One evening the Lord commanded His disciples to cross the Lake of Galilee to the other side. Suddenly there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat upon the boat so much that it was now filling up. The Lord Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion. The disciples awakened Him and said, "Teacher carest Thou not that we perish?" The Lord arose and rebuked the wind. But what did He say to His disciples immediately afterwards? ... "have yet not faith?" (Mark 4:40). This indicates that many hasty prayers are but an expression of unbelief. If there were faith, you would stand firm. The Lord orders you to cross to the other side; He has not commanded you to go to the bottom of the lake. Because He has given His order—and no matter how strong the wind blows or how high the waves beat—the boat cannot capsize. Praise and thank God, victory is Christ, not I. Were it I, I could only endure so much, and then I would explode. But if it be Christ, no temptation will be too much for Him, nor any testing too difficult for Him. Stand on the side of God's word, stand on the side of faith—and Satan is rendered helpless. Since the Lord orders us to go to the other side, to the other side we will go. Not because our word counts, but because God's word is trustworthy, for He is forever faithful. No matter what the enemy says, your response is and always shall be that Christ is trustworthy and God's word is dependable. This is faith; this substantiates the truthfulness of God's Word. ... Genuine faith believes in the Word of God exclusively, it is not believing in one's own experience, feeling, or dark environment. If environment and experience coincide with God's Word, we praise and thank the Lord. But if these disagree with His Word, then the Word of God alone stands true. Whatever is contrary to God's Word is false.
The preferring of the world before Christ himself. This is the height of covetousness, and the height of this adultery; what, to make the members of Christ the members of an harlot? Why, worldings! those admiring thoughts are Christ's, those pains are Christ's, that love is Christ's, that time, that care, that earnestness is Christ's; they are all Christ's, and will you give that which is Christ's unto the world? And prefer the world before Christ with his own? What, live as professed prostitutes, that prefer every one before their husbands? Christ is never precious in man's apprehension, so long as the world seems glorious to him. As we begin to relish sweetness in Christ, so the world begins to be bitter to us. The more sweetness we taste in the one, the more bitterness we taste in the other.
Miss M. E. Barber was a person in whom I found no trace of thought of remaining on earth for a long time. She was genuinely waiting for the Lord's return. Once I was walking with her on a street, and she said, "Perhaps, I will meet the Lord when we turn this corner." She asked me to walk at a distance from her on the other side of the sidewalk, and repeated, "I do not know whether this will be the corner for me." Those who wait for the Lord's return are like a man walking down a precipitous hill; he does not know for sure when he will turn a corner and meet someone walking up the same path. Our sister genuinely expected the Lord's return daily and hourly.
The Scriptures show us that Christ is our head (Eph 1:22, 4:15, Col 1:18). Just as the head of a man feels and cares for and controls the body, so Christ is towards us who are Christians. We do not need to ask Him to be our head that we may be His body. Today He is the head, and we are members of His body... God's Word states that Christ is the head; do you believe that He is at present caring for you? The Word of God also reveals to us that Christ is the vine and we are the branches (John 15:5). It is not that He will become our vine and we will become His branches. It is not that in the near future when our spiritual life is more advanced than it is now we will then become His branches and He will become our vine. We should bear fruit as He does. We should be filled with virtues as He is filled with virtues. For He has given His "sap"—that is to say, His life and fruit-producing power—to us. He is now already the trunk, and we are already His branches. He is presently supplying to us His life with His perfection and holiness and all virtues. Do we believe this? Do we believe that He now is our trunk and we are His branches? When you believed Him as your Savior, you were already perfectly joined to Him. Do you believe this? You do not need to figure out how you can be joined to Him since God has already made you and Him into one tree. Can you now believe that He shall be towards you even as the physical trunk of a tree is towards its branches? It is not that you bear fruit for Him, but rather that He bears fruit through you. The grace of God has already given the Lord Jesus to us; today by faith we accept all that God has given us so that the life, power, liberty, and holiness of Christ may be manifested in our body. By believing what God says about Christ dying on the cross for us, we receive eternal life. Likewise, by believing that the Lord Jesus lives in us, we receive the life that wins.
Is it an act, or a gradual process, this "putting off the old man?" It is both. It is a resolve taken once for all, but carried out in detail day by day. The first hour that the sap begins to withdraw, and the leaf-stalk begins to silt up, the leaf's fate is sealed: there is never a moment's reversal of the decision. Each day that follows is a steady carrying out of the plant's purpose: "this old leaf shall die, and the new leaf shall live." So with your soul. Come to the decision once for all: "every known sin shall go - if there is a deliverance to be had, I will have it." Put the Cross of Christ, in its mysterious delivering power, irrevocably between you and sinning, and hold on there. That is your part, and you must do it.
