Christ was held in the galleries, and captivated with love to His people, so that His eye was ever upon them. No, he could not get His eyes off them. "Can a mother forget her child? No more can I forget you", (Isaiah 49:15). And is Christ so tender in His love towards us that he ever minds us, and shall our minds be so loose to him? So fluttering, and fleeting? Shall there be no more care to bind ourselves in cords of love to him, who hath bound himself in such cords of love to us?
Though in fact I am in Christ, yet if I live in the flesh—that is, in my own strength and under my own direction—then in experience I find to my dismay that it is what is in Adam that manifests itself in me. If I would know in experience all that is in Christ, then I must learn to live in the Spirit.
Dear Christian! Do you not begin to see that waiting [on God] is not one among a number of Christian virtues, to be thought of from time to time, but that it expresses that disposition which lies at the very root of the Christian life? It gives higher value and a new power to our prayer and worship, to our faith and surrender, because it links us, in unalterable dependence, to God Himself. And it gives us the unbroken enjoyment of the goodness of God: "the Lord is good to them that wait for Him" (Lamentations 3:25). Let me press upon you once again to take time and trouble to cultivate this so much needed element of the christian life. We get too much of religion at second hand, from the teaching of men. That teaching has great value if, even as the preaching of John the Baptist sent his disciples away from himself to the Living Christ, it leads us to God Himself. What our religion needs is—more of God. Many of us are too much occupied with our work. As with Martha, the very service we want to render the Master separates from Him; it is neither pleasing to Him nor profitable to ourselves. The more work, the more need of waiting upon God; the doing of Hid's will would then, instead of exhausting, be our meat and drink, nourishment and refreshment and strength. "The Lord is good to them that wait for Him". How good none can tell but those who prove it in waiting on Him.
Of what value to Christ is outward service, if love be wanting? Of what value to the Bridegroom would the rigid observance of her duties be, if the bride were cold in her heart toward him? A church without heart, is a church without Christ. Beloved, let us see well to this. Let nothing satisfy us short of the living realized presence of Christ within us. No ministry, however excellent, can supply the lack of this; neither will truth itself nourish the soul, unless the power of Him who is the Truth be present to minister it. The two disciples on their way to Emmaus were very ignorant, but their hearts were occupied with the right object. Christ was the subject of their mutual intercourse as they journeyed on together. They loved Him, they had lost Him, and were sad. Soon He joined Himself to their company, because He knew that they were occupied with Him. His presence was felt, though they knew but little; and their hearts burned within them by the way. So shall we also find it to be the case, if our hearts are occupied with Christ and Him crucified; the presence of the Lord with us will be realized, and our souls will be filled rather with the blessedness of having been with Him, than with questions as to the ministry we may have heard. We have also to remember, that in one sense we are always in the Church; it is not merely when we assemble together in the Lord’s name, that we then form a part of the church of God; but in private, as well as public, we still belong to that body which the Lord has redeemed with His own blood, and consequently our whole life should have constant reference to our union with all the saints of God.
When He says "Abide in Me," He offers Himself, the Keeper of Israel that slumbers not nor sleeps, with all His power and love, as the living home of the soul, where the mighty influences of His grace will be stronger to keep than all their feebleness to lead astray. The idea some have of grace is this—that their conversion and pardon are God's work, but that now, in gratitude to God, it is their work to live as Christians, and follow Jesus. There is always the thought of a work that has to be done, and even though they pray for help, still the work is theirs. They fail continually, and become hopeless; and the despondency only increases the helplessness. No, wandering one; as it was Jesus who drew you when He spake "Come," so it is Jesus who keeps you when He says "Abide." The grace to come and the grace to abide are alike from Him alone.
When you come to Christ, you must drop your conditions. You have to give up the right to say, ‘I will obey you if... I will do this if...' As soon as you say, ‘I will obey you if,’ that is not obedience at all. You are saying: ‘You are my adviser, not my Lord. I will be happy to take your recommendations. And I might even do some of them.’ No. If you want Jesus with you, you have to give up the right to self-determination. Self-denial is an act of rebellion against our late-modern culture of self-assertion. But that is what we are called to. Nothing less.
