My Utmost for His Highest - Chambers, Oswald

My Utmost for His Highest
Selections for the Year
Oswald Chambers

Copyright 1927 by Oswald Chambers Publications Association
Scripture versions quoted: kjv; RV;  moffatt

Introduction

Source

These readings are selected from lectures and ser- mons given by oswald chambers from 1910 until his death in 1917.

Publication history

  . As a book: my utmost for his highest was first published in 1927. My utmost is the best-known of the Oswald chambers books and the one with which most people are familiar. Mrs. Chambers compiled excerpts taken from all of oswalds spoken messages, which she recorded in shorthand during the seven years of their marriage. Mrs. Chambers worked on the book for nearly three years while supporting herself and her daughter, kathleen, 1 by running a boarding house for university students in oxford, England. Many of the daily readings contain material on a single theme gleaned from two or three different messages. Most of the material in my utmost appears in the other published books, but some of it does not, particularly that from oswalds talks during the weekly devotional hour at the bible training college. 2 those messages came from his heart to the students and were neither lectures nor sermons but talks about their life of faith and their walk with god. The devotional hour talks followed no theme or pattern, and many were never published in the btc journal 3 or as books. My utmost for his highest has been translated into at least twenty-five languages and has been continuously in print since it was first published in 1927. Throughout my utmost, all mentions of this college refer to the bible training college, London. Bible references noted moffatt are from James moffatts translation of the new testament, published in 1913.

Foreword (to the First edition)

These daily readings have been selected from various sources, chiefly from the lectures given at the bible training college, clapham, during the years 191115; then, from October 1915 to november 1917, from talks given night by night in the y. M. C. A. Huts, zeitoun, Egypt. 4 in November 1917 my husband entered gods presence. Since then many of the talks have been published in book form, and others from which these readings have been gathered will also be published in due course. A large proportion of the readings have been chosen from the talks given during the devotional hour at the college. 5 men return again and again to the few who have mastered the spiritual secret, whose life has been hid with christ in god. These are of the old-time religion, hung to the nails of the cross. (Robert Murray McCartney)6 it is because it is felt that the author is one to whose teaching men will return, that this book has been prepared, and it is sent out with the prayer that day by day the messages may continue to bring the quickening life and inspiration of the holy spirit.

B. C.7 200 Woodstock road oxford October 1927

January 1   Let us keep to the point

My eager desire and hope being that i may never feel ashamed, but that now as ever i may do honour to christ in my own person by fearless courage. Philippians 1:20 (moffatt)

My utmost for his highest. My eager desire and hope being that i may never feel ashamed. We shall all feel very much ashamed if we do not yield to jesus on the point he has asked us to yield to him. Paul saysmy determination is to be my utmost for his highest. To get there is a question of will, not of debate nor of reasoning, but a surrender of will, an absolute and irrevocable surrender on that point. An over-weening consideration for ourselves is the thing that keeps us from that decision, though we put it that we are considering others. When we consider what it will cost others if we obey the call of jesus, we tell god he does not know what our obedience will mean. Keep to the point; he does know. Shut out every other consideration and keep yourself before god for this one thing only my utmost for his highest. I am determined to be absolutely and entirely for him and for him alone. My undeterredness for his holiness. Whether that means life or death, no matter! (v. 21 moffatt). Paul is determined that nothing shall deter him from doing exactly what god wants. Gods order has to work up to a crisis in our lives because we will not heed the gentler way. He brings us to the place where he asks us to be our utmost for him, and we begin to debate; then he produces a providential crisis where we have to decide for or against, and from that point the great divide begins. If the crisis has come to you on any line, surrender your will to him absolutely and irrevocably.

January 2    Will you go out without knowing? 

He went out, not knowing whither he went. Hebrews 11:8

Have you been out in this way? If so, there is no logical statement possible when anyone asks you what you are doing. One of the difficulties in christian work is this question what do you expect to do? You do not know what you are going to do; the only thing you know is that god knows what he is doing. Continually revise your attitude towards god and see if it is a going out of everything, trusting in god entirely. It is this attitude that keeps you in perpetual wonder you do not know what god is going to do next. Each morning you wake it is to be a going out, building in confidence on god. Take no thought for your life, . . . Nor yet for your body take no thought for the things for which you did take thought before you went out. Have you been asking god what he is going to do? He will never tell you. God does not tell you what he is going to do; he reveals to you who he is. Do you believe in a miracle-working god, and will you go out in surrender to him until you are not surprised an atom at anything he does? Suppose god is the god you know him to be when you are nearest to him, what an impertinence worry is! Let the attitude of the life be a continual going out in dependence upon god, and your life will have an ineffable charm about it which is a satisfaction to Jesus. You have to learn to go out of convictions, out of creeds, out of experiences, until, so far as your faith is concerned, there is nothing between yourself and god.

January 3  Clouds and darkness

Clouds and darkness are round about him. Psalm 97:2 a man who has not been born of the spirit of god will tell you that the teachings of jesus are simple. But when you are baptised with the holy ghost, you find clouds and darkness are round about him. When we come into close contact with the teachings of Jesus christ we have our first insight into this aspect of things. The only possibility of understanding the teaching of jesus is by the light of the spirit of god on the inside. If we have never had the experi- ence of taking our commonplace religious shoes off our commonplace religious feet, and getting rid of all the undue familiarity with which we approach god, it is questionable whether we have ever stood in his presence. The people who are flippant and familiar are those who have never yet been introduced to Jesus christ. After the amazing delight and liberty of realising what Jesus christ does, comes the impenetrable darkness of realising who he is. Jesus said: the words that i speak unto you, not the words i have spoken they are spirit, and they are life. The bible has been so many words to us clouds and darkness, then all of a sudden the words become spirit and life because Jesus re-speaks them to us in a particular condition. That is the way god speaks to us, not by visions and dreams, but by words. When a man gets to god it is by the most simple way of words.

January 4  Why cannot i follow thee now? 

Peter said unto him, lord, why cannot i follow thee now? John 13:37

There are times when you cannot understand why you cannot do what you want to do. When god brings the blank space, see that you do not fill it in, but wait. The blank space may come in order to teach you what sanc- tification means; or it may come after sanctification to teach you what service means. Never run before gods guidance. If there is the slightest doubt, then he is not guiding. Whenever there is doubtdont. In the beginning you may see clearly what gods will isthe severance of a friendship, the breaking off of a business relationship, something you feel dis- tinctly before god is his will for you to do, never do it on the impulse of that feeling. If you do, you will end in making difficulties that will take years of time to put right. Wait for gods time to bring it round and he will do it without any heartbreak or disap- pointment. When it is a question of the providential will of god, wait for god to move. Peter did not wait on god, he forecast in his mind where the test would come, and the test came where he did not expect it. I will lay down my life for thy sake. Peters declaration was honest but ignorant. Jesus answered him . . . The cock shall not crow, till thou hast denied me thrice. This was said with a deeper knowledge of peter than peter had of himself. He could not follow jesus because he did not know him- self, or of what he was capable. Natural devotion may be all very well to attract us to jesus, to make us feel his fascination, but it will never make us disciples. Natural devotion will always deny jesus somewhere or other.

January 5  the afterwards of the life of power

Whither i go, thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow me afterwards. John 13:36 and when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, follow me. Three years before, jesus had said follow me, and peter had followed easily, the fas- cination of jesus was upon him, he did not need the holy spirit to help him to do it. Then he came to the place where he denied jesus, and his heart broke. Then he received the holy spirit, and now jesus says again follow me. There is no figure in front now saving the lord jesus christ. The first follow me had noth- ing mystical in it, it was an external following; now it is a following in internal martyrdom (cf. John 21:18). Between these times peter had denied jesus with oaths and curses, he had come to the end of himself and all his self-sufficiency; there was not one strand of himself he would ever rely upon again, and in his destitution he was in a fit condition to receive an impartation from the risen lord. He breathed on them, and saith unto them, receive ye the holy ghost. No matter what changes god has wrought in you, never rely upon them, build only on a person, the lord jesus christ, and on the spirit he gives. All our vows and resolutions end in denial because we have no power to carry them out. When we have come to the end of ourselves, not in imagination but really, we are able to receive the holy spirit. Receive ye the holy ghostthe idea is that of invasion. There is only one lodestar in the life now, the lord jesus christ.

January 6  worship

And he . . . Pitched his tent, having beth-el on the west, and ai on the east: and there he builded an altar. Genesis 12:8 (rv )

Worship is giving god the best that he has given you. Be careful what you do with the best you have. Whenever you get a blessing from god, give it back to him as a love gift. Take time to meditate before god and offer the blessing back to him in a deliber- ate act of worship. If you hoard a thing for yourself, it will turn into spiritual dry rot, as the manna did when it was hoarded. God will never let you hold a spiritual thing for yourself; it has to be given back to him that he may make it a blessing to others. Bethel is the symbol of communion with god; ai is the symbol of the world. Abraham pitched his tent between the two. The measure of the worth of our public activity for god is the private profound communion we have with him. Rush is wrong every time; there is always plenty of time to worship god. Quiet days with god may be a snare. We have to pitch our tents where we shall always have quiet times with god, however noisy our times with the world may be. There are not three stages in spiritual life worship, waiting and work. Some of us go in jumps like spiritual frogs, we jump from worship to waiting, and from waiting to work. Gods idea is that the three should go together. They were always together in the life of our lord. He was unhasting and unresting. It is a discipline, we cannot get into it all at once.

January 7  Intimate with jesus

Have i been so long with you, and yet hast thou not known me? John 14:9

These words are not spoken as a rebuke, nor even with surprise; jesus is leading philip on. The last one with whom we get intimate is jesus. Before pentecost the disciples knew jesus as the one who gave them power to conquer demons and to bring about a revival (see luke 10:1820). It was a wonderful intimacy, but there was a much closer intimacy to comei have called you friends. Friendship is rare on earth. It means identity in thought and heart and spirit. The whole discipline of life is to enable us to enter into this closest relationship with jesus christ. We receive his blessings and know his word, but do we know him? Jesus saidit is expedient for you that i go awayin that relationship, so that he might lead them on. It is a joy to jesus when a disciple takes time to step more intimately with him. Fruitbearing is always mentioned as the manifestation of an intimate union with jesus christ ( john 15:14). When once we get intimate with jesus we are never lonely, we never need sympathy, we can pour out all the time without being pathetic. The saint who is intimate with jesus will never leave impressions of himself, but only the impression that jesus is having unhindered way, because the last abyss of his nature has been satisfied by him. The only impression left by such a life is that of the strong calm sanity that our lord gives to those who are intimate with him.

January 8   Does my sacrifice live?