There are large numbers of people in the Christian Church who seem to spend the whole of their life seeking something which they can never find, seeking for some kind of happiness and blessedness. They go around from meeting to meeting, and convention to convention, always hoping they are going to get this wonderful thing, this experience that is going to fill them with joy, and flood them with some ecstasy. They see that other people have had it, but they themselves do not seem to get it… Now that is not surprising. We are not meant to hunger and thirst after experiences; we are not meant to hunger and thirst after blessedness. If we want to be truly happy and blessed we must hunger and thirst after righteousness. We must not put blessedness or happiness or experience in the first place.
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.
The anointing of the Holy Spirit helps me greatly when I preach. I would never attempt to teach the truth of God by my own power. One day before preaching at Teignmouth, I had more time than usual, so I prayed and meditated for six hours in preparation for the evening meeting. After I had spoken a little while, I felt that I was speaking in my own strength rather than God's power. I told the brethren that I felt as though I was not preaching under the anointing and asked them to pray. After I continued a little longer, I felt the same and therefore ended my sermon and proposed that we have a meeting for prayer. We did so, and I was particularly assisted by the Holy Spirit the next time I preached. I am glad that I learned the importance of ministering in God's power alone. I can do all things through Christ, but without Him, I can accomplish nothing.
One evening the Lord commanded His disciples to cross the Lake of Galilee to the other side. Suddenly there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat upon the boat so much that it was now filling up. The Lord Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion. The disciples awakened Him and said, "Teacher carest Thou not that we perish?" The Lord arose and rebuked the wind. But what did He say to His disciples immediately afterwards? ... "have yet not faith?" (Mark 4:40). This indicates that many hasty prayers are but an expression of unbelief. If there were faith, you would stand firm. The Lord orders you to cross to the other side; He has not commanded you to go to the bottom of the lake. Because He has given His order—and no matter how strong the wind blows or how high the waves beat—the boat cannot capsize. Praise and thank God, victory is Christ, not I. Were it I, I could only endure so much, and then I would explode. But if it be Christ, no temptation will be too much for Him, nor any testing too difficult for Him. Stand on the side of God's word, stand on the side of faith—and Satan is rendered helpless. Since the Lord orders us to go to the other side, to the other side we will go. Not because our word counts, but because God's word is trustworthy, for He is forever faithful. No matter what the enemy says, your response is and always shall be that Christ is trustworthy and God's word is dependable. This is faith; this substantiates the truthfulness of God's Word. ... Genuine faith believes in the Word of God exclusively, it is not believing in one's own experience, feeling, or dark environment. If environment and experience coincide with God's Word, we praise and thank the Lord. But if these disagree with His Word, then the Word of God alone stands true. Whatever is contrary to God's Word is false.
Miss M. E. Barber was a person in whom I found no trace of thought of remaining on earth for a long time. She was genuinely waiting for the Lord's return. Once I was walking with her on a street, and she said, "Perhaps, I will meet the Lord when we turn this corner." She asked me to walk at a distance from her on the other side of the sidewalk, and repeated, "I do not know whether this will be the corner for me." Those who wait for the Lord's return are like a man walking down a precipitous hill; he does not know for sure when he will turn a corner and meet someone walking up the same path. Our sister genuinely expected the Lord's return daily and hourly.
The Scriptures show us that Christ is our head (Eph 1:22, 4:15, Col 1:18). Just as the head of a man feels and cares for and controls the body, so Christ is towards us who are Christians. We do not need to ask Him to be our head that we may be His body. Today He is the head, and we are members of His body... God's Word states that Christ is the head; do you believe that He is at present caring for you? The Word of God also reveals to us that Christ is the vine and we are the branches (John 15:5). It is not that He will become our vine and we will become His branches. It is not that in the near future when our spiritual life is more advanced than it is now we will then become His branches and He will become our vine. We should bear fruit as He does. We should be filled with virtues as He is filled with virtues. For He has given His "sap"—that is to say, His life and fruit-producing power—to us. He is now already the trunk, and we are already His branches. He is presently supplying to us His life with His perfection and holiness and all virtues. Do we believe this? Do we believe that He now is our trunk and we are His branches? When you believed Him as your Savior, you were already perfectly joined to Him. Do you believe this? You do not need to figure out how you can be joined to Him since God has already made you and Him into one tree. Can you now believe that He shall be towards you even as the physical trunk of a tree is towards its branches? It is not that you bear fruit for Him, but rather that He bears fruit through you. The grace of God has already given the Lord Jesus to us; today by faith we accept all that God has given us so that the life, power, liberty, and holiness of Christ may be manifested in our body. By believing what God says about Christ dying on the cross for us, we receive eternal life. Likewise, by believing that the Lord Jesus lives in us, we receive the life that wins.
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." Not until we take the place of a servant can He take His place as Lord. He is not calling us to devote ourselves to His cause: He is asking us to yield ourselves unconditionally to His will. Are you prepared for that?
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'.
