Days of Heaven Upon Earth Part 35

What men and women need to-day is to know, not sanctification as a state, but Christ as a living Person.

Lord Jesus, give me Thy heart, Thy faith, Thy life, Thyself.

AUGUST 23.

"Even as He is pure" (I. John iii. 3).

G.o.d is now aiming to reproduce in us the pattern which has already appeared in Jesus Christ, the Son of G.o.d. The Christian life is not an imitation of Christ, but a direct new creation in Christ, and the union with Christ is so complete that He imparts His own nature to us and lives His own life in us and then it is not an imitation, but simply the outgrowth of the nature implanted within.

We live Christ-like because we have the Christ-life. G.o.d is not satisfied with anything less than perfection. He required that from His Son. He requires it from us, and He does not, in the process of grace, reduce the standard, but He brings us up to it. He does not let down the righteousness of the law, but He requires of us a righteousness that far exceeds the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, and then He imparts it to us. He counts us righteous in sanctification, and He says of the new creation, "He that doeth righteousness is righteous even as He is righteous."

Lord, live out thy very life in me.

AUGUST 24.

"Let your moderation be known unto all men" (Phil. iv. 5).

The very test of consecration is our willingness not only to surrender the things that are wrong, but to surrender our rights, to be willing to be subject. When G.o.d begins to subdue a soul, He often requires us to yield the things that are of little importance in themselves, and thus break our neck and subdue our spirit.

No Christian worker can ever be used of G.o.d until the proud self-will is broken, and the heart is ready to yield to G.o.d's every touch, no matter through whom it may come.

Many people want G.o.d to lead them in their way and they will brook no authority or restraint. They will give their money, but they want to dictate how it shall be spent. They will work as long as you let them please themselves, but let any pressure come and you immediately run up against, not the grace of resignation, but a letter of resignation, withdrawing from some important trust, and arousing a whole community of criticising friends, equally disposed to have their own opinions and their own will about it. It is destructive of all real power.

AUGUST 25.

"And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep My judgments and do them" (Ezek. x.x.xvi. 27).

This is a great deal more than a new heart. This a heart filled with the Holy Ghost, the Divine Spirit, the power that causes us to walk in G.o.d's commandments.

This is the greatest crisis that comes to a Christian's life, when into the spirit that was renewed in conversion, G.o.d Himself comes to dwell and make it His abiding place, and hold it by His mighty power in holiness and righteousness.

Now, after this occurs, one would suppose that we would be lifted into a much more hopeful and exuberant spirit, but the prophet gives a very different picture. He says when this comes to pa.s.s we shall loathe ourselves in our own eyes.

The revelation of G.o.d gives a profound sense of our own nothingness and worthlessness, and lays us on our face in the dust in self-abnegation.

The incoming of the Holy Ghost displaces self and disgraces self forever, and the highest holiness is to walk in self-renunciation.

AUGUST 26.

"Thine handmaid hath not anything in the house save a pot of oil" (II.

Kings iv. 2).

He asked her, "What hast thou in the house?" And she said, "Nothing but a pot of oil." But that pot of oil was adequate for all her wants, if she had only known how to use it.

In truth it represented the Holy Spirit, and the great lesson of the parable is that the Holy Ghost is adequate for all our wants, if we only know how to use Him.

All that she needed was to get sufficient vessels to hold the overflow, and then to pour out until all were filled.

And so the Holy Spirit is limited only by our capacity to receive Him, and when G.o.d wants us to have a larger fulness, He has to make room for it by creating greater needs.

G.o.d sends us new vessels to be filled with His Holy Spirit in the needs that come to us, and the trials that meet us. These are G.o.d's opportunities for G.o.d to give us more of Himself, and as we meet them He comes to us in larger fulness for each new necessity.

Lord, help me to see Thee in all my trying situations and to make them vessels to hold more of Thy grace.

AUGUST 27.

"Take no thought for your life" (Matt. vi. 25).

Still the Lord is using the things that are despised. The very names of Nazarene and Christian were once epithets of contempt. No man can have G.o.d's highest thought and be popular with his immediate generation. The most abused men are often most used.

There are far greater calamities than to be unpopular and misunderstood.

There are far worse things than to be found in the minority. Many of G.o.d's greatest blessings are lying behind the devil's scarecrows of prejudice and misrepresentation. The Holy Ghost is not ashamed to use unpopular people. And if He uses them, what need they care for men?

Oh, let us but have His recognition and man's notice will count for little, and He will give us all we need of human help and praise. Let us only seek His will, His glory, His approval. Let us go for Him on the hardest errands and do the most menial tasks. Honor enough that He uses us and sends us. Let us not fear in this day to follow Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach, and by-and-by He will own our worthless name before the myriads of earth and sky.

AUGUST 28.

"According to the power that worketh in us" (Eph. iii. 20).