And abraham built an altar . . . And bound isaac his son. Genesis 22:9

This incident is a picture of the blunder we make in thinking that the final thing god wants of us is the sacrifice of death. What god wants is the sacrifice through death which enables us to do what jesus did, viz. , sacrifice our lives. Not i am willing to go to death with thee, but, i am willing to be identified with thy death so that i may sacrifice my life to god. We seem to think that god wants us to give up things! God purified abraham from this blunder, and the same discipline goes on in our lives. God nowhere tells us to give up things for the sake of giving them up. He tells us to give them up for the sake of the only thing worth having, viz. , life with himself. It is a question of loosening the bands that hinder the life, and imme- diately those bands are loosened by identification with the death of jesus, we enter into a relationship with god whereby we can sacrifice our lives to him. It is of no value to god to give him your life for death. He wants you to be a living sacrifice, to let him have all your powers that have been saved and sanctified through jesus. This is the thing that is acceptable to god.

January 9   intercessory introspection

And i pray god your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless. 1 thessalonians 5:23

Your whole spirit . . . The great mystical work of the holy spirit is in the dim regions of our personal- ity which we cannot get at. Read the 139th psalm; the psalmist impliesthou art the god of the early mornings, the god of the late at nights, the god of the mountain peaks, and the god of the sea; but, my god, my soul has further horizons than the early mornings, deeper darkness than the nights of earth, higher peaks than any mountain peaks, greater depths than any sea in naturethou who art the god of all these, be my god. I cannot reach to the heights or to the depths; there are motives i cannot trace, dreams i cannot get atmy god, search me out. Do we believe that god can garrison the imagina- tion far beyond where we can go? The blood of jesus christ . . . Cleanseth us from all sinif that means in conscious experience only, may god have mercy on us. The man who has been made obtuse by sin will say he is not conscious of sin. Cleansing from sin is to the very heights and depths of our spirit if we will keep in the light as god is in the light, and the very spirit that fed the life of jesus christ will feed the life of our spir- its. It is only when we are garrisoned by god with the stupendous sanctity of the holy spirit, that spirit, soul and body are preserved in unspotted integrity, unde- serving of censure in gods sight, until jesus comes. We do not allow our minds to dwell as they should on these great massive truths of god.

January 10   The opened sight

To open their eyes, . . . That they may receive . . . Acts 26:18

This verse is the grandest condensation of the pro- paganda of a disciple of jesus christ in the whole of the new testament.The first sovereign work of grace is summed up in the wordsthat they may receive remission of sins (rv). When a man fails in personal christian experi- ence, it is nearly always because he has never received anything. The only sign that a man is saved is that he has received something from jesus christ. Our part as workers for god is to open mens eyes that they may turn themselves from darkness to light; but that is not salvation, that is conversionthe effort of a roused human being. I do not think it is too sweeping to say that the majority of nominal christians are of this order; their eyes are opened, but they have received nothing. Conversion is not regeneration. This is one of the neglected factors in our preaching today. When a man is born again, he knows that it is because he has received something as a gift from almighty god and not because of his own decision. People register their vows, and sign their pledges, and determine to go through, but none of this is salvation. Salvation means that we are brought to the place where we are able to receive something from god on the authority of jesus christ, viz. , remission of sins. Then there follows the second mighty work of graceand inheritance among them which are sanctified. In sanctification the regenerated soul deliberately gives up his right to himself to jesus christ, and identifies himself entirely with gods interest in other men.

January 11   what my obedience to god costs other people

They laid hold upon one simon, . . . And on him they laid the cross. Luke 23:26

If we obey god it is going to cost other people more than it costs us, and that is where the sting comes in. If we are in love with our lord, obedience does not cost us anything, it is a delight, but it costs those who do not love him a good deal. If we obey god it will mean that other peoples plans are upset, and they will gibe us with ityou call this christianity? We can prevent the suffering; but if we are going to obey god, we must not prevent it, we must let the cost be paid. Our human pride entrenches itself on this point, and we sayi will never accept anything from any- one. We shall have to, or disobey god. We have no right to expect to be in any other relation than our lord himself was in (see luke 8:23). Stagnation in spiritual life comes when we say we will bear the whole thing ourselves. We cannot. We are so involved in the universal purposes of god that immediately we obey god, others are affected. Are we going to remain loyal in our obedience to god and go through the humiliation of refusing to be independent, or are we going to take the other line and sayi will not cost other people suffering? We can disobey god if we choose, and it will bring immediate relief to the situation, but we shall be a grief to our lord. Whereas if we obey god, he will look after those who have been pressed into the con- sequences of our obedience. We have simply to obey and to leave all consequences with him. Beware of the inclination to dictate to god as to what you will allow to happen if you obey him.

January 12   Have you ever been alone with god?

When they were alone, he expounded all things to his disciples. Mark 4:34

Our solitude with him. Jesus does not take us alone and expound things to us all the time; he expounds things to us as we can understand them. Other lives are parables. God is making us spell out our own souls. It is slow work, so slow that it takes god all time and eternity to make a man and woman after his own purpose. The only way we can be of use to god is to let him take us through the crooks and crannies of our own characters. It is astound- ing how ignorant we are about ourselves! We do not know envy when we see it, or laziness, or pride. Jesus reveals to us all that this body has been harbouring before his grace began to work. How many of us have learned to look in with courage? We have to get rid of the idea that we understand ourselves, it is the last conceit to go. The only one who understands us is god. The greatest curse in spiritual life is conceit. If we have ever had a glimpse of what we are like in the sight of god, we shall never sayoh i am so unworthy, because we shall know we are, beyond the possibility of stating it. As long as we are not quite sure that we are unworthy, god will keep narrowing us in until he gets us alone. Wherever there is any element of pride or of conceit, jesus cannot expound a thing. He will take us through the disap- pointment of a wounded pride of intellect, through disappointments of heart. He will reveal inordinate affectionsthings over which we never thought he would have to get us alone. We listen to many things in classes, but they are not an exposition to us yet. They will be when god gets us alone over them.

January 13   Have you ever been alone with god?

When he was alone, . . . The twelve asked of him. . . . Mark 4:10

His solitude with us. When god gets us alone by affliction, heartbreak, or temptation, by disappoint- ment, sickness, or by thwarted affection, by a broken friendship, or by a new friendshipwhen he gets us absolutely alone, and we are dumbfounded and cannot ask one question, then he begins to expound. Watch jesus christs training of the twelve. It was the disciples, not the crowd outside, who were per- plexed. They constantly asked him questions, and he constantly expounded things to them; but they only understood after they had received the holy spirit (see john 14:26). If you are going on with god, the only thing that is clear to you, and the only thing god intends to be clear, is the way he deals with your own soul. Your brothers sorrows and perplexities are an absolute confusion to you. We imagine we understand where the other person is, until god gives us a dose of the plague of our own hearts. There are whole tracts of stubbornness and ignorance to be revealed by the holy spirit in each one of us, and it can only be done when jesus gets us alone. Are we alone with him now, or are we taken up with little fussy notions, fussy comradeships in gods service, fussy ideas about our bodies? Jesus can expound nothing until we get through all the noisy questions of the head and are alone with him.

January 14   Called of god

Whom shall i send, and who will go for us? Then said i, here am i; send me. Isaiah 6:8

God did not address the call to isaiah; isaiah over- heard god sayingwho will go for us? The call of god is not for the special few, it is for everyone. Whether or not i hear gods call depends upon the state of my ears; and what i hear depends upon my disposition. Many are called, but few are chosen, that is, few prove themselves the chosen ones. The chosen ones are those who have come into a relationship with god through jesus christ whereby their disposition has been altered and their ears unstopped, and they hear the still small voice questioning all the time who will go for us? It is not a question of god sin- gling out a man and saying, now, you go. God did not lay a strong compulsion on isaiah; isaiah was in the presence of god and he overheard the call, and realised that there was nothing else for him but to say, in conscious freedomhere am i; send me. Get out of your mind the idea of expecting god to come with compulsions and pleadings. When our lord called his disciples there was no irresist- ible compulsion from outside. The quiet, passionate insistence of his follow me was spoken to men with every power wide awake. If we let the spirit of god bring us face to face with god, we too will hear something akin to what isaiah heard, the still small voice of god; and in perfect freedom will sayhere am i; send me.

January 15   Do you walk in white?

Buried with him . . . That . . . Even so we also should walk in newness of life. Romans 6:4

No one enters into the experience of entire sanctifica- tion without going through a white funeral8 the burial of the old life. If there has never been this crisis of death, sanctification is nothing more than a vision. There must be a white funeral, a death that has only one resurrectiona resurrection into the life of jesus christ. Nothing can upset such a life; it is one with god for one purpose, to be a witness to him. Have you come to your last days really? You have come to them often in sentiment, but have you come to them really? You cannot go to your funeral in excitement, or die in excitement. Death means that you stop being. Do you agree with god that you stop being the striving, earnest kind of christian you have been? We skirt the cemetery and all the time refuse to go to death. It is not striving to go to death, it is dyingbaptized into his death. Have you had your white funeral, or are you sacredly playing the fool with your soul? Is there a place in your life marked as the last day, a place to which the memory goes back with a chastened and extraordinarily grateful remembranceyes, it was then, at that white funeral, that i made an agree- ment with god? This is the will of god, even your sanctification. When you realise what the will of god is, you will enter into sanctification as naturally as can be. Are you willing to go through that white funeral now? Do you agree with him that this is your last day on earth? The moment of agreement depends upon you.

January 16   The voice of the nature of god

I heard the voice of the lord saying, whom shall i send? Isaiah 6:8

When we speak of the call of god, we are apt to forget the most important feature, viz. , the nature of the one who calls. There is the call of the sea, the call of the mountains, the call of the great ice barriers; but these calls are only heard by the few. The call is the expression of the nature from which it comes, and we can only record the call if the same nature is in us. The call of god is the expression of gods nature, not of our nature. There are strands of the call of god providentially at work for us which we recognise and no one else does. It is the threading of gods voice to us in some particular matter, and it is no use con- sulting anyone else about it. We have to keep that profound relationship between our souls and god. The call of god is not the echo of my nature; my affinities and personal temperament are not consid- ered. As long as i consider my personal temperament and think about what i am fitted for, i shall never hear the call of god. But when i am brought into relationship with god, i am in the condition isaiah was in. Isaiahs soul was so attuned to god by the tre- mendous crisis he had gone through that he recorded the call of god to his amazed soul. The majority of us have no ear for anything but ourselves, we cannot hear a thing god says. To be brought into the zone of the call of god is to be profoundly altered.