First of all, please notice that victory is an exchange life, not a changed life. Victory is not that I have changed, but rather that I have been exchanged. One verse which is most familiar to us is Galatians 2:20: "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God." What is meant by this verse? It has only one meaning: the life spoken of is an exchanged life. Basically, it is no longer I, for it has absolutely nothing to do with me. It is not that the bad I has become the good I, or the unclean I has changed to be the clean I. It is simply "not I." "Change" is never God's way; His way is always "exchange." All these years I have not been able to change myself, yet God has exchanged me. This is holiness, this is perfection, this is victory, and this is the life of God's Son! Hallelujah! Henceforth the gentleness of Christ is my gentleness; the holiness of Christ is my holiness; the prayer life of Christ is my prayer life; the communion of Christ with God is now my communion with God. No sin is too big that I cannot overcome. No temptation is too severe that I cannot prevail. For the life that wins is Christ, not I. Will Christ ever be fearful of a big sin? Will He be afraid of a great temptation? Praise God, I no longer fear because hereafter it is Christ and not I.
God demands that we present ourselves—together with our families, business and wealth—wholly to Him. It seems, however, that every Christian tries to retain something for himself. Let us understand that although under the Old Covenant the people had to offer one-tenth to God, the New Covenant offering is ten-tenths. Many Christians are fearful lest God trouble them. Once a believer who was afraid of offering himself to the Lord said, "If I offer myself to God, and He makes me suffer, what can I do?" To which I replied quit seriously: "Who do you think God is? Suppose a child who used to disobey his parents said to them that hereafter he will obey them. Do you think his parents will deliberately require him to do what he cannot do so as to make him suffer? If so, they are not parents, but judges. Being parents, they doubtless will be especially merciful to their child. How, then, can you suggest that God would purposely cause you to suffer? Do you really think He would intentionally destroy you? You forget that He is your Father." Whoever is afraid to lay all (including people, things, and affairs) before God in consecration cannot be an overcomer... Consecration makes life powerful as well as joyful. He who is unwilling to offer to God is powerless, joyless, and sinful.
So we see that objectively the Blood deals with our sins. The Lord Jesus has borne them on the Cross for us as our Substitute and has thereby obtained for us forgiveness, justification and reconciliation. But we must now go a step further in the plan of God to understand how He deals with the sin principle in us. The Blood can wash away my sins, but it cannot wash away my ‘old man’. It needs the Cross to crucify me. The Blood deals with the sins, but the Cross must deal with the sinner. The teaching of Romans is not that we are sinners because we commit sins, but that we sin because we are sinners. We are sinners by constitution rather than by action. As Romans 5:19 expresses it: “Through the one man’s disobedience the many were made (or ‘constituted’) sinners”. The trouble lies far deeper than in what we do: it lies in what we are... God is taking pains to show us that we ourselves are wrong, fundamentally wrong. The root trouble is the sinner; he must be dealt with. Our sins are dealt with by the Blood, but we ourselves are dealt with by the Cross. The Blood procures our pardon for what we have done; the Cross procures our deliverance from what we are.
The preferring of the world before Christ himself. This is the height of covetousness, and the height of this adultery; what, to make the members of Christ the members of an harlot? Why, worldings! those admiring thoughts are Christ's, those pains are Christ's, that love is Christ's, that time, that care, that earnestness is Christ's; they are all Christ's, and will you give that which is Christ's unto the world? And prefer the world before Christ with his own? What, live as professed prostitutes, that prefer every one before their husbands? Christ is never precious in man's apprehension, so long as the world seems glorious to him. As we begin to relish sweetness in Christ, so the world begins to be bitter to us. The more sweetness we taste in the one, the more bitterness we taste in the other.
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.
O how should all hearts be taken with this Christ! Christians, turn your eyes upon the Lord; "Look, and look again unto Jesus." Remember how he came out of his Father's bosom for thee, wept for thee, bled for thee, poured out his life for thee, is now risen for thee, gone to heaven for thee, sits at God's right-hand, and rules all the world for thee, makes intercession for thee, and at the end of the world will come again for thee, and receive thee to himself, to live with him forever and ever. Surely if thus thou believest, and livest, thy life is comfortable, and thy death will be sweet; if there be any heaven upon earth, thou wilt find it in the practice and exercise of this gospel duty, in "Looking unto Jesus."
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 [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.
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.
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?
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)
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?
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 (1 Corinthians 4:7).
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.
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..."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I have to learn to persevere in the race He has set before me, drawing my strength only from Him, and not relying at all on what I may consider any natural abilities I may have. I have to let God take from me even that strength which I thought I had in order that He may more fully reveal His own strength: in order that He may continue in me the work of conforming me to the image of His Son. Paul said: "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me" (Galatians 2:20). This death-life, as seen in the imagery of the stripping of the branch to create the arrow, may appear to be full of sacrifices, and thus be a costly discipline. Yet as our Lord Himself told us, there is no other way to the fullness of the abundant life that He would pour into us: "I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it abundantly" (John 10:10), and again: "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain" (John 12:24). I long to be kept by God in an attitude of willing surrender so that He can go on to perfect that which concerns me; so that He can go on stripping and whittling and sandpapering until He is content with the new arrow He is creating. Crucifixion, the death-to-self life, must surely be seen by us all as costly, but the abundant life that He wishes to bestow on each can only be seen as unutterable privilege. "For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory" (2 Corinthians 4:17).