O turn your thoughts from off all earthly vanities, and bend your souls to study Christ. Habituate yourselves to such contemplations... and let not those thoughts be seldom or cursory, but settle upon them, dwell there, bathe your souls in those delights, drench your affections in those rivers of pleasures, or rather in the sea of consolation. O tie your souls in heavenly galleries, have your eyes continually set on Christ! Say not, "You are unable to do thus, this must be God's work only, and therefore all our exhortations are in vain..." Though God be the chief disposer of your hearts, yet next under him you have the greatest command of them yourselves. Though "without Christ ye can do nothing;" yet under him you may do much: or else it will be undone, and you undone through your neglect. If your souls were sound and right, they would perceive incomparably more delight and sweetness, in knowing, thinking, believing, loving and rejoicing in Jesus Christ, than the soundest stomach finds in his food, or the strongest senses in the enjoyments of their objects. Oh it is our sloth, our security, our carnal mind, which is enmity to God and Christ, that keeps us off. Be exhorted! Oh be exhorted in the fear of God.
The savour of the good ointments of Christ may flow out through the holy lives of His people. Every trait, every perfection exhibited by Himself in His walk through this world may be reproduced in those that are His. Look, for example, at the precepts and exhortations of the epistles. Every one of them has been perfectly exemplified in Christ; and unless this is remembered, so that they may be associated with Himself as the living Word, they will become hard and legal obligations. Christ in us, Christ our life, as set forth in Colossians, is to be followed by the display of Christ through us, in the power of the Holy Ghost. For this we need to be much in His company; for the more we are with Him and occupied with Him, the more we shall be transformed into His likeness, and the more certainly will the savour of His good ointments be spread abroad. And this will be a mighty testimony to what He is; for in this case His name will, through us, be as ointment poured forth; the sweet savour of the name of Christ will flow forth from our walk as well as from our words. The apostle Paul uses the very words in speaking of his preaching, when he says, "We are unto God a sweet savour of Christ"; and in a subsequent chapter (2 Cor. 4), he points out that testimony is connected with the life as well as with the lip. As we meditate upon it, may we not say, "What a privilege! What a mission, to be sent out into the world to make known the savour of the good ointments of Christ, that His name may, through us, be as ointment poured forth!"
There is nothing smart about wrongdoing and nothing stupid about righteousness... We Christians must stop apologizing for our moral position and start making our voices heard, exposing sin for the enemy of the human race which it surely is and setting forth righteousness and true holiness as the only worthy pursuits for moral beings.
"God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts." The same Spirit which dwelt and still dwells in the Son, becomes the life of the believer; in the unity of that one Spirit, and the fellowship of the same life which is in Christ, he is one with Him. As between the vine and branch, it is a life-union that makes them one.
We have our life from and in Christ, as truly, yea more truly, than from and in Adam. We are to walk "rooted in Him," "holding fast the Head from whom the whole body increases with the increase of God."
Must not everything first enter your judgement and consideration before it can delight your heart and affection? God does His work on us as men and in a rational way. He enables and energizes us to consider and study these delightful objects and thus to gather our own comforts as the bee gathers honey from the flowers... You will enjoy God only as much as you train your understanding and affections sincerely on Him.
God is seeking that we worship Him. Worship in spirit, worship Him in truth, worship Him in the very beauty of holiness. You know, at the end of this day, however much I preach, however much you sing, however much you serve, the Lord is going to get a record. And I try to do this: I try to say at the end of the day, "Lord, it's not what I preached over TV, or radio, to millions. Or two, or three, or one person I visited who was sick... But, Lord, did I kiss You today? Or did You look down and say, 'Son, you were very busy, very active, you made some new friends, people said you preached well, but listen son, thou gavest Me no water, thou gavest Me no oil, thou gavest Me no kiss.