January 17   The vocation of the natural life

But when it pleased god . . . To reveal his son in me . . . Galatians 1:1516

The call of god is not a call to any particular service; my interpretation of it may be, because contact with the nature of god has made me realise what i would like to do for him. The call of god is essentially expressive of his nature; service is the outcome of what is fitted to my nature. The vocation of the natu- ral life is stated by the apostle paulwhen it pleased god to reveal his son in me that i might preach him [i. E. , sacramentally express him] among the gentiles. Service is the overflow of superabounding devo- tion; but, profoundly speaking, there is no call to that, it is my own little actual bit, and is the echo of my identification with the nature of god. Service is the natural part of my life. God gets me into a relation- ship with himself whereby i understand his call, then i do things out of sheer love for him on my own account. To serve god is the deliberate love-gift of a nature that has heard the call of god. Service is expressive of that which is fitted to my nature: gods call is expressive of his nature; consequently when i receive his nature and hear his call, the voice of the divine nature sounds in both and the two work together. The son of god reveals himself in me, and i serve him in the ordinary ways of life out of devo- tion to him.

January 18   It is the lord!

Thomas answered and said unto him, my lord and my god. John 20:28

Give me to drink. How many of us are set upon jesus christ slaking our thirst when we ought to be satisfying him? We should be pouring out now, spending to the last limit, not drawing on him to satisfy us. Ye shall be witnesses unto methat means a life of unsullied, uncompromising, and unbribed devotion to the lord jesus, a satisfaction to him wherever he places us. Beware of anything that competes with loyalty to jesus christ. The greatest competitor of devotion to jesus is service for him. It is easier to serve than to be drunk to the dregs. The one aim of the call of god is the satisfaction of god, not a call to do something for him. We are not sent to battle for god, but to be used by god in his battlings. Are we being more devoted to service than to jesus christ?

January 19   Vision and darkness

An horror of great darkness fell upon him. Genesis 15:12

Whenever god gives a vision to a saint, he puts him, as it were, in the shadow of his hand, and the saints duty is to be still and listen. There is a darkness which comes from excess of light, and then is the time to lis- ten. Genesis 16 is an illustration of listening to good advice when it is dark instead of waiting for god to send the light. When god gives a vision and darkness follows, wait. God will make you in accordance with the vision he has given if you will wait his time. Never try and help god fulfil his word. Abraham went through thirteen years of silence, but in those years all self-sufficiency was destroyed; there was no possibility left of relying on commonsense ways. Those years of silence were a time of discipline, not of displeasure. Never pump up joy and confidence, but stay upon god (cf. Isaiah 50:1011). Have i any confidence in the flesh? Or have i got beyond all confidence in myself and in men and women of god, in books and prayers and ecstasies; and is my confidence placed now in god himself, not in his blessings? I am the almighty godel- shaddai, the father-mother god. The one thing for which we are all being disciplined is to know that god is real. As soon as god becomes real, other peo- ple become shadows. Nothing that other saints do or say can ever perturb the one who is built on god.

January 20   Are you fresh for everything?

Except a man be born again, he cannot see the king- dom of god. John 3:3

Sometimes we are fresh for a prayer meeting but not fresh for cleaning boots! Being born again of the spirit is an unmistakable work of god, as mysterious as the wind, as surprising as god himself. We do not know where it begins, it is hidden away in the depths of our personal life. Being born again from above (rv mg) is a perennial, perpetual and eternal beginning, a freshness all the time in thinking and in talking and in living, the continual surprise of the life of god. Staleness is an indication of something out of joint with godi must do this thing or it will never be done. That is the first sign of staleness. Are we freshly born this minute, or are we stale, raking in our minds for something to do? Freshness does not come from obe- dience but from the holy spirit; obedience keeps us in the light as god is in the light. Guard jealously your relationship to god. Jesus prayed that they may be one, even as we are one nothing between. Keep all the life perennially open to jesus christ, dont pretend with him. Are you draw- ing your life from any other source than god him- self ? If you are depending upon anything but him, you will never know when he is gone. Being born of the spirit means much more than we generally take it to mean. It gives us a new vision and keeps us absolutely fresh for everything by the perennial supply of the life of god.

January 21   Recall what god remembers

I remember . . . The kindness of thy youth. Jeremiah 2:2

Am i as spontaneously kind to god as i used to be, or am i only expecting god to be kind to me? Am i full of the little things that cheer his heart over me, or am i whimpering because things are going hardly with me? There is no joy in the soul that has forgot- ten what god prizes. It is a great thing to think that jesus christ has need of megive me to drink. How much kindness have i shown him this past week? Have i been kind to his reputation in my life? God is saying to his peopleyou are not in love with me now, but i remember the time when you were. I remember . . . The love of thine espousals. Am i as full of the extravagance of love to jesus christ as i was in the beginning, when i went out of my way to prove my devotion to him? Does he find me recalling the time when i did not care for anything but himself ? Am i there now, or have i become wise over loving him? Am i so in love with him that i take no account of where i go? Or am i watching for the respect due to me, weighing how much service i ought to give? If, as i recall what god remembers about me, i find he is not what he used to be to me, let it pro- duce shame and humiliation, because that shame will bring the godly sorrow that works repentance.

January 22   What am i looking at?

Look unto me, and be ye saved. Isaiah 45:22

Do we expect god to come to us with his blessings and save us? He sayslook unto me, and be saved. The great difficulty spiritually is to concentrate on god, and it is his blessings that make it difficult. Troubles nearly always make us look to god; his Blessings are apt to make us look elsewhere. The teaching of the sermon on the mount is, in effect narrow all your interests until the attitude of mind and heart and body is concentration on jesus christ. Many of us have a mental conception of what a christian should be, and the lives of the saints become a hindrance to our concentration on god. There is no salvation in this way, it is not simple enough. Look unto me andnot you will be saved, but you are saved. The very thing we look for, we shall find if we will concentrate on him. We get preoccupied and sulky with god, while all the time he is sayinglook up and be saved. The dif- ficulties and trials, the casting about in our minds as to what we shall do this summer, or to-morrow, all vanish when we look to god. Rouse yourself up and look to god. Build your hope on him. No matter if there are a hundred and one things that press, resolutely exclude them all and look to him. Look unto me, and salvation is, the moment you look.

January 23   Transformed by insight

We all, with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the lord, are changed into the same image. 2 cor- inthians 3:18

The outstanding characteristic of a christian is this unveiled frankness before god so that the life becomes a mirror for other lives. By being filled with the spirit we are transformed, and by beholding we become mirrors. You always know when a man has been beholding the glory of the lord, you feel in your inner spirit that he is the mirror of the lords own character. Beware of anything which would sully that mirror in you; it is nearly always a good thing, the good that is not the best. The golden rule for your life and mine is this con- centrated keeping of the life open towards god. Let everything elsework, clothes, food, everything on earthgo by the board, saving that one thing. The rush of other things always tends to obscure this con- centration on god. We have to maintain ourselves in the place of beholding, keeping the life absolutely spiritual all through. Let other things come and go as they may, let other people criticise as they will, but never allow anything to obscure the life that is hid with christ in god. Never be hurried out of the relationship of abiding in him. It is the one thing that is apt to fluctuate but it ought not to. The sever- est discipline of a christians life is to learn how to keep beholding as in a glass the glory of the lord.

January 24   The overmastering direction

I have appeared unto thee for this purpose. Acts 26:16

The vision paul had on the road to damascus was no passing emotion, but a vision that had very clear and emphatic directions for him, and he saysi was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. Our lord said, in effect, to paulyour whole life is to be over- mastered by me; you are to have no end, no aim, and no purpose but mine. I have chosen him. When we are born again we all have visions, if we are spiritual at all, of what jesus wants us to be, and the great thing is to learn not to be disobedient to the vision, not to say that it cannot be attained. It is not sufficient to know that god has redeemed the world, and to know that the holy spirit can make all that jesus did effectual in me; i must have the basis of a personal relationship to him. Paul was not given a message or a doctrine to proclaim, he was brought into a vivid, personal, overmastering relationship to jesus christ. Verse 16 is immensely commanding to make thee a minister and a witness. There is nothing there apart from the personal relationship. Paul was devoted to a person not to a cause. He was absolutely jesus christs; he saw nothing else; he lived for nothing else. For i determined not to know any thing among you, save jesus christ, and him crucified.

January 25   leave room for God

But when it pleased god . . . Galatians 1:15

As workers for god we have to learn to make room for god to give god elbow room. We calculate and estimate, and say that this and that will happen, and we forget to make room for god to come in as he chooses. Would we be surprised if god came into our meeting or into our preaching in a way we had never looked for him to come? Do not look for god to come in any particular way, but look for him. That is the way to make room for him. Expect him to come, but do not expect him only in a certain way. However much we may know god, the great lesson to learn is that at any minute he may break in. We are apt to overlook this element of surprise, yet god never works in any other way. All of a sudden god meets the lifewhen it was the good pleasure of god . . . (rv ).Keep your life so constant in its contact with god that his surprising power may break out on the right hand and on the left. Always be in a state of expec- tancy, and see that you leave room for god to come in as he likes.

January 26   Look again and consecrate

If god so clothe the grass of the field, . . . Shall he not much more clothe you? Matthew 6:30

A simple statement of jesus is always a puzzle to us if we are not simple. How are we going to be simple with the simplicity of jesus? By receiving his spirit, recognising and relying on him, obeying him as he brings the word of god, and life will become amaz- ingly simple. Consider, says jesus, how much more your father who clothes the grass of the field will clothe you, if you keep your relationship right with him. Every time we have gone back in spiri- tual communion it has been because we have imper- tinently known better than jesus christ. We have allowed the cares of the world to come in, and have forgotten the much more of our heavenly father. Behold the fowls of the airtheir one aim is to obey the principle of life that is in them and god looks after them. Jesus says that if you are rightly related to him and obey this spirit that is in you, god will look after your feathers. Consider the lilies of the fieldthey grow where they are put. Many of us refuse to grow where we are put, consequently we take root nowhere. Jesus says that if we obey the life god has given us, he will look after all the other things. Has jesus christ told us a lie? If we are not experiencing the much more, it is because we are not obeying the life god has given us, we are taken up with confus- ing considerations. How much time have we taken up worrying god with questions when we should have been absolutely free to concentrate on his work? Consecration means the continual separating of myself to one particular thing. We cannot con- secrate once and for all. Am i continually separat- ing myself to consider god every day of my life?