To be a living sacrifice will involve all my time. God wants me to live every minute for Him in accordance with His will and purpose, sixty minutes of every hour, twenty-four hours of every day, being available to Him. No time can be considered as my own, or as "off-duty" or "free." I cannot barter with God about how much time I can give to serve Him. Whatever I am doing, be it a routine salaried job, or housework at home, be it holiday time and free, or after-work Christian youth activities, all should be undertaken for Him, to reveal His indwelling presence to those around me. The example of my life must be as telling as my preaching if He is to be honored.
To love the Lord my God with all my strength might, paradoxically, mean to love Him wholly in my weakness. By giving to Him what I thought of as my strength, realizing my actual weakness, He could then demonstrate His real strength. "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9) took on new meaning. It was often far from pleasant, this learning process. I learned the frightening weakness of fear during the five months of rebel captivity, and it took an African brother, Basuana, to teach me to accept deliverance from fear by faith in the unshakeable Word of God. I learned that Christ could keep me calm and fill me with His peace, even while a storm of fear raged all around me.
I found I had to accept His strength, through forgiveness and cleansing, for all my weakness. I had to recognize and acknowledge that in me (as well as in others whom I see around me) lies no good thing, apart from His indwelling presence. Only as I am daily willing for Him to crucify the self-life, the capital "I", can He live in and through me in His own triumphant, victorious life. So often I seem to have to learn lessons over and over again. Yet God is so graciously willing to go on teaching, so patiently waiting to fill and overflow with His daily enabling by His indwelling Holy Spirit.
To be a living sacrifice will involve all my time. God wants me to live every minute for Him in accordance with His will and purpose, sixty minutes of every hour, twenty-four hours of every day, being available to Him. No time can be considered as my own, or as “off-duty” or “free”. I cannot barter with God about how much time I can give to serve Him. Whatever I am doing, be it a routine salaried job, or housework at home, be it holiday time and free, or after-work Christian youth activities, all should be undertaken for Him, to reveal His indwelling presence to those around me. To be a living sacrifice will involve all my possessions. Everything that I have is in trust, be it financial or material. All should be available to God for the furtherance of His Kingdom. My money is His… I must look to Him for guidance in its use, with no sense that a certain percentage is my own by right of labor. I relinquish that right to Him. He has the right to direct the spending of each penny. To be a living sacrifice will involve all of myself. My will and my emotions, my health and vitality, my thinking and activities, all are to be available to God, to be employed as He chooses, to reveal Himself to others. Should He see that someone would be helped to know Him through my being ill, I accept ill health and weakness. I have no right to demand what we call good health… All rights are His — to direct my living so that He can most clearly reveal Himself through me. I gladly accept His best will for my life… I need to be so utterly God’s that He can use me or hide me, as He chooses, as an arrow in His hand or in His quiver. I will ask no questions: I relinquish all rights to Him, who desires my supreme good. He knows best.
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.
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.
Now, either to add to, or take from, God's Word, proves, very clearly, that His Word is not dwelling in my heart, or governing my conscience. If a man is finding his enjoyment in obedience, if it is his meat and his drink, if he is living by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of Jehovah, he will, assuredly, be acquainted with, and fully alive to, His Word. He could not be indifferent to it. The Lord Jesus, in His conflict with Satan, accurately applied the Word, because He lived upon it, and esteemed it more than His necessary food. He could not misquote or misapply the Word, neither could He be indifferent about it. Not so Eve. She added to what God had said. His command was simple enough, "Thou shalt not eat of it." To this Eve adds her own words, "neither shall ye touch it." These were Eve's words and not God's. He had said nothing about touching; so that whether her misquotation proceeded from ignorance, or indifference, or a desire to represent God in an arbitrary light, or from all three together, it is plain that she was entirely off the true ground of simple confidence in, and subjection to, God's holy Word. "By the words of thy mouth, I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer."
"Yea, hath God said, ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" This was Satan's crafty inquiry; and had the word of God been dwelling richly in Eve's heart, her answer might have been direct, simple, and conclusive. The true way in which to meet Satan's questions and suggestions, is to treat them as his, and repel them by the word. To let them near the heart, for a moment, is to lose the only power by which to answer them. The devil did not openly present himself and say, "I am the devil, the enemy of God, and I am come to traduce him, and ruin you." This would not be serpent-like; and, yet, he really did all this, by raising questions in the mind of the creature. To admit the question, "hath God said?" when I know that God has spoken, is positive infidelity...