I began to realize the truth of Philippians 4:19, "And my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus." It was true on all levels, not just for financial issues, nor yet only for spiritual mysteries on an exalted plane, but also for everyday, down-to-earth emotional needs of soul and body. As I began to move out of "feelings" and on to "facts," I realized that He was satisfying me, not only with an inner assurance of salvation and forgiveness, but also with a reality of love and depth of companionship that actually took from me, at that time, any sense of need or loneliness. Christ was truly becoming my "sufficiency": I was learning to love Him with all my soul.
Mankind needs love. That was the one great need of mankind, that was the thing which Christ's redemption came to accomplish: to restore love to this world. One of the worst things sin did for man was to make him selfish, for selfishness cannot love. God's Son came to show what love is, and he lived a life of love here upon earth in fellowship with his disciples, in compassion over the poor and miserable, in love even to his enemies—and he died the death of love. And when He went to Heaven, whom did He send down? The Spirit of love, to come and banish selfishness and envy and pride, and bring the love of God into the hearts of men.
"When Christ our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory." Colossians 3:4 Suddenly one day we see that Christ is our life. That day everything is changed. There is a day when we see ourselves in Christ. After that, nothing can make us see ourselves outside of Him. It alters everything. Then also there is a day when we see that Christ within us is our life. That too alters our whole outlook. They may be different days with an interval between, or both may come together. But we must have both; and when we do, then we begin to know Christ’s fullness, and to marvel that we have been so stupid hitherto as to remain poor in God’s storehouse.
Come, let the proud man boast in his honor, and the mighty man is his valor, and the rich man in his wealth, but let the Christian pronounce himself happy, only happy, truly happy, fully happy in beholding Christ, enjoying Christ, having Christ, in looking unto Jesus.
With a heart full of joy no work can weary, and no burden can depress; God Himself is strength and song.
The life God bestows is imparted not once for all, but each moment continuously, by the unceasing operation of His mighty power. Humility, the place of entire dependence on God, is, from the very nature of things, the first duty and the highest virtue of the creature, and the root of every virtue. Humility is not so much a grace or virtue along with others; it is the root of all, because it alone takes the right attitude before God, and allows Him as God to do all... It is simply the sense of entire nothingness, which comes when we see how truly God is all, and in which we make way for God to be all.
He who grows in grace remembers that he is but dust, and he therefore does not expect his fellow Christians to be anything more. He overlooks ten thousand of their faults, because he knows his God overlooks twenty thousand in his own case. He does not expect perfection in the creature, and, therefore, he is not disappointed when he does not find it.
Be more and better acquainted with Jesus Christ: get nearer to him, be more in communion with him, get more tastes of Christ and heaven, and earth will relish the worse for them [the pleasures of the world]. Oh! when I look on Christ and consider. That he that was the Lord of heaven and earth, put himself into so poor and low a condition, merely for the redeeming of his elect, how should this but deaden my heart to the world? "I account all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord; and account them but dung, that I may win Christ," (Philippians 3:8). If Christ be in view, all the world then is but dung and dross, and loss in comparison; the glory of Christ will darken all other things in the world.
See what a work the Lord foreshadowed when He said those simple words, “I am going there to prepare a place for you.” What sort of a place are you aiming at? Yes, you would rather be a doorkeeper there than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. But this is not now the question. Would you prefer to be a doorkeeper to being an ambassador? Would you prefer to serve self, and pleasure, and wealth on earth, and be of little or no use hereafter; or will you choose to live for Christ heart and soul, forgetting things past and pressing on toward the mark, keen and strong. Which? Christ is preparing your place. He is, to that end, watching your course on earth. The sons of Zebedee demanded to sit on the right and left of the King Himself. Do not follow the other disciples in their anger at this request. It is well to aim high. It is contemptible to seek merely to “get saved.” But remember our Lord’s reply to the disciples, “Can ye drink of My cup, and be baptized with My baptism?” Ah, that is it! We are carving out our own destiny every moment. The Judgment Seat of Christ will settle all. There will be no respect of persons there. But the faithful servant will take a higher place and portion, and the slothful and worldly will be saved, that is all.
Jesus Christ gave Himself for us, to give Himself to us, to live His life through us.
