On the other hand, the preacher who dwells on God’s side of the question is criticised on a totally different ground. By a step of faith we put ourselves into the hands of the Divine Potter; by a gradual process.
THE SCRIPTURALNESS OF THIS LIFE
In the very outset, then, settle down on this one thing, that the Lord is able to save you fully, now, in this life, from the power and dominion of sin, and to deliver you altogether out of the hands of your enemies. That He would grant unto us, that we, being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him, all the days of our life.”.
THE LIFE DEFINED
Master’s use, and prepared unto every good work.’” And here you must rest, trusting yourself thus to Him continually and absolutely. Let the ways of childish confidence and freedom from care, which so please you and win your hearts in your own little ones, teach you what should be your ways with God; and leaving yourselves in His hands, learn to be literally “careful for nothing”; and you shall find it to be a fact that “the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep (as in a garrison) your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Notice the word “nothing” in the above passage, as covering all possible grounds for anxiety, both inward and outward.
HOW TO ENTER IN
For of course,” he added, “I could do nothing for him, unless he would put his whole case into my hands without any reserves, and would obey my directions implicitly.” “It is necessary then,” I said, “for doctors to be obeyed, if they are to have any chance to cure their patients?” “Implicitly obeyed!” was his emphatic reply. A lady, now very eminent in this life of trust, when she was seeking in great darkness and perplexity to enter in, said to the friend who was trying to help her, “You all say, ‘Abandon yourself, and trust, abandon yourself, and trust,’ but I do not know how.
DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING CONSECRATION
- Express in definite words your faith in Christ as your Savior; and acknowledge definitely that you believe He has reconciled you to God;
- Definitely surrender yourself to be all the Lord’s, body, soul, and spirit; and to obey Him in everything where His will is made known;
- Believe and continue to believe, against all seemings, that God takes possession of that which you thus abandon to Him, and that He will
- Pay no attention to your feelings as a test of your relations with God, but simply attend to the state of your will and of your faith. And count
- Cultivate the habit of expressing your faith in definite words, and repeat often, “I am all the Lord’s and He is working in me now to will
The facts are that you did give it, and that it is the Lord’s, for every devoted thing is most holy unto Him. I suppose that you have trusted the Lord Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins, and know something of what it is to belong to the family of God, and to be made an heir of God through faith in Christ.
DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING FAITH
- The fact
- The faith
- The feeling
- The fact
The good news had not profited her, not being “mixed with faith” in the one who heard it. Declare to yourself, to your friends, and in the secret of your soul to God, that you are free.
DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING THE WILL
The result is that the children are sooner or later compelled to yield, and fall in with the decision of the mother. I am not writing upon that side of the subject; I am considering man’s part in the matter, and not the part of the Spirit.
IS GOD IN EVERYTHING?
To my own mind, these Scriptures, and many others like them, settle forever the question as to the power of second causes in the life of the children of God. And we read, “And when the servant of the man of God was risen early and gone forth, behold an host compassed the city, both with horses and chariots.
GROWTH
The children of Israel wandering in the wilderness are a perfect picture of this sort of growing. All their wanderings and fightings in the wilderness had not put them in possession of one inch of the promised land. They do not toil nor spin for their spiritual garments, but leave themselves in the hands of the Lord to be arrayed as it may please Him.
SERVICE
It is not that He puts easy things in the place of the hard, but He actually changes the hard thing into an easy one. Everything in reference to it is known to Him, and He can manage it all. If your work is a burden, it is because you are not trusting it to Him.
DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING GUIDANCE
We must believe that God will guide us
We must surrender our own will to His guidance
When we are sure of the guidance, we must obey without question
CONCERNING TEMPTATION
And the very power of your temptations, dear Christian, therefore, may perhaps be one of the strongest proofs that you really are in the land you have been seeking to enter, because they are temptations peculiar to that land. Blessed is the man that endureth temptation”; and I am sure this means enduring the continuance of it and its frequent recurrence. It was all out of the cocoon it is true, but its great wings were lifeless and colorless, and dragged after it as a useless burden.