... 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.
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...
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!"
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.
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”
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
The anointing of the Holy Spirit helps me greatly when I preach. I would never attempt to teach the truth of God by my own power. One day before preaching at Teignmouth, I had more time than usual, so I prayed and meditated for six hours in preparation for the evening meeting. After I had spoken a little while, I felt that I was speaking in my own strength rather than God's power. I told the brethren that I felt as though I was not preaching under the anointing and asked them to pray. After I continued a little longer, I felt the same and therefore ended my sermon and proposed that we have a meeting for prayer. We did so, and I was particularly assisted by the Holy Spirit the next time I preached. I am glad that I learned the importance of ministering in God's power alone. I can do all things through Christ, but without Him, I can accomplish nothing.
There are four principles for Christians to follow by which they might be strengthened in their faith. The first principle is to read the Bible and meditate upon it. God becomes know to us through prayer and meditation upon His word. Secondly, seek to maintain an upright heart and a good conscience. The third principle is this, if you desire your faith to be strengthened you should not shrink from opportunities where your faith may be tried. Trials, obstacles, difficulties, and sometimes defeats are the very food of faith. Remember the beginning of anxiety is the end of faith, and the beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety. The last importance principle is to let God work for you. When the hour of trial comes do not work a deliverance of your own. The greater the difficulty to be overcome the more it will be seen to the glory of God how much can be done through prayer and faith.
Seek at the beginning to get my heart into such a state where it has no will of its own in regard to a given matter. Nine tenths of the difficulties are overcome when our hearts are ready to do the Lords will whatever it may be. Having done this I do not leave the result to feeling or simple impressions. If so, I make myself liable to great delusions. Then I seek the will of the Spirit of God through or in connection with the word of God. The Spirit and the word must be combined. If I look to the Spirit alone without the word I leave myself open to great delusions also. Next I take into account providential circumstances. These plainly indicate Gods will in connection with His word and Spirit. Then I ask God in prayer to reveal His will to me. Thus through prayer to God, the study of the word, and reflection I come to a deliberate judgement according to the best of my ability and knowledge. And if my mind is thus at peace and continues so after two or three petitions, I proceed accordingly.
One evening the Lord commanded His disciples to cross the Lake of Galilee to the other side. Suddenly there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat upon the boat so much that it was now filling up. The Lord Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion. The disciples awakened Him and said, "Teacher carest Thou not that we perish?" The Lord arose and rebuked the wind. But what did He say to His disciples immediately afterwards? ... "have yet not faith?" (Mark 4:40). This indicates that many hasty prayers are but an expression of unbelief. If there were faith, you would stand firm. The Lord orders you to cross to the other side; He has not commanded you to go to the bottom of the lake. Because He has given His order—and no matter how strong the wind blows or how high the waves beat—the boat cannot capsize. Praise and thank God, victory is Christ, not I. Were it I, I could only endure so much, and then I would explode. But if it be Christ, no temptation will be too much for Him, nor any testing too difficult for Him. Stand on the side of God's word, stand on the side of faith—and Satan is rendered helpless. Since the Lord orders us to go to the other side, to the other side we will go. Not because our word counts, but because God's word is trustworthy, for He is forever faithful. No matter what the enemy says, your response is and always shall be that Christ is trustworthy and God's word is dependable. This is faith; this substantiates the truthfulness of God's Word. ... Genuine faith believes in the Word of God exclusively, it is not believing in one's own experience, feeling, or dark environment. If environment and experience coincide with God's Word, we praise and thank the Lord. But if these disagree with His Word, then the Word of God alone stands true. Whatever is contrary to God's Word is false.
There are four principles for Christians to follow by which they might be strengthened in their faith. The first principle is to read the Bible and meditate upon it. God becomes know to us through prayer and meditation upon His word. Secondly, seek to maintain an upright heart and a good conscience. The third principle is this, if you desire your faith to be strengthened you should not shrink from opportunities where your faith may be tried. Trials, obstacles, difficulties, and sometimes defeats are the very food of faith. Remember the beginning of anxiety is the end of faith, and the beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety. The last importance principle is to let God work for you. When the hour of trial comes do not work a deliverance of your own. The greater the difficulty to be overcome the more it will be seen to the glory of God how much can be done through prayer and faith.
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.
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!"
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.
"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.
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.
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.
The preferring of the world before Christ himself. This is the height of covetousness, and the height of this adultery; what, to make the members of Christ the members of an harlot? Why, worldings! those admiring thoughts are Christ's, those pains are Christ's, that love is Christ's, that time, that care, that earnestness is Christ's; they are all Christ's, and will you give that which is Christ's unto the world? And prefer the world before Christ with his own? What, live as professed prostitutes, that prefer every one before their husbands? Christ is never precious in man's apprehension, so long as the world seems glorious to him. As we begin to relish sweetness in Christ, so the world begins to be bitter to us. The more sweetness we taste in the one, the more bitterness we taste in the other.