January 27   Look again and think

Take no thought for your life. Matthew 6:25

A warning which needs to be reiterated is that the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the lust of other things entering in, will choke all that god puts in. We are never free from the recur- ring tides of this encroachment. If it does not come on the line of clothes and food, it will come on the line of money or lack of money; of friends or lack of friends; or on the line of difficult circumstances. It is one steady encroachment all the time, and unless we allow the spirit of god to raise up the standard against it, these things will come in like a flood. Take no thought for your life. Be careful about one thing only, says our lordyour relationship to me. Common sense shouts loud and saysthat is absurd, i must consider how i am going to live, i must consider what i am going to eat and drink. Jesus says you must not. Beware of allowing the thought that this statement is made by one who does not understand our particular circumstances. Jesus christ knows our circumstances better than we do, and he says we must not think about these things so as to make them the one concern of our life. Whenever there is competition, be sure that you put your rela- tionship to god first. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. How much evil has begun to threaten you to-day? What kind of mean 9 little imps have been looking in and sayingnow what are you going to do next monththis summer? Be anxious for nothing, jesus says. Look again and think. Keep your mind on the much more of your heavenly father.

January 28   But it is hardly credible that one could so persecute jesus!

Saul, saul, why persecutest thou me? Acts 26:14

Am i set on my own way for god? We are never free from this snare until we are brought into the expe- rience of the baptism of the holy ghost and fire. Obstinacy and self-will will always stab jesus christ. It may hurt no one else, but it wounds his spirit. Whenever we are obstinate and self-willed and set  upon our own ambitions, we are hurting jesus. Every time we stand on our rights and insist that this is what we intend to do, we are persecuting jesus. Whenever we stand on our dignity we systematically vex and grieve his spirit; and when the knowledge comes home that it is jesus whom we have been per- secuting all the time, it is the most crushing revela- tion there could be. Is the word of god tremendously keen to me as i hand it on to you, or does my life give the lie to the things i profess to teach? I may teach sanctification and yet exhibit the spirit of satan, the spirit that per- secutes jesus christ. The spirit of jesus is conscious of one thing onlya perfect oneness with the father, and he says learn of me; for i am meek and lowly in heart. All i do ought to be founded on a perfect one- ness with him, not on a self-willed determination to be godly. This will mean that i can be easily put upon, easily over-reached, easily ignored; but if i submit to it for his sake, i prevent jesus christ being persecuted.

January 29   but it is hardly credible that one could be so positively ignorant!

Who art thou, lord? Acts 26:15

the lord spake thus to me with a strong hand. There is no escape when our lord speaks. He always comes with an arrestment of the understanding. Has the voice of god come to you directly? If it has, you cannot mistake the intimate insistence with which it has spoken to you in the language you know best, not through your ears, but through your circumstances. God has to destroy our determined confidence in our own convictions. I know this is what i should do and suddenly the voice of god speaks in a way that overwhelms us by revealing the depths of our igno- rance. We have shown our ignorance of him in the very way we determined to serve him. We serve jesus in a spirit that is not his, we hurt him by our advocacy for him, we push his claims in the spirit of the devil. Our words sound all right, but our spirit is that of an enemy. He . . . Rebuked them, and said, ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. The spirit of our lord in an advocate of his is described in 1 corinthians 13. Have i been persecuting jesus by a zealous deter- mination to serve him in my own way? If i feel i have done my duty and yet have hurt him in doing it, i may be sure it was not my duty, because it has not fostered the meek and quiet spirit, but the spirit of self-satisfaction. We imagine that whatever is unpleasant is our duty! Is that anything like the spirit of our lordi delight to do thy will, o my god.

January 30   the dilemma of obedience

And samuel feared to shew eli the vision. 1 samuel 3:15

God seldom speaks to us in startling ways, but in ways that are easy to misunderstand, and we say, i wonder if that is gods voice? Isaiah said that the lord spake to him with a strong hand, that is, by the pressure of circumstances. Nothing touches our lives but it is god himself speaking. Do we discern his hand or only mere occurrence? Get into the habit of saying, speak, lord, and life will become a romance. Every time circumstances press, say, speak, lord; make time to listen. Chasten- ing is more than a means of discipline, it is meant to get me to the place of saying, speak, lord. Recall the time when god did speak to you. Have you forgotten what he said? Was it luke 11:13, or was it 1 thessa- lonians 5:23? As we listen, our ear gets acute, and, like jesus, we shall hear god all the time. Shall i tell my eli what god has shown to me? That is where the dilemma of obedience comes in. We disobey god by becoming amateur providences i must shield eli, the best people we know. God did not tell samuel to tell eli; he had to decide that for himself. Gods call to you may hurt your eli; but if you try to prevent the suffering in another life, it will prove an obstruction between your soul and god. It is at your own peril that you prevent the cutting off of the right hand or the plucking out of the eye. Never ask the advice of another about anything god makes you decide before him. If you ask advice, you will nearly always side with satan: immediately i conferred not with flesh and blood.

January 31   Do you see your calling?

Separated unto the gospel. Romans 1:1

Our calling is not primarily to be holy men and women, but to be proclaimers of the gospel of god. The one thing that is all important is that the gospel of god should be realised as the abiding reality. Real- ity is not human goodness, nor holiness, nor heaven,Nor hell, but redemption; and the need to perceive this is the most vital need of the christian worker to- day. As workers we have to get used to the revelation that redemption is the only reality. Personal holi- ness is an effect, not a cause, and if we place our faith in human goodness, in the effect of redemption, we shall go under when the test comes. Paul did not say he separated himself, butwhen it pleased god, who separated me . . . Paul had not a hypersensitive interest in his own character. As long as our eyes are upon our own personal whiteness we shall never get near the reality of redemption. Workers break down because their desire is for their own white- ness, and not for god. Dont ask me to come into con- tact with the rugged reality of redemption on behalf of the filth of human life as it is; what i want is anything god can do for me to make me more desirable in my own eyes. To talk in that way is a sign that the reality of the gospel of god has not begun to touch me; there is no reckless abandon to god. God cannot deliver me while my interest is merely in my own character. Paul is unconscious of himself, he is recklessly abandoned, separated by god for one purposeto proclaim the gospel of god (cf. Romans 9:3).

February 1   The call of god

For christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel. 1 corinthians 1:17

Paul states here that the call of god is to preach the gospel; but remember what paul means by the gos- pel, viz. , the reality of redemption in our lord jesus christ. We are apt to make sanctification the end-all of our preaching. Paul alludes to personal experience by way of illustration, never as the end of the matter. We are nowhere commissioned to preach salvation or sanctification; we are commissioned to lift up jesus christ ( john 12:32). It is a travesty to say that jesus christ travailed in redemption to make me a saint. Jesus christ travailed in redemption to redeem the whole world, and place it unimpaired and rehabilitated before the throne of god. The fact that redemption can be experienced by us is an illustration of the power of the reality of redemption, but that is not the end of redemption. If god were human, how sick to the heart and weary he would be of the constant requests we make for our salvation, for our sanctification. We tax his energies from morning till night for things for ourselvessomething for me to be delivered from! When we touch the bedrock of the reality of the gos- pel of god, we shall never bother god any further with little personal plaints. The one passion of pauls life was to proclaim the gospel of god. He welcomed heart-breaks, disillu- sionments, tribulation, for one reason only, because these things kept him in unmoved devotion to the gospel of god.

February 2   The constraint of the call

Woe is unto me, if i preach not the gospel! 1 corin- thians 9:16

Beware of stopping your ears to the call of god. Every- one who is saved is called to testify to the fact; but that is not the call to preach, it is merely an illustration in preaching. Paul is referring to the pangs produced in him by the constraint to preach the gospel. Never apply what paul says in this connection to souls com- ing in contact with god for salvation. There is nothing easier than getting saved because it is gods sovereign workcome unto me and i will save you. Our lord never lays down the conditions of discipleship as the conditions of salvation. We are condemned to salvation through the cross of jesus christ. Disciple- ship has an option with itif any man . . . Pauls words have to do with being made a servant of jesus christ, and our permission is never asked as to what we will do or where we will go. God makes us broken bread and poured-out wine to please himself. To be separated unto the gospel means to hear the call of god; and when a man begins to overhear that call, then begins agony that is worthy of the name. Every ambition is nipped in the bud, every desire of life quenched, every outlook completely extinguished and blotted out, saving one thing onlyseparated unto the gospel. Woe be to the soul who tries to put his foot in any other direction when once that call has come to him. This college exists to see whether god has any man or woman here who cares about pro- claiming his gospel; to see whether god grips you. And beware of competitors when god does grip you.

February 3   The recognised ban of relationship

We are made as the filth of the world. 1 corinthians 4:13

These words are not an exaggeration. The reason they are not true of us who call ourselves ministers of The gospel is not that paul forgot the exact truth in using them, but that we have too many discreet affin- ities to allow ourselves to be made refuse. Filling up that which is behind of the afflictions of christ is not an evidence of sanctification, but of being sepa- rated unto the gospel. Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, says peter. If we do think it strange concerning the things we meet with, it is because we are craven-hearted. We have discreet affinities that keep us out of the mirei wont stoop; i wont bend. You do not need to, you can be saved by the skin of your teeth if you like; you can refuse to let god count you as one separated unto the gospel. Or you may sayi do not care if i am treated as the offscouring of the earth as long as the gospel is proclaimed. A servant of jesus christ is one who is willing to go to martyrdom for the reality of the gospel of god. When a merely moral man or woman comes in contact with baseness and immoral- ity and treachery, the recoil is so desperately offensive to human goodness that the heart shuts up in despair. The marvel of the redemptive reality of god is that the worst and the vilest can never get to the bottom of his love. Paul did not say that god separated him to show what a wonderful man he could make of him, but to reveal his son in me.

February 4   The overmastering majesty of personal power

For the love of christ constraineth us. 2 corinthians 5:14

Paul says he is overruled, overmastered, held as in a vice, by the love of christ. Very few of us know what it means to be held in a grip by the love of god; we are held by the constraint of our experience only. The one thing that held paul, until there was nothing else on his horizon, was the love of god. The love of christ constraineth uswhen you hear that note in a man or woman, you can never mistake it. You know that the spirit of god is getting unhindered way in that life. When we are born again of the spirit of god, the note of testimony is on what god has done for us, and rightly so. But the baptism of the holy ghost obliterates that for ever, and we begin to realise what jesus meant when he saidye shall be witnesses unto me. Not witnesses to what jesus can dothat is an elementary witnessbut witnesses unto me. We will take everything that happens as happening to him, whether it be praise or blame, persecution or commendation. No one can stand like that for jesus christ who is not constrained by the majesty of his personal power. It is the only thing that matters, and the strange thing is that it is the last thing realised by the christian worker. Paul says he is gripped by the love of christ; that is why he acts as he does. Men may call him mad or sober, but he does not care; there is only one thing he is living for, and that is to persuade men of the judgement seat of god, and of the love of christ. This abandon to the love of christ is the one thing that bears fruit in the life, and it will always leave the impression of the holiness and of the power of god, never of our personal holiness.

February 5   Are you ready to be offered?