Put away every un-Christian habit from you. If other Christians practice it without compunction, God may be calling you to come nearer to Him than these other Christians care to come. Remember the words, "Others may, you cannot." Do not condemn or criticize, but seek a better way. God will honor you.
Prayer is friendship with God. Friendship is not formal, but it is not formless: it has its cultivation, its behavior, its obligations, even its disciplines, and the casual mind kills it.
To deliver the soul from the sin which is its ruin and bestow on it the holiness which is its health and peace, is the end of all God’s dealings with His children; and precisely because He cannot merely impose, but must enable us to attain it ourselves, if we are really to have the liberty of His children, the way He must take is long and arduous.
There are few things in which we exhibit more failure than in maintaining vigorous communion with the perfect manhood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Hence it is that we suffer so much from vacancy, barrenness, restlessness, and wandering. Did we but enter with a more sincere faith into the truth that there is a real Man at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens–One whose sympathy is perfect, whose love is fathomless, whose power is omnipotent, whose wisdom is infinite, whose resources are inexhaustible, whose riches are unsearchable, whose ear is open to our every breathing, whose hand is open to our every need, whose heart is full of unspeakable love and tenderness toward us—how much more happy and elevated we should be...
I was greatly impressed by something a great national leader wrote in his autobiography: "I want nothing for myself; I want everything for my country." If a man can be willing that his country should have everything and he himself nothing, cannot we say to our God: "Lord, I want nothing for myself; I want all for Thee. I will what Thou willest, and I want to have nothing outside Thy will."
God wished to reveal Himself in and through created beings by communicating to them as much of His own goodness and glory as they were capable of receiving. But this communication was not a giving to the creature something it could possess in itself, a certain life or goodness, of which it had the charge and disposal. By no means. But as God is the ever-living, ever-present, ever-acting One, who upholdeth all things by the word of His power, and in whom all things exist, the relation of the creature to God could only be one of unceasing, absolute, universal dependence. As truly as God by His power once created, so truly by that same power must God every moment maintain. The creature has not only to look back to the origin and first beginning of existence, and acknowledge that it there owes everything to God; its chief care, its highest virtue, its only happiness, now and through all eternity, is to present itself an empty vessel, in which God can dwell and manifest His power and goodness.
The life we live is the life of Christ alone. We think of the Christian life as a changed life, but it is not that. God offers us an exchanged life, a substituted life, and Christ is our substitute within. 'I live, and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me'.
Some people try to have faith in their own faith, instead of faith in Jesus Christ. They keep looking for a subjective condition. They ought to be looking to an objective Christ. True faith pays no attention whatever to itself. It centers all its gaze upon Christ. For faith is not our savior. Faith is simply an attitude of the soul through which Jesus saves. When Satan cannot beguile us in any other way, he gets us to scrutinizing our faith, instead of looking unto Christ. That Christian has the strongest heart who is the least conscious of its existence. And that faith is the strongest which pays no attention to itself. You may weaken the heart by centering your anxious attention upon it. So nothing will quicker weaken faith than the constant endeavor to discover it. It is like the child’s digging up of the seed to see if it is growing. It is a curiosity which brings disaster to the seed. It is not a man’s faith, but his faith in Christ which saves him. To be looking unto Christ is faith. To be looking unto anything else, even unto faith is a trouble to the soul. Therefore do not worry about your faith. Do not always be scanning it. Look away from it altogether—unto Jesus. For faith alone is naught. It is only faith in Jesus that counts. Take care that you are depending upon Jesus to save. And faith will take care of itself.
Even in the regenerate man there is no power of goodness in himself: he has and can have nothing that he does not each moment receive; and waiting on God is just as indispensable, and must be just as continuous and unbroken, as the breathing that maintains his natural life.
If you look at the world, you'll be distressed. If you look within, you'll be depressed. If you look at God you'll be at rest.
Worrying is carrying tomorrow's load with today's strength - carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying doesn't empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.