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." Not until we take the place of a servant can He take His place as Lord. He is not calling us to devote ourselves to His cause: He is asking us to yield ourselves unconditionally to His will. Are you prepared for that?
I have to learn to persevere in the race He has set before me, drawing my strength only from Him, and not relying at all on what I may consider any natural abilities I may have. I have to let God take from me even that strength which I thought I had in order that He may more fully reveal His own strength: in order that He may continue in me the work of conforming me to the image of His Son. Paul said: "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me" (Galatians 2:20). This death-life, as seen in the imagery of the stripping of the branch to create the arrow, may appear to be full of sacrifices, and thus be a costly discipline. Yet as our Lord Himself told us, there is no other way to the fullness of the abundant life that He would pour into us: "I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it abundantly" (John 10:10), and again: "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain" (John 12:24). I long to be kept by God in an attitude of willing surrender so that He can go on to perfect that which concerns me; so that He can go on stripping and whittling and sandpapering until He is content with the new arrow He is creating. Crucifixion, the death-to-self life, must surely be seen by us all as costly, but the abundant life that He wishes to bestow on each can only be seen as unutterable privilege. "For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory" (2 Corinthians 4:17).
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.
God demands that we present ourselves—together with our families, business and wealth—wholly to Him. It seems, however, that every Christian tries to retain something for himself. Let us understand that although under the Old Covenant the people had to offer one-tenth to God, the New Covenant offering is ten-tenths. Many Christians are fearful lest God trouble them. Once a believer who was afraid of offering himself to the Lord said, "If I offer myself to God, and He makes me suffer, what can I do?" To which I replied quit seriously: "Who do you think God is? Suppose a child who used to disobey his parents said to them that hereafter he will obey them. Do you think his parents will deliberately require him to do what he cannot do so as to make him suffer? If so, they are not parents, but judges. Being parents, they doubtless will be especially merciful to their child. How, then, can you suggest that God would purposely cause you to suffer? Do you really think He would intentionally destroy you? You forget that He is your Father." Whoever is afraid to lay all (including people, things, and affairs) before God in consecration cannot be an overcomer... Consecration makes life powerful as well as joyful. He who is unwilling to offer to God is powerless, joyless, and sinful.
A heart possessed of Christ is fortified against the most seductive allurements of the world... He being the sole object of their hearts, they are in the condition of soul to enter into, and enjoy, His beauties. They will detect His presence, the blessed fragrance of His words and His acts, where others will observe nothing. They live in His presence; they are wholly for Him; and hence it is the delight of Christ to disclose Himself to them in such attractive ways as to increase and elicit their affections towards Himself. It follows from what has been said that the state of our souls may be discerned by the effect produced upon us by the name of Jesus. If our hearts are careless and irresponsive when He is the subject of conversation or presentation, we cannot be in communion with the heart of God. Why even the name of a beloved object on earth will produce pleasurable emotions. How much more should the name of Christ, the object of God's heart — and also of ours if we know Him — awaken within us holy feelings of delight, which can only be expressed in praise and adoration!
"let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us" (Hebrews 12:1b) Do you as a Christian really believe in Christ? Can you trust yourself absolutely and entirely into His hand? Dare you trust Him? Dare you trust in His promises? Or is there a streak of doubt and unbelief within you which insists upon arguing, “If I give up the world what will I have left? How can I go on if I give up to world?” Can you not believe that the Lord has something far better for you? Can you not believe He is able to deliver you from all your sin? Can you not put your trust in Him? If we truly desire to run the race we must lay aside the sin of unbelief and cast ourselves upon the Lord and trust Him. To lay aside sin, and especially the sin of unbelief, constitutes the first requirement which must be fulfilled if we would run after God in response to His love. But secondly, we must lay aside every weight which would heavily weigh us down. Weight may not necessarily be sin. Weight may be something legitimate, lawful, even respectable. Suppose I clothe myself with, among other things, a shirt, a tie, a coat, a heavy pair of shoes. This is respectable, this is quite legitimate, this is perfectly appropriate—if I am not running a race. But if I am running a race, then all these articles are quite unnecessary. Not only unnecessary, but they all become a burden to me! They weigh me down. They hinder me from running well. I have to strip myself to the uttermost, to the least necessaries, to the barest essentials. Then, I am free to run the race. With some people it may be sin, with so many others it is heavy weights. Oh, the cares of this life; the ease, the comfort, the luxury of it all. The many good things in this life. All which goes to make up the so-called affluent way of life. These elements may not be bad; they may in fact be very good and very respectful. But my dear brothers and sisters, if we desire them to such an extent that we must have them, if we desire them to such a degree that we cannot exist without them, to such a degree that they become a weight and a load upon us, then they hinder us from running fast; nay, they may hinder us from running at all! Our souls are not able to rise and ascend.