Yea, and if i be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, i joy, and rejoice with you all. Philippians 2:17

Are you willing to be offered for the work of the faithfulto pour out your life blood as a libation on the sacrifice of the faith of others? Or do you sayi am not going to be offered up just yet, i do not want god to choose my work. I want to choose the scenery of my own sacrifice; i want to have the right kind of people watching me and saying, well done. It is one thing to go on the lonely way with dig- nified heroism, but quite another thing if the line mapped out for you by god means being a door-mat under other peoples feet. Suppose god wants to teach you to say, i know how to be abasedare you ready to be offered up like that? Are you ready to be not so much as a drop in a bucketto be so hopelessly insignificant that you are never thought of again in connection with the life you served? Are you willing to spend and be spent; not seeking to be ministered unto, but to minister? Some saints cannot do menial work and remain saints because it is beneath their dignity.

February 6   Are you ready to be offered?

I am already being poured out as a drink offering. 2 timothy 4:6 (rv mg)

I am now ready to be offered(kjv). It is a transaction of will, not of sentiment. Tell god you are ready to be offered; then let the consequences be what they may, there is no strand of complaint now, no matter What god chooses. God puts you through the crisis in private, no one person can help another. Externally the life may be the same; the difference is in will. Go through the crisis in will, then when it comes exter- nally there will be no thought of the cost. If you do not transact in will with god along this line, you will end in awakening sympathy for yourself. Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar. The altar means fireburning and purifi- cation and insulation for one purpose only, the destruc- tion of every affinity that god has not started and of every attachment that is not an attachment in god. You do not destroy it, god does; you bind the sacrifice to the horns of the altar; and see that you do not give way to self-pity when the fire begins. After this way of fire, there is nothing that oppresses or depresses. When the crisis arises, you realise that things cannot touch you as they used to do. What is your way of fire? Tell god you are ready to be offered, and god will prove himself to be all you ever dreamed he would be.

February 7   The discipline of dejection

But we trusted . . . And beside all this, to-day is the third day. . . . Luke 24:21

Every fact that the disciples stated was right; but the inferences they drew from those facts were wrong. Anything that savours of dejection spiritually is always wrong. If depression and oppression visit me, i am to blame; god is not, nor is anyone else. Dejec- tion springs from one of two sourcesi have either satisfied a lust or i have not. Lust meansi must have it at once. Spiritual lust makes me demand an answer from god, instead of seeking god who gives the answer. What have i been trusting god would do? And to-daythe immediate presentis the third day, and he has not done it, therefore i imag- ine i am justified in being dejected and in blaming god. Whenever the insistence is on the point that god answers prayer, we are off the track. The mean- ing of prayer is that we get hold of god, not of the answer. It is impossible to be well physically and to be dejected. Dejection is a sign of sickness, and the same thing is true spiritually. Dejection spiritually is wrong, and we are always to blame for it. We look for visions from heaven, for earthquakes and thunders of gods power (the fact that we are dejected proves that we do), and we never dream that all the time god is in the commonplace things and people around us. If we will do the duty that lies near- est, we shall see him. One of the most amazing rev- elations of god comes when we learn that it is in the commonplace things that the deity of jesus christ is realised.

February 8   Instantaneous and insistent sanctification

And the very god of peace sanctify you wholly. 1 thes- salonians 5:2324

When we pray to be sanctified, are we prepared to face the standard of these verses? We take the term sanctification much too lightly. Are we prepared for what sanctification will cost? It will cost an intense narrowing of all our interests on earth, and an immense broadening of all our interests in god. Sanctification means intense concentration on gods point of view. It means every power of body, soul and spirit chained and kept for gods purpose only. Are we prepared for god to do in us all that he separated us for? And then after his work is done in us, are we prepared to separate ourselves to god even as jesus did? For their sakes i sanctify myself. The reason some of us have not entered into the experience of sanctification is that we have not realised the mean- ing of sanctification from gods standpoint. Sancti- fication means being made one with jesus so that the disposition that ruled him will rule us. Are we pre- pared for what that will cost? It will cost everything that is not of god in us. Are we prepared to be caught up into the swing of this prayer of the apostle pauls? Are we prepared to saylord make me as holy as you can make a sinner saved by grace? Jesus has prayed that we might be one with him as he is one with the father. The one and only characteristic of the holy ghost in a man is a strong family likeness to jesus christ, and freedom from everything that is unlike him. Are we prepared to set ourselves apart for the holy spirits ministrations in us?

February 9   Are you exhausted spiritually?

The everlasting god . . . Fainteth not, neither is weary. Isaiah 40:28

Exhaustion means that the vital forces are worn right out. Spiritual exhaustion never comes through sin but only through service, and whether or not you are exhausted will depend upon where you get your Supplies. Jesus said to peterfeed my sheep, but he gave him nothing to feed them with. The pro- cess of being made broken bread and poured-out wine means that you have to be the nourishment for other souls until they learn to feed on god. They must drain you to the dregs. Be careful that you get your supply, or before long you will be utterly exhausted. Before other souls learn to draw on the life of the lord jesus direct, they have to draw on it through you; you have to be literally sucked, until they learn to take their nourish- ment from god. We owe it to god to be our best for his lambs and his sheep as well as for himself. Has the way in which you have been serving god betrayed you into exhaustion? If so, then rally your affections. Where did you start the service from? From your own sympathy or from the basis of the redemption of jesus christ? Continually go back to the foundation of your affections and recollect where the source of power is. You have no right to sayoh lord, i am so exhausted. He saved and sanctified you in order to exhaust you. Be exhausted for god, but remember that your supply comes from him. All my fresh springs shall be in thee (pbv ).10

February 10   Is your imagination of god starved?

Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things. Isaiah 40:26

The people of god in isaiahs day had starved their imagination by looking on the face of idols, and isa- iah made them look up at the heavens; that is, he made them begin to use their imagination aright. Nature to a saint is sacramental. If we are children of god, we have a tremendous treasure in nature. In every wind that blows, in every night and day of the year, in every sign of the sky, in every blossoming and in every withering of the earth, there is a real coming of god to us if we will simply use our starved imagination to realise it. The test of spiritual concentration is bringing the imagination into captivity. Is your imagination looking on the face of an idol? Is the idol yourself ? Your work? Your conception of what a worker should be? Your experience of salvation and sanctification? Then your imagination of god is starved, and when you are up against difficulties you have no power, you can only endure in darkness. If your imagination is starved, do not look back to your own experience; it is god whom you need. Go right out of yourself, away from the face of your idols, away from everything that has been starving your imagination. Rouse yourself, take the gibe that isaiah gave the people, and delib- erately turn your imagination to god. One of the reasons of stultification in prayer is that there is no imagination, no power of putting ourselves deliberately before god. We have to learn how to be broken bread and poured-out wine on the line of intercession more than on the line of personal contact. Imagination is the power god gives a saint to posit himself out of himself into relationships he never was in.

February 11   Is your hope in god faint and dying?

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose imagina- tion is stayed on thee. Isaiah 26:3 (rv mg)

Is your imagination stayed on god or is it starved? The starvation of the imagination is one of the most fruitful sources of exhaustion and sapping in a work- ers life. If you have never used your imagination to put yourself before god, begin to do it now. It is no use waiting for god to come; you must put your imagination away from the face of idols and look unto him and be saved. Imagination is the greatest gift god has given us, and it ought to be devoted entirely to him. If you have been bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of christ, it will be one of the greatest assets to faith when the time of trial comes, because your faith and the spirit of god will work together. Learn to associate ideas worthy of god with all that happens in naturethe sunrises and the sunsets, the sun and the stars, the changing seasons, and your imagination will never be at the mercy of your impulses, but will always be at the service of god. We have sinned with our fathers . . . [and] remembered notthen put a stiletto in the place where you have gone to sleep. God is not talking to me just now, but he ought to be. Remember whose you are and whom you serve. Provoke yourself by recollection, and your affection for god will increase tenfold; your imagination will not be starved any lon- ger, but will be quick and enthusiastic, and your hope will be inexpressibly bright.

February 12 must i listen?

And they said unto moses, speak thou with us and we will hear: but let not god speak with us, lest we die. Exodus 20:19

We do not consciously disobey god, we simply do not heed him. God has given us his commands; there they are, but we do not pay any attention to them, not because of wilful disobedience but because we do not love and respect him. If ye love me, ye will keep my commandments (rv ). When once we realise that we have been disrespecting god all the time, we are covered with shame and humiliation because we have not heeded him. Speak thou with us . . . : but let not god speak with us. We show how little we love god by prefer- ring to listen to his servants only. We like to listen to personal testimonies, but we do not desire that god himself should speak to us. Why are we so terrified lest god should speak to us? Because we know that if god does speak, either the thing must be done or we must tell god we will not obey him. If it is only the servants voice we hear, we feel it is not impera- tive, we can say, well, that is simply your own idea, though i dont deny it is probably gods truth. Am i putting god in the humiliating position of having treated me as a child of his while all the time i have been ignoring him? When i do hear him, the humiliation i have put on him comes back on me lord, why was i so dull and so obstinate? This is always the result when once we do hear god. The real delight of hearing him is tempered with shame in having been so long in hearing him.

February 13  The devotion of hearing speak;

For thy servant heareth. 1 samuel 3:10

Because i have listened definitely to one thing from god, it does not follow that i will listen to everything he says. The way in which i show god that i neither love nor respect him is by the obtuseness of my heart and mind towards what he says. If i love my friend, i intuitively detect what he wants, and jesus says, ye are my friends. Have i disobeyed some command of my lords this week? If i had realised that it was a command of jesus, i would not consciously have disobeyed it; but most of us show such disrespect to god that we do not even hear what he says, he might never have spoken. The destiny of my spiritual life is such identifica- tion with jesus christ that i always hear god, and i know that god always hears me ( john 11:41). If i am united with jesus christ, i hear god by the devotion of hearing all the time. A lily, or a tree, or a servant of god, may convey gods message to me. What hinders me from hearing is that i am taken up with other things. It is not that i will not hear god, but that i am not devoted in the right place. I am devoted to things, to service, to convictions, and god may say what he likes but i do not hear him. The child attitude is always speak, l ord , for thy servant heareth. If i have not cultivated this devo- tion of hearing, i can only hear gods voice at certain times; at other times i am taken up with things things which i say i must do, and i become deaf to him, i am not living the life of a child. Have i heard gods voice to-day?