God will not give me humility or patience or holiness or love as separate gifts of His grace. He's not a retailer dispensing grace to us in doses, measuring our some patience to the impatient, some love to the unloving, some meekness to the proud, in quantities that we take and work on as a kind of capital. He has given only one Gift to meet all our need — His Son, Christ Jesus. When I look to Him to live out His life in me, He will be humble and patient and loving and everything else I need in my stead. Remember the word in the first epistle of John, 'God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath the life, and that hath not the Son of God hath not the life'.
Far too many Christians live their spiritual life on the “battery system.” Lest that sounds a strangely peculiar idea, let me explain at once what I mean. I can dimly remember how, when I was a very little boy, my dear mother sometimes took me to a town where, if I remember rightly, about that time there was a change-over in the street-car system. The older type of street-car used to run on the battery system. There was an electric battery on the front or rear platform of the car, and so long as the battery was “alive” the car would run; but as soon as the battery was exhausted, the car would stop dead. It was far from satisfactory, hence the change-over. There are Christian believers who seem to run their spiritual life and service on that system. They go to a convention on the deeper life and when they return home, they are altogether different—for three weeks! Or they read some epochal Christian biography, and as they close the book they say, “Ah, life can never be the same again” nor is it—for three weeks! Or they have an all-night of prayer. Things have been going from bad to worse with them, so they bring things to a crisis. While others sleep, they wrestle on the banks of their nocturnal brook Jabbok (Genesis 23:22), and when the sun rises they are transfigured—for three weeks, after which they lapse again to the dull average. Why! Because they are resting on a crisis instead of on Christ. The Christian life was never meant to run on the battery system. It was meant to run on the electric circuit principle. You know what that is. Put simply, it is just this: continuous current through continuous contact. You and I have no power over the current; but we do have power over the contact; and when, by regular prayer-times, daily meditation in the written Word, consecration to Christ, and separation from unworthy ways, we maintain the “contact” then the heavenly current, the Holy Spirit, the life of Christ, is continuously communicated to us.
God, as Creator, formed man, to be a vessel in which He could show forth His power and goodness. Man was not to have in himself a fountain of life, or strength, or happiness: the ever-living and only living One was each moment to be the Communicator to him of all that he needed. Man's glory and blessedness was not to be independent, or dependent upon himself, but dependent on a God of such infinite riches and love. Man was to have the joy of receiving every moment out of the fulness of God.
I do not pray that you may be delivered from your pains; but I pray God earnestly that He would give you strength and patience to bear them as long as He pleases. Comfort yourself with Him who holds you fastened to the cross: He will loose you when He thinks fit. Happy those who suffer with Him: accustom yourself to suffer in that manner, and seek from Him the strength to endure as much, and as long, as He shall judge to be necessary for you.
A little while and we are in eternity; before we find ourselves there, let us do much for Christ.
It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
God's end is Christ, so also God's means is Christ. It is through Christ to Christ. He says He is the bread of life—He does not say He will give us the bread of life. He says He is the way—He does not say He will guide us to walk in the way. He says He is the truth—He does not say He will teach us a truth. He says He is true life—He dos not say He will give us a life. Whatever Christ gives us is His very own self... Christianity is Christ... Christianity is not any one thing which Christ gives to me; Christianity is Christ giving Himself to me. (see John 6:48, 11:25, 14:6)
... Surely, if there is that in the Person of Christ which can perfectly satisfy God, there is that which ought to satisfy us, and which will satisfy us in proportion as, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, we walk in communion with God.
If once we learn that to be nothing before God is the glory of the creature, the spirit of Jesus, the joy of Heaven - we shall welcome with our whole heart the discipline we may have in serving even those who try or vex us. When our own heart is set upon this, the true sanctification, we shall study each word of Jesus on self-abasement with new zest, and no place will be too low, and no stooping too deep, and no service too mean or too long continued, if we may but share and prove the fellowship with Him who spoke, "I am among you as He that serves" (Luke 22:27). Take no place before God or man but that of servant; that is your work; let that be your one purpose and prayer. God is faithful. Just as water ever seeks and fills the lowest place, so the moment God finds the creature abased and empty, His glory and power flow in to exalt and to bless.