To be a living sacrifice will involve all my time. God wants me to live every minute for Him in accordance with His will and purpose, sixty minutes of every hour, twenty-four hours of every day, being available to Him. No time can be considered as my own, or as “off-duty” or “free”. I cannot barter with God about how much time I can give to serve Him. Whatever I am doing, be it a routine salaried job, or housework at home, be it holiday time and free, or after-work Christian youth activities, all should be undertaken for Him, to reveal His indwelling presence to those around me. To be a living sacrifice will involve all my possessions. Everything that I have is in trust, be it financial or material. All should be available to God for the furtherance of His Kingdom. My money is His… I must look to Him for guidance in its use, with no sense that a certain percentage is my own by right of labor. I relinquish that right to Him. He has the right to direct the spending of each penny. To be a living sacrifice will involve all of myself. My will and my emotions, my health and vitality, my thinking and activities, all are to be available to God, to be employed as He chooses, to reveal Himself to others. Should He see that someone would be helped to know Him through my being ill, I accept ill health and weakness. I have no right to demand what we call good health… All rights are His — to direct my living so that He can most clearly reveal Himself through me. I gladly accept His best will for my life… I need to be so utterly God’s that He can use me or hide me, as He chooses, as an arrow in His hand or in His quiver. I will ask no questions: I relinquish all rights to Him, who desires my supreme good. He knows best.
The preferring of the world before Christ himself. This is the height of covetousness, and the height of this adultery; what, to make the members of Christ the members of an harlot? Why, worldings! those admiring thoughts are Christ's, those pains are Christ's, that love is Christ's, that time, that care, that earnestness is Christ's; they are all Christ's, and will you give that which is Christ's unto the world? And prefer the world before Christ with his own? What, live as professed prostitutes, that prefer every one before their husbands? Christ is never precious in man's apprehension, so long as the world seems glorious to him. As we begin to relish sweetness in Christ, so the world begins to be bitter to us. The more sweetness we taste in the one, the more bitterness we taste in the other.
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)
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Scriptures show us that Christ is our head (Eph 1:22, 4:15, Col 1:18). Just as the head of a man feels and cares for and controls the body, so Christ is towards us who are Christians. We do not need to ask Him to be our head that we may be His body. Today He is the head, and we are members of His body... God's Word states that Christ is the head; do you believe that He is at present caring for you? The Word of God also reveals to us that Christ is the vine and we are the branches (John 15:5). It is not that He will become our vine and we will become His branches. It is not that in the near future when our spiritual life is more advanced than it is now we will then become His branches and He will become our vine. We should bear fruit as He does. We should be filled with virtues as He is filled with virtues. For He has given His "sap"—that is to say, His life and fruit-producing power—to us. He is now already the trunk, and we are already His branches. He is presently supplying to us His life with His perfection and holiness and all virtues. Do we believe this? Do we believe that He now is our trunk and we are His branches? When you believed Him as your Savior, you were already perfectly joined to Him. Do you believe this? You do not need to figure out how you can be joined to Him since God has already made you and Him into one tree. Can you now believe that He shall be towards you even as the physical trunk of a tree is towards its branches? It is not that you bear fruit for Him, but rather that He bears fruit through you. The grace of God has already given the Lord Jesus to us; today by faith we accept all that God has given us so that the life, power, liberty, and holiness of Christ may be manifested in our body. By believing what God says about Christ dying on the cross for us, we receive eternal life. Likewise, by believing that the Lord Jesus lives in us, we receive the life that wins.
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'.
Jesus Christ gave Himself for us, to give Himself to us, to live His life through us.
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!"
God in His grace has centred for us every blessing in Christ. Without Christ we have nothing, nothing but our sins; with Christ we have all things, and therefore want nothing besides Christ. As the apostle says, "All things are yours; for ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." (1 Corinthians 3:21-23) Permit the question, "Do you desire to know more, to have more, of Christ?" There are few who would hesitate to reply, "Indeed we do." And yet it is quite true, as often said, that every one possesses as much of Christ as he desires. Of the Israelites in the wilderness we read, that they gathered of the manna every man according to his eating. The appetite determined the amount collected. So it really is with ourselves. Christ never withholds Himself from those who truly seek Him; nay, He responds to us far beyond our desires. The fact is, we want to have more of Christ, and something else besides. This cannot be. It must be Christ alone; Christ our only object, and then He will satisfy even beyond our utmost expectations. Phil. 3 will teach us the true method of pursuing after the knowledge of Christ while waiting to possess, and to be fully conformed to, Him in the glory. Everything is counted but dross, because of the excellency of Christ. For Him the apostle willingly suffers the loss of all things, in order to have Christ alone as His gain. Then two things mark him — concentration and purpose of heart. One thing only is before his soul, and that he resolutely pursues. The glorified Christ, who had been revealed to Him, acts upon his soul like a powerful magnet, draws him away from every thing else to Himself, and begets in him the intense desire to know Him ever more fully, to have fellowship in His sufferings and even to be made conformable to His death, in view of the glorious prospect of being raised from among the dead, when he would be with, possess, and be like Him for ever. May the Lord grant to each one of us to be like-minded in this respect to His servant Paul.