February 14   The discipline of heeding

What i tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light; and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the house- tops. Matthew 10:27

At times god puts us through the discipline of dark- ness to teach us to heed him. Song birds are taught to sing in the dark, and we are put into the shadow of gods hand until we learn to hear him. What i tell you in darknesswatch where god puts you into darkness, and when you are there, keep your mouth shut. Are you in the dark just now in your circum- stances, or in your life with god? Then remain quiet. If you open your mouth in the dark, you will talk in the wrong mood: darkness is the time to listen. Dont talk to other people about it; dont read books to find out the reason of the darkness, but listen and heed. If you talk to other people, you cannot hear what god is saying. When you are in the dark, listen, and god will give you a very precious message for someone else when you get into the light. After every time of darkness there comes a mix- ture of delight and humiliation (if there is delight only, i question whether we have heard god at all), delight in hearing god speak, but chiefly humil- iationwhat a long time i was in hearing that! How slow i have been in understanding that! And yet god has been saying it all these days and weeks. Now he gives you the gift of humiliation which brings the softness of heart that will always listen to god now.

February 15   Am i my brothers keeper?

None of us liveth to himself. Romans 14:7

Has it ever dawned on you that you are responsible for other souls spiritually before god? For instance, if i allow any private deflection from god in my life, everyone about me suffers. We sit together in heav- enly places. Whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it. When once you allow physi- cal selfishness, mental slovenliness, moral obtuseness, spiritual density, everyone belonging to your crowd will suffer. But, you say, who is sufficient for these things, if you erect a standard like that? Our suf- ficiency is of god, and of him alone. Ye shall be my witnesses (rv). How many of us are willing to spend every ounce of nervous energy, of mental, moral and spiritual energy we have for jesus christ? That is the meaning of a witness in gods sense of the word. It takes time, be patient with your- self. God has left us on the earthwhat for? To be saved and sanctified? No, to be at it for him. Am i willing to be broken bread and poured-out wine for him? To be spoilt for this age, for this life, to be spoilt from every standpoint but onesaving as i can disciple men and women to the lord jesus christ. My life as a worker is the way i say thank you to god for his unspeakable salvation. Remember it is quite possible for anyone of us to be flung out as repro- bate silver. . . Lest that by any means, when i have preached to others, i myself should be a castaway.

February 16   The inspiration of spiritual initiative

Arise from the dead. Ephesians 5:14

All initiative is not inspired. A man may say to you buck up, take your disinclination by the throat, throw it overboard, and walk out into the thing! That is ordinary human initiative. But when the spirit of god comes in and says, in effect, buck up, we find that the initiative is inspired. We all have any number of visions and ideals when we are young, but sooner or later we find that we have no power to make them real. We cannot do the things we long to do, and we are apt to settle down to the visions and ideals as dead, and god has to come and sayarise from the dead. When the inspira- tion of god does come, it comes with such miraculous power that we are able to arise from the dead and do the impossible thing. The remarkable thing about spiritual initiative is that the life comes after we do the bucking up. God does not give us overcoming life; he gives us life as we overcome. When the inspiration of god comes, and he saysarise from the dead, we have to get up; god does not lift us up. Our lord said to the man with the withered handstretch forth thy hand, and as soon as the man did so, his hand was healed, but he had to take the initiative. If we will do the overcoming, we shall find we are inspired of god because he gives life immediately.

February 17   The initiative against depression

Arise and eat. 1 kings 19:5

The angel did not give elijah a vision, or explain the scriptures to him, or do anything remarkable; he told elijah to do the most ordinary thing, viz. , to get up and eat. If we were never depressed we should not be alive; it is the nature of a crystal never to be depressed. A human being is capable of depression, otherwise there would be no capacity for exaltation. There are things that are calculated to depress, things that are of the nature of death; and in taking an esti- mate of yourself, always take into account the capac- ity for depression. When the spirit of god comes he does not give us visions; he tells us to do the most ordinary things conceivable. Depression is apt to turn us away from the ordinary commonplace things of gods creation, but whenever god comes, the inspiration is to do the most natural simple thingsthe things we would never have imagined god was in, and as we do them we find he is there. The inspiration which comes to us in this way is an initiative against depression; we have to do the next thing and to do it in the inspiration of god. If we do a thing in order to overcome depression, we deepen the depression; but if the spirit of god makes us feel intuitively that we must do the thing, and we do it, the depression is gone. Immediately we arise and obey, we enter on a higher plane of life.

February 18   The initiative against despair

Rise, let us be going. Matthew 26:46

The disciples went to sleep when they should have kept awake, and when they realised what they had done it produced despair. The sense of the irreparable Is apt to make us despair, and we sayit is all up now, it is no use trying any more. If we imagine that this kind of despair is exceptional, we are mistaken, it is a very ordinary human experience. Whenever we realise that we have not done that which we had a magnificent opportunity of doing, then we are apt to sink in despair, and jesus christ comes and says sleep on now, that opportunity is lost for ever, you cannot alter it, but arise and go to the next thing. Let the past sleep, but let it sleep on the bosom of christ, and go out into the irresistible future with him. There are experiences like this in each of our lives. We are in despair, the despair that comes from actualities, and we cannot lift ourselves out of it. The disciples in this instance had done a downright unforgivable thing; they had gone to sleep instead of watching with jesus, but he came with a spiritual initiative against their despair and saidarise and do the next thing. If we are inspired of god, what is the next thing? To trust him absolutely and to pray on the ground of his redemption. Never let the sense of failure corrupt your new action.

February 19   The initiative against drudgery

Arise, shine. Isaiah 60:1

We have to take the first step as though there were no god. It is no use to wait for god to help us, he will not; but immediately we arise we find he is there. Whenever god inspires, the initiative is a moral one. We must do the thing and not lie like a log. If we will arise and shine, drudgery becomes divinely trans figured. Drudgery is one of the finest touchstones of character there is. Drudgery is work that is very far removed from anything to do with the idealthe utterly mean, 11 grubby things; and when we come in contact with them we know instantly whether or not we are spiritually real. Read john 13; we see there the incarnate god doing the most desperate piece of drudgery, washing fishermens feet, and he saysif i then, your lord and master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one anothers feet. It requires the inspiration of god to go through drudgery with the light of god upon it. Some people do a certain thing, and the way in which they do it hallows that thing for ever afterwards. It may be the most com- monplace thing, but after we have seen them do it, it becomes different. When the lord does a thing through us, he always transfigures it. Our lord took on him our human flesh and transfigured it, and it has become for every saint the temple of the holy ghost.

February 20   The initiative against dreaming

Arise, let us go hence. John 14:31

Dreaming about a thing in order to do it properly is right; but dreaming about it when we should be doing it is wrong. After our lord had said those wonderful things to his disciples, we might have expected that he would tell them to go away and meditate over them all; but our lord never allowed mooning. When we are getting into contact with god in order to find out what he wants, dreaming is right; but when we are inclined to spend our time in dreaming over what we have been told to do, it is a bad thing and gods blessing is never on it. Gods initiative is always in the nature of a stab against this kind of dreaming, the stab that bids us neither sit nor stand but go. If we are quietly waiting before god and he has saidcome ye yourselves apart, then that is meditation before god in order to get at the line he wants; but always beware of giving over to mere dreaming when once god has spoken. Leave him to be the source of all your dreams and joys and delights, and go out and obey what he has said. If you are in love, you do not sit down and dream about the one you love all the time, you go and do something for him; and that is what jesus christ expects us to do. Dreaming after god has spoken is an indication that we do not trust him.

February 21   Have you ever been carried away for him?

She hath wrought a good work on me. Mark 14:6

If human love does not carry a man beyond himself, it is not love. If love is always discreet, always wise, always sensible and calculating, never carried beyond Itself, it is not love at all. It may be affection, it may be warmth of feeling, but it has not the true nature of love in it. Have i ever been carried away to do something for god not because it was my duty, nor because it was use- ful, nor because there was anything in it at all beyond the fact that i love him? Have i ever realised that i can bring to god things which are of value to him, or am i mooning round the magnitude of his redemption whilst there are any number of things i might be doing? Not divine, colossal things which could be recorded as marvellous, but ordinary, simple human things which will give evidence to god that i am abandoned to him? Have i ever produced in the heart of the lord jesus what mary of bethany produced? There are times when it seems as if god watches to see if we will give him the abandoned tokens of how genuinely we do love him. Abandon to god is of more value than personal holiness. Personal holi- ness focuses the eye on our own whiteness; we are greatly concerned about the way we walk and talk and look, fearful lest we offend him. Perfect love casts out all that when once we are abandoned to god. We have to get rid of this notionam i of any use? And make up our minds that we are not, and we may be near the truth. It is never a question of being of use, but of being of value to god himself. When we are abandoned to god, he works through us all the time.

February 22   The discipline of spiritual tenacity

Be still, and know that i am god. Psalm 46:10

Tenacity is more than endurance, it is endurance combined with the absolute certainty that what we are looking for is going to transpire. Tenacity is more than hanging on, which may be but the weak- ness of being too afraid to fall off. Tenacity is the supreme effort of a man refusing to believe that his hero is going to be conquered. The greatest fear a disciple has is not that he will be damned, but that jesus christ will be worsted, that the things he stood forlove and justice and forgiveness and kindness among menwill not win out in the end; the things he stands for look like will-o-the-wisps. Then comes the call to spiritual tenacity, not to hang on and do nothing, but to work deliberately on the cer- tainty that god is not going to be worsted. If our hopes are being disappointed just now, it means that they are being purified. There is nothing noble the human mind has ever hoped for or dreamed of that will not be fulfilled. One of the greatest strains in life is the strain of waiting for god. Because thou hast kept the word of my patience. Remain spiritually tenacious.

February 23   The determination to serve

The son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister. Matthew 20:28

Pauls idea of service is the same as our lords: i am among you as he that serveth; ourselves your servants for jesus sake. We have the idea that a man called to the ministry is called to be a different kind of being from other men. According to jesus christ, he is called to be the door-mat of other men; their spiritual leader, but never their superior. I know how to be abased, says paul. This is pauls idea of servicei will spend myself to the last ebb for you; you may give me praise or give me blame, it will make no difference. So long as there is a human being who does not know jesus christ, i am his debtor to serve him until he does. The mainspring of pauls service is not love for men, but love for jesus christ. If we are devoted to the cause of humanity, we shall soon be crushed and brokenhearted, for we shall often meet with more ingratitude from men than we would from a dog; but if our motive is love to god, no ingratitude can hinder us from serving our fellow men. Pauls realisation of how jesus christ had dealt with him is the secret of his determination to serve others. I was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injuriousno matter how men may treat me, they will never treat me with the spite and hatred with which i treated jesus christ. When we realise that jesus christ has served us to the end of our meanness, our selfishness, and sin, nothing that we meet with from others can exhaust our determination to serve men for his sake.