FAILURES
But he must do as the children of Israel did, rise up “early in the morning,” and “run” to the place where the evil thing is hidden, and take it out of its hiding-place, and lay it “out before the Lord.”. The truth is, the only remedy, after all in every emergency, is to trust in the Lord. The causes do not lie in the strength of the temptation nor in our own weakness, nor, above all, in any lack in the power or willingness of our Savior to save us.
DOUBTS
But then—” And this “but then” includes an interminable array of doubts concerning every declaration and every promise our Father has made to His children. One of my children, who is now with the Lord, said to me one evening as I was tucking her up in bed, “Well, mother, I have had my first doubt.” “Oh, Ray,” I said, “what was it?” “Why,” she replied, “Satan came to me and told me not to believe the Bible, for it was not a word of it true.” “And what did thee say to him?” I asked. Oh!” she replied, “I just looked at him cross and said, Satan, shut thy mouth!” And then she added, with a smile, “He can’t make me.
PRACTICAL RESULTS IN THE DAILY WALK AND CONVERSATION
Have you not begun to feel dimly conscious of the voice of God speaking to you in the depths of your soul about these things. All these longings and doubts, and this inward distress, are the voice of the Good Shepherd in your heart seeking to call you out of all that is contrary to His will. Out of the midst of her darkness, she consecrated herself to the Lord, surrendering her will up altogether to Him, that He might work in her to will and to do of His own good pleasure.
THE JOY OF OBEDIENCE
A union of souls takes place, which makes all that belongs to one the property of the other. Have you ever grieved that the romance of youth is so soon lost in the hard realities of the world. And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all His.
ONENESS WITH CHRIST
It is out of the question to be one with Him in any other way than in the way of nature, and character, and life. Unless we are one with Christ as to character and life and action, we cannot be one with Him in any other way, for there is no other way. You can be so filled with Christ as to be Christ-like, and if you are Christ-like, then you are one with Him in the only vital and essential way, even though your feelings may tell you that it is an impossibility.
ALTHOUGH” AND “YET,”
A LESSON IN THE INTERIOR LIFE
And it is for this reason that the lesson of joy in the Lord, and not in self, must be. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; God shall help her, and that right early.”. Lord, and joy in the God of our salvation”; and this joy no man nor devil can take from us, and no earthly sorrows can touch.
KINGS AND THEIR KINGDOMS; OR, HOW TO REIGN IN THE INTERIOR LIFE
This kingdom is to break in pieces and consume all other kingdoms by right of the law by which the inward always rules the outward. We shall hide ourselves in the impregnable fortress of the will of our King, and shall reign there in a perpetual kingdom. And to be the greatest in this divine kingdom means to have the most of this guileless, tender, trustful, self-forgetting, obedient heart of the child.
THE CHARIOTS OF GOD
Look upon these chastenings, no matter how grievous they may be for the present, as God’s chariots sent to carry your souls into the. If we want to ride with God “upon the heavens,” we have to be brought to an end of all riding upon the earth. To see God’s “goings,” we must get into the “sanctuary” of his presence; and to share in His “goings” and “go” with Him, we must abandon all earthly “goings.”.
WITHOUT ME YE CAN DO NOTHING”
It is to consider this aspect of the subject, therefore, that the present paper is written. If it is a fact that in Him we “live and move and have our being,” then it is also a fact, whether we know it or not, that without Him we cannot do anything. Surely, then, it is not the announcement of any mystery, but the simple statement of a simple fact, when our Lord says, “Without me ye can do nothing.”.
GOD WITH US”; OR, PSALM 139
There are no “buts” in the vocabulary of the soul that accepts His presence as a literal fact. In the uttermost parts of the sea, or wherever we may be, He is ever present to hold and to lead us. There are times in our lives when delirium makes us utterly unaware of the presence of our most careful and tender nurses.