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?
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)
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.
Is it an act, or a gradual process, this "putting off the old man?" It is both. It is a resolve taken once for all, but carried out in detail day by day. The first hour that the sap begins to withdraw, and the leaf-stalk begins to silt up, the leaf's fate is sealed: there is never a moment's reversal of the decision. Each day that follows is a steady carrying out of the plant's purpose: "this old leaf shall die, and the new leaf shall live." So with your soul. Come to the decision once for all: "every known sin shall go - if there is a deliverance to be had, I will have it." Put the Cross of Christ, in its mysterious delivering power, irrevocably between you and sinning, and hold on there. That is your part, and you must do it.
God had spiritual victory as His thought when He first forgave us our sins, and in His mind this is to be the normal development of every Christian's life. Every movement forward, however, is related to the cross, and there is a sense in which there is not one step forward in the spiritual life which is not preceded by a step backward. What I mean is this, that there has to be some undoing before there can be any upbuilding. The Christ who is the power of God to us is the crucified Christ who progressively applies the cross to us also, so that being released from the flesh which so holds us back, we may advance in the realm of the Spirit. So spiritual progress is not conditioned by special teaching but by ever deeper experiences of the in-working of the cross of Christ.
I found I had to accept His strength, through forgiveness and cleansing, for all my weakness. I had to recognize and acknowledge that in me (as well as in others whom I see around me) lies no good thing, apart from His indwelling presence. Only as I am daily willing for Him to crucify the self-life, the capital "I", can He live in and through me in His own triumphant, victorious life. So often I seem to have to learn lessons over and over again. Yet God is so graciously willing to go on teaching, so patiently waiting to fill and overflow with His daily enabling by His indwelling Holy Spirit.
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.
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.
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.
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.
There are large numbers of people in the Christian Church who seem to spend the whole of their life seeking something which they can never find, seeking for some kind of happiness and blessedness. They go around from meeting to meeting, and convention to convention, always hoping they are going to get this wonderful thing, this experience that is going to fill them with joy, and flood them with some ecstasy. They see that other people have had it, but they themselves do not seem to get it… Now that is not surprising. We are not meant to hunger and thirst after experiences; we are not meant to hunger and thirst after blessedness. If we want to be truly happy and blessed we must hunger and thirst after righteousness. We must not put blessedness or happiness or experience in the first place.
I have to learn to persevere in the race He has set before me, drawing my strength only from Him, and not relying at all on what I may consider any natural abilities I may have. I have to let God take from me even that strength which I thought I had in order that He may more fully reveal His own strength: in order that He may continue in me the work of conforming me to the image of His Son. Paul said: "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me" (Galatians 2:20). This death-life, as seen in the imagery of the stripping of the branch to create the arrow, may appear to be full of sacrifices, and thus be a costly discipline. Yet as our Lord Himself told us, there is no other way to the fullness of the abundant life that He would pour into us: "I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it abundantly" (John 10:10), and again: "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain" (John 12:24). I long to be kept by God in an attitude of willing surrender so that He can go on to perfect that which concerns me; so that He can go on stripping and whittling and sandpapering until He is content with the new arrow He is creating. Crucifixion, the death-to-self life, must surely be seen by us all as costly, but the abundant life that He wishes to bestow on each can only be seen as unutterable privilege. "For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory" (2 Corinthians 4:17).
Could it be possible that God would so love an individual as to give His only Son to die for him and still love him to the extent of following him with the pleadings and drawings of His grace until He has won that soul into His own family and household and created him anew by the impartation of His own divine nature, and then be careless as to what becomes of the one He has thus given His all to procure? Here, again, the Scriptures make positive reply. "But, God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life" (Rom 5:8-10). "Much more" is a term of comparison. He gave His Son to die for us while we were yet sinners and most abhorrent, as such, to His absolute purity and holiness. Such is the boundless love which He has commended to us through the cross. But much more than His attitude of love toward sinners will be His attitude of love toward those whom He has cleansed, transformed, redeemed and created anew as His own beloved children in grace. If He will save sinners at the price of the blood of His only begotten Son, much more, when they are justified, will He save them from wrath through Him. This great comparison is repeated in the text apparently for emphasis. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be (kept) saved through His life (or the fact that He is now alive and appearing for us at the right hand of God. See Rom 8:34; Hbr 7:25). The testimony of the Bible, then, is that the attitude of love and care of God for those whom He has saved will be much more than the attitude of love, surpassing knowledge, for enemies and sinners as it has been manifested in the cross.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.