February 24   The delight of sacrifice

I will very gladly spend and be spent for you. 2 cor- inthians 12:15

When the spirit of god has shed abroad the love of god in our hearts, we begin deliberately to identify ourselves with jesus christs interests in other people, and jesus christ is interested in every kind of man there is. We have no right in christian work to be guided by our affinities; this is one of the biggest tests Of our relationship to jesus christ. The delight of sac- rifice is that i lay down my life for my friend, not fling it away, but deliberately lay my life out for him and his interests in other people, not for a cause. Paul spent himself for one purpose onlythat he might win men to jesus christ. Paul attracted to jesus all the time, never to himself. I am made all things to all men, that i might by all means save some. When a man says he must develop a holy life alone with god, he is of no more use to his fellow men: he puts himself on a pedestal, away from the common run of men. Paul became a sacramental personality; wherever he went, jesus christ helped himself to his life. Many of us are after our own ends, and jesus christ cannot help himself to our lives. If we are abandoned to jesus, we have no ends of our own to serve. Paul said he knew how to be a door-mat without resenting it, because the mainspring of his life was devotion to jesus. We are apt to be devoted not to jesus christ but to the things which emancipate us spiritually. That was not pauls motive: i could wish that myself were accursed from christ for my brethrenwild, extravagantis it? When a man is in love it is not an exaggeration to talk in that way, and paul is in love with jesus christ.

February 25   The destitution of service

Though the more abundantly i love you, the less i be loved. 2 corinthians 12:15

Natural love expects some return, but paul saysi do not care whether you love me or not, i am willing to destitute myself completely, not merely for your sakes, but that i may get you to god. For ye know the grace of our lord jesus christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor. Pauls idea of service is exactly along that linei do not care with what extravagance i spend myself, and i will do it gladly. It was a joyful thing to paul. The ecclesiastical idea of a servant of god is not jesus christs idea. His idea is that we serve him by being the servants of other men. Jesus christ out- socialists the socialists. He says that in his kingdom he that is greatest shall be the servant of all. The real test of the saint is not preaching the gospel, but washing disciples feet, that is, doing the things that do not count in the actual estimate of men, but count everything in the estimate of god. Paul delighted to spend himself out for gods interests in other people, and he did not care what it cost. We come in with our economical notionssuppose god wants me to go therewhat about the salary? What about the climate? How shall i be looked after? A man must consider these things. All that is an indication that we are serving god with a reserve. The apostle paul had no reserve. Paul focuses jesus christs idea of a new testament saint in his life, viz. : not one who proclaims the gospel merely, but one who becomes broken bread and poured-out wine in the hands of jesus christ for other lives.

February 26   Inferior misgivings about jesus

Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with. John 4:11

I am impressed with the wonder of what god says, but he cannot expect me really to live it out in the details of my life! When it comes to facing jesus christ on his own merits, our attitude is one of pious superiorityyour ideals are high and they impress us, but in touch with actual things, it cannot be done. Each of us thinks about jesus in this way in some par- ticular. These misgivings about jesus start from the amused questions put to us when we talk of our trans- actions with godwhere are you going to get your money from? How are you going to be looked after? Or they start from ourselves when we tell jesus that our case is a bit too hard for him. It is all very well to say trust in the lord, but a man must live, and jesus has nothing to draw withnothing whereby to give us these things. Beware of the pious fraud in you which saysi have no misgivings about jesus, only about myself. None of us ever had misgivings about ourselves; we know exactly what we cannot do, but we do have misgivings about jesus. We are rather hurt at the idea that he can do what we cannot. My misgivings arise from the fact that i ransack my own person to find out how he will be able to do it. My questions spring from the depths of my own inferiority. If i detect these misgivings in myself, let me bring them to the light and confess them lord, i have had misgivings about thee, i have not believed in thy wits apart from my own; i have not believed in thine almighty power apart from my finite understanding of it.

February 27   The impoverished ministry of jesus

From whence then hast thou that living water? John 4:11

The well is deepand a great deal deeper than the samaritan woman knew! Think of the depths of human nature, of human life, think of the depths of the wells in you. Have you been impoverishing the ministry of jesus so that he cannot do anything? Suppose there is a well of fathomless trouble inside your heart, and jesus comes and sayslet not your heart be troubled; and you shrug your shoulders and saybut, lord, the well is deep; you cannot draw up quietness and comfort out of it. No, he will bring them down from above. Jesus does not bring anything up from the wells of human nature. We limit the holy one of israel by remembering what we have allowed him to do for us in the past, and by sayingof course i cannot expect god to do this thing. The thing that taxes almightiness is the very thing which as disciples of jesus we ought to believe he will do. We impoverish his ministry the moment we forget he is almighty; the impoverish- ment is in us, not in him. We will come to jesus as comforter or as sympathiser, but we will not come to him as almighty. The reason some of us are such poor specimens of christianity is because we have no almighty christ. We have christian attributes and experiences, but there is no abandonment to jesus christ. When we get into difficult circumstances, we impoverish his ministry by sayingof course he cannot do any thing, and we struggle down to the deeps and try to get the water for ourselves. Beware of the satisfaction of sinking back and sayingit cant be done; you know it can be done if you look to jesus. The well of your incompleteness is deep, but make the effort and look away to him.

February 28   Do ye now believe?

By this we believe. . . . Jesus answered . . . , do ye now believe? John 16:3031

Now we believe. Jesus saysdo you? The time is coming when you will leave me alone. Many a christian worker has left jesus christ alone and gone into work from a sense of duty, or from a sense of need arising out of his own particular discernment. The reason for this is the absence of the resurrection life of jesus. The soul has got out of intimate contact with god by leaning to its own religious understand- ing. There is no sin in it, and no punishment attached to it; but when the soul realises how he has hindered his understanding of jesus christ, and produced for himself perplexities and sorrows and difficulties, it is with shame and contrition he has to come back. We need to rely on the resurrection life of jesus much deeper down, to get into the habit of steadily referring everything back to him; instead of this we make our commonsense decisions and ask god to bless them. He cannot, it is not in his domain, it is severed from reality. If we do a thing from a sense of duty, we are putting up a standard in competition with jesus christ. We become a superior person, and saynow in this matter i must do this and that. We have put our sense of duty on the throne instead of the resurrection life of jesus. We are not told to walk in the light of conscience or of a sense of duty, but to walk in the light as god is in the light. When we do anything from a sense of duty, we can back it up by argument; when we do anything in obe- dience to the lord, there is no argument possible; that is why a saint can be easily ridiculed.

February 29   What do you want the lord to do for you?

Lord, that i may receive my sight. Luke 18:41

What is the thing that not only disturbs you but makes you a disturbance? It is always something you cannot deal with yourself. They rebuked him, that he should hold his peace: but he cried so much the more. Persist in the disturbance until you yet get face to face with the lord himself; do not deify com- mon sense. When jesus asks us what we want him to do for us in regard to the incredible thing with which we are faced, remember that he does not work in commonsense ways, but in supernatural ways. Watch how we limit the lord by remembering what we have allowed him to do for us in the past: i always failed there, and i always shall; consequently we do not ask for what we want, it is ridiculous to ask god to do this. If it is an impossibility, it is the thing we have to ask. If it is not an impossible thing, it is not a real disturbance. God will do the absolutely impossible. This man received his sight. The most impossible thing to you is that you should be so identified with the lord that there is nothing of the old life left. He will do it if you ask him. But you have to come to the place where you believe him to be almighty. Faith is not in what jesus says but in himself; if we only look at what he says we shall never believe. When once we see jesus, he does the impossible thing as naturally as breathing. Our agony comes through the wilful stupidity of our own heart. We wont believe, we wont cut the shore line, we prefer to worry on .

March 1   The undeviating question

Lovest thou me? John 21:17

Peter declares nothing now (cf. Matthew 26:3335).Natural individuality professes and declares; the love of the personality is only discovered by the hurt of the question of jesus christ. Peter loved jesus in the way in which any natural man loves a good man. That is temperamental love; it may go deep into the individuality, but it does not touch the centre of the person. True love never professes anything. Jesus saidwhosoever shall confess me before men, i. E. , confess his love not merely by his words, but by everything he does. Unless we get hurt right out of every deception about ourselves, the word of god is not having its way with us. The word of god hurts as no sin can ever hurt, because sin blunts feeling. The question of the lord intensifies feeling, until to be hurt by jesus is the most exquisite hurt conceivable. It hurts not only in the natural way but in the profound personal way. The word of the lord pierces even to the dividing asun- der of soul and spirit, there is no deception left. There is no possibility of being sentimental with the lords question; you cannot say nice things when the lord speaks directly to you, the hurt is too terrific. It is such a hurt that it stings every other concern out of account. There never can be any mistake about the hurt of the lords word when it comes to his child; but the point of the hurt is the great point of revelation.

March 2   Have you felt the hurt of the lord?

He said unto him the third time, lovest thou me? John 21:17

Have you felt the hurt of the lord to the uncovered quick, the place where the real sensitiveness of your life is lodged? The devil never hurts there, neither sin nor human affection hurts there, nothing goes through to that place but the word of god. Peter was grieved, because jesus said unto him the third time. . . . He was awakening to the fact that in the real true centre of his personal life he was devoted to jesus, and he began to see what the patient question- ing meant. There was not the slightest strand of delu- sion left in peters mind, he never could be deluded again. There was no room for passionate utterance, no room for exhilaration or sentiment. It was a rev- elation to him to realise how much he did love the lord, and with amazement he saidlord, thou knowest all things. Peter began to see how much he did love jesus; but he did not saylook at this or that to confirm it. Peter was beginning to discover to himself how much he did love the lord, that there was no one in heaven above or upon earth beneath beside jesus christ; but he did not know it until the probing, hurting questions of the lord came. The lords questions always reveal me to myself. The patient directness and skill of jesus christ with peter! Our lord never asks questions until the right time. Rarely, but probably once, he will get us into a corner where he will hurt us with his unde- viating questions, and we will realise that we do love him far more deeply than any profession can ever show.

March 3   The unrelieved quest

Feed my sheep. John 21:17

This is love in the making. The love of god is un- made, it is gods nature. When we receive the holy spirit he unites us with god so that his love is manifested in us. When the soul is united to god by the indwelling holy spirit, that is not the end; the end is that we may be one with the father as jesus was. What kind of oneness had jesus christ with the father? Such a oneness that the father sent him down here to be spent for us, and he saysas the father hath sent me, even so send i you (rv). Peter realises now with the revelation of the lords hurting question that he does love him; then comes the pointspend it out. Dont testify how much you love me, dont profess about the marvel- lous revelation you have had, butfeed my sheep. And jesus has some extraordinarily funny sheep, some bedraggled, dirty sheep, some awkward butt- ing sheep, some sheep that have gone astray! It is impossible to weary gods love, and it is impossible to weary that love in me if it springs from the one centre. The love of god pays no attention to the distinctions made by natural individuality. If i love my lord i have no business to be guided by natural temperament; i have to feed his sheep. There is no relief and no release from this commission. Beware of counterfeiting the love of god by working along the line of natural human sympathy, because that will end in blaspheming the love of God.

March 4   Could this be true of me?

But none of these things move me, neither count i my life dear unto myself. Acts 20:24

It is easier to serve god without a vision, easier to work for god without a call, because then you are not bothered by what god requires; common sense is your guide, veneered over with christian sentiment. You will be more prosperous and successful, more leisure-hearted, if you never realise the call of god. But if once you receive a commission from jesus christ, the memory of what god wants will always come like a goad; you will no longer be able to work for him on the commonsense basis. What do i really count dear? If i have not been gripped by jesus christ, i will count service dear, time given to god dear, my life dear unto myself. Paul says he counted his life dear only in order that he might fulfil the ministry he had received; he refused to use his energy for any other thing. Acts 20:24 states pauls almost sublime annoyance at being asked to consider himself; he was absolutely indifferent to any consider- ation other than that of fulfilling the ministry he had received. Practical work may be a competitor against abandonment to god, because practical work is based on this argumentremember how useful you are here, orthink how much value you would be in that particular type of work. That attitude does not put jesus christ as the guide as to where we should go, but our judgement as to where we are of most use. Never consider whether you are of use; but ever consider that you are not your own but his.

March 5   Is he really lord?

. . . So that i might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which i have received of the lord jesus. Acts 20:24

Joy means the perfect fulfilment of that for which i was created and regenerated, not the successful doing of a thing. The joy our lord had lay in doing what the father sent him to do, and he saysas my father hath sent me, even so am i sending you. Have i received a ministry from the lord? If so, i have to be loyal to it, to count my life precious only for the fulfilling of that ministry. Think of the satis- faction it will be to hear jesus saywell done, good and faithful servant; to know that you have done what he sent you to do. We have all to find our niche in life, and spiritually we find it when we receive our ministry from the lord. In order to do this we must have companied with jesus; we must know him as more than a personal saviour. I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my sake. Lovest thou me? Thenfeed my sheep. There is no choice of service, only absolute loyalty to our lords commission; loyalty to what you discern when you are in closest contact with god. If you have received a ministry from the lord jesus, you will know that the need is never the call: the need is the oppor- tunity. The call is loyalty to the ministry you received when you were in real touch with him. This does not imply that there is a campaign of service marked out for you, but it does mean that you will have to ignore the demands for service along other lines.

March 6   Amid a crowd of paltry things

. . . In much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses. 2 corinthians 6:4

It takes almighty grace to take the next step when there is no vision and no spectatorthe next step in devotion, the next step in your study, in your read- ing, in your kitchen; the next step in your duty, when there is no vision from god, no enthusiasm and no spectator. It takes far more of the grace of god, far more conscious drawing upon god to take that step, than it does to preach the gospel. Every christian has to partake of what was the essence of the incarnation, he must bring the thing down into flesh-and-blood actualities and work it out through the finger-tips. We flag when there is no vision, no uplift, but just the common round, the trivial task. The thing that tells in the long run for god and for men is the steady persevering work in the unseen, and the only way to keep the life uncrushed is to live looking to god. Ask god to keep the eyes of your spirit open to the risen christ, and it will be impos- sible for drudgery to damp you. Continually get away from pettiness and paltriness of mind and thought out into the thirteenth chapter of st. Johns gospel.

March 7   Undaunted radiance

Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. Romans 8:37

Paul is speaking of the things that might seem likely to separate or wedge in between the saint and the love of god; but the remarkable thing is that nothing can wedge in between the love of god and the saint. These things can and do come in between the devotional exercises of the soul and god and separate individual life from god; but none of them is able to wedge in between the love of god and the soul of the saint. The bedrock of our christian faith is the unmerited, fathomless marvel of the love of god exhibited on the cross of calvary, a love we never can and never shall merit. Paul says this is the reason we are more than conquerors in all these things, super-victors, with a joy we would not have but for the very things which look as if they are going to overwhelm us. The surf that distresses the ordinary swimmer produces in the surf-rider the super joy of going clean through it. Apply that to our own circumstances, these very thingstribulation, distress, persecution, produce in us the super joy; they are not things to fight. We are more than conquerors through him in all these things, not in spite of them, but in the midst of them. The saint never knows the joy of the lord in spite of tribulation, but because of it. I am exceeding joyful in all our tribulation, says paul. Undaunted radiance is not built on anything passing, but on the love of god that nothing can alter. The experiences of life, terrible or monotonous, are impotent to touch the love of god, which is in christ jesus our lord.

March 8    The relinquished life

I am crucified with christ. Galatians 2:20

No one is ever united with jesus christ until he is willing to relinquish not sin only, but his whole way of looking at things. To be born from above (rv mg) of the spirit of god means that we must let go before we lay hold, and in the first stages it is the relin- quishing of all pretence. What our lord wants us to present to him is not goodness, nor honesty, nor endeavour, but real solid sin; that is all he can take from us. And what does he give in exchange for our sin? Real solid righteousness. But we must relinquish all pretence of being anything, all claim of being wor- thy of gods consideration. Then the spirit of god will show us what further there is to relinquish. There will have to be the relin- quishing of my claim to my right to myself in every phase. Am i willing to relinquish my hold on all i possess, my hold on my affections, and on everything, and to be identified with the death of jesus christ? There is always a sharp painful disillusionment to go through before we do relinquish. When a man really sees himself as the lord sees him, it is not the abominable sins of the flesh that shock him, but the awful nature of the pride of his own heart against jesus christ. When he sees himself in the light of the lord, the shame and the horror and the desperate conviction come home. If you are up against the question of relinquish- ing, go through the crisis, relinquish all, and god will make you fit for all that he requires of you.

March 9   The time of relapse

Will ye also go away? John 6:67

A penetrating question. Our lords words come home most when he talks in the most simple way. We know who jesus is, but in spite of that he sayswill ye also go away? We have to maintain a venturing attitude toward him all the time. From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. They went back from walking with jesus, not into sin, but they relapsed. Many to-day are spending and being spent in work for jesus christ, but they do not walk with him. The one thing god keeps us to steadily is that we may be one with jesus christ. After sanctification the discipline of our spiritual life is along this line. If god gives a clear and emphatic realisation to your soul of what he wants, do not try to keep yourself in that relationship by any particular method, but live a natural life of absolute dependence on jesus christ. Never try to live the life with god on any other line than gods line, and that line is absolute devotion to him. The certainty that i know i do not knowthat is the secret of going with jesus. Peter only saw in jesus someone to minister sal- vation to him and to the world. Our lord wants us to be yoke-fellows with him. Verse 70: jesus answers the great lack in peter. We cannot answer for others.

March 10   Have a message and be one

Preach the word. 2 timothy 4:2

We are not saved to be channels only, but to be sons and daughters of god. We are not turned into spiritual mediums, but into spiritual messengers; the Message must be part of ourselves. The son of god was his own message, his words were spirit and life; and as his disciples our lives must be the sacrament of our message. The natural heart will do any amount of serving, but it takes the heart broken by conviction of sin, and baptised by the holy ghost, and crum- pled into the purpose of god, before the life becomes the sacrament of its message. There is a difference between giving a testimony and preaching. A preacher is one who has realised the call of god and is determined to use his every power to proclaim gods truth. God takes us out of our own ideas for our lives and we are batterd to shape and use, as the disciples were after pentecost. Pentecost did not teach the disciples anything; it made them the incarnation of what they preachedye shall be witnesses unto me. Let god have perfect liberty when you speak. Before gods message can liberate other souls, the liberation must be real in you. Gather your material, and set it alight when you speak.

March 11   Vision

I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision. Acts 26:19

If we lose the vision, we alone are responsible, and the way we lose the vision is by spiritual leakage. If we do not run our belief about god into practical issues, it is all up with the vision god has given. The only way to be obedient to the heavenly vision is to give our utmost for gods highest, and this can only be done by continually and resolutely recalling the vision. The test is the sixty seconds of every minute, and the sixty minutes of every hour, not our times of prayer and devotional meetings. Though it tarry, wait for it. We cannot attain to a vision, we must live in the inspiration of it until it accomplishes itself. We get so practical that we forget the vision. At the beginning we saw the vision but did not wait for it; we rushed off into practical work, and when the vision was fulfilled, we did not see it. Waiting for the vision that tarries is the test of our loyalty to god. It is at the peril of our souls welfare that we get caught up in practical work and miss the fulfilment of the vision. Watch gods cyclones. The only way god sows his saints is by his whirlwind. Are you going to prove an empty pod? It will depend on whether or not you are actually living in the light of what you have seen. Let god fling you out, and do not go until he does. If you select your own spot, you will prove an empty pod. If god sows you, you will bring forth fruit. It is essential to practise the walk of the feet in the light of the vision.

March 12   Abandonment

Then peter began to say unto him, lo, we have left all, and have followed thee. . . . Mark 10:28

Our lord replies, in effect, that abandonment is for himself, and not for what the disciples themselves will get from it. Beware of an abandonment which has the commercial spirit in iti am going to give myself to god because i want to be delivered from sin, because i want to be made holy. All that is the result of being right with god, but that spirit is not of the essential nature of christianity. Abandonment is not for anything at all. We have got so commercialised that we only go to god for something from him, and not for himself. It is like sayingno, lord, i dont want thee, i want myself; but i want myself clean and filled with the holy ghost; i want to be put in thy showroom and be able to saythis is what god has done for me. If we only give up something to god because we want more back, there is nothing of the holy spirit in our abandonment; it is miserable commercial self-interest. That we gain heaven, that we are delivered from sin, that we are made useful to godthese things never enter as considerations into real abandonment, which is a personal sovereign preference for jesus christ himself. When we come up against the barriers of natural relationship, where is jesus christ? Most of us des- ert himyes, lord, i did hear thy call; but my mother is in the road, my wife, my self-interest, and i can go no further. Then, jesus says, you cannot be my disciple. The test of abandonment is always over the neck of natural devotion. Go over it, and gods own aban- donment will embrace all those you had to hurt in abandoning. Beware of stopping short of abandon- ment to god. Most of us know abandonment in vision only.

March 13   The abandonment of God

God so loved the world, that he gave. . . . John 3:16

Salvation is not merely deliverance from sin, nor the experience of personal holiness; the salvation of god is deliverance out of self entirely into union with Himself. My experimental knowledge of salvationHimself. My experimental knowledge of salvation will be along the line of deliverance from sin and of personal holiness; but salvation means that the spirit of god has brought me into touch with gods per- sonality, and i am thrilled with something infinitely greater than myself; i am caught up into the aban- donment of god. To say that we are called to preach holiness or sanctification, is to get into a side-eddy. We are