Personality -
Nothing in connection with our personality is so disastrously enervating as disillusionment about our- selves. We much prefer our own idea of ourselves to the stern realisation of what we really are. Paul warns, let no man think of himself more highly than he ought to think. Watch how god has disillusioned you over yourself and see the value of it for the future.
There is a difference between the reality of personality and its actuality, the latter is continually changing; you are sensitive now where you were indifferent before, and vice versa.
Individuality can never become a sacrament, it is only personality that can become a sacrament through oneness with Jesus Christ.
You often find people in the world are more desirable, easier to get on with, than people in the kingdom. There is frequently a stubbornness, a self-opinionativeness, in Christians not exhibited by people in the world.
If there is to be another revival it will be through the readjustment of those of us on the inside who call ourselves Christians.
It is obvious that as we have grown physically we have developed into more useful human beings, but have we grown finer morally and spiritually? Grown more pure and holy? We may have become broader- minded and yet not be so fine in perception as we used to be. It takes a lot of self-scrutiny to know whether we are evolving all the time in every domain of our being. Therefore by their fruits ye shall know them (RV).
The greatest test of Christianity is the wear and tear of daily life, it is like the shining of silver, the more it is rubbed the brighter it grows. It is well to remember that our examination of ourselves can never be unbiased or unprejudiced, so that we are only safe in taking the estimate of our- selves from our creator instead of from our own introspection, whether conceited or depressed. The modern pharisee is the one who pretends to be the publicanoh, i would never call myself a saint! Exaggerated self-depreciation and exaggerated conceit are both diseased. God has an alchemy of providence by means of which our inner spirit precipitates it self obliged to be holy if you are holy; obliged to be impure if you are impure. It is impossible to repress the ruling spirit when in the presence of the spirit of god in another. Crises reveal character. When we are put to the test the hidden resources of our character are revealed exactly. We have to do more than we are built to do naturally;
We have to do all the almighty builds us to do. The phrase self-mastery is profoundly wrong although practically correct. Profoundly, a man can never be master of what he does not understand, therefore the only master of a man is not himself, or another man, but god. Self-mastery is correct if it means carrying out the edicts of god in myself.
Leave no subject connected with your own soul until you have landed at the door of the supernatural. Natural resources are liable to break down in a crisis, but if your life is based on the supernatural god his power will manifest itself, and turn the moment that might have been tragic into triumph.
Unity of self is difficult to describe, it is the state in which there is no consciousness of myself, only of
Unity in myself. A false unity is fictitious because at any moment it may fall to pieces in an agony of remorse. How long it takes for all the powers in a christian to be at one depends on one thing only, viz. , obedience.
The reason self-interest is detected in us is because there are whole tracts of our nature that have never been fused by the spirit of god into one central purpose. If all Jesus Christ came to do is to produce dis- unity in me he had better never have come, because i am created to have such harmony in myself that i am unconscious of it.
Self-complacency and spiritual pride are always the beginning of degeneration. When i begin to be satisfied with where i am spiritually, instantly i begin to degenerate.
There is no pride equal to spiritual pride, and no obstinacy equal to spiritual obstinacy, because they are nearest to the throne of god, and are most like the devil.
It is never our wicked heart that is the difficulty, but our obstinate will.
Show me what to do and ill do it you wont. It is easy to knock down one type of pride and erect another. The only reason i cant get to god is pride, no matter how humble i seem. When any personal position is credited by me to myself, gods decree is that it hardens my heart in pride. The only sacrifice acceptable to god is a broken and a contrite heart, not a moral upright life built on pride. When i stand on the basis of penitence, gods salvation is manifested immediately. Note the thing which makes you say, i don’t believe it, it will prove where you are spiritually. What i resent reveals who governs me. If excellence of character is made the test, the grace of god is made void, because a man can develop an amazing perfection of character without a spark of the grace of god. If we put a saint or a good man as the standard, we blind ourselves to ourselves, personal vanity makes us do it; there is no room for personal vanity when the standard is seen to be god himself. To cling to my natural virtues is quite sufficient to obscure the work of god in me. There is a domain of our nature which we as Christians do not cultivate much, viz. , the domain of the imagination. Almost the only way we use our imagination is in crossing bridges before we come to them. The religion of jesus embraces every part of our make-up, the intellectual part, the emotional part, no part must be allowed to atrophy, all must be welded into one by the holy spirit. Learn to distinguish between what isolates you and what insulates you. God insulates; sin isolates, a gloomy, sardonic standing off from everything, the disdain of superiority; only when you are closest to god do you understand that that is its nature.
The natural virtues in some people are charming and delightful, but let a presentation of truth be given they have not seen before, and there is an exhibition of the most extraordinary resentment, proving that all their piety was purely temperamental, an unexplored inheritance from ancestors.
It is an appalling fact that our features tell our moral character unmistakably to those who can read them, and we may be very thankful there are few who can; our safety is in other peoples ignorance. In spite of the disguise of refinement, sensuality, selfishness and self-indulgence speak in our features as loud as a thunder-clap. Our inner spirit tells with an indelible mark on every feature, no matter how beautiful or how ugly the features may be. Let us remember that that is how god sees us.
Nothing can hinder gods purpose in a personal life but the person himself.
In this life we must forgo much in order that we might develop a spiritual character which can be a glory to god for time and eternity.
In his teaching about discipleship Jesus Christ bases everything on the complete annihilation of individuality and the emancipation of personality. Until this is understood all our talk about disciple- ship passes into thin air.
When i am baptised with the holy ghost my personality is lifted up to its right place, viz. , into perfect union with god so that i love him without hindrance.
Anything that partakes of the nature of swamping my personality out of control is never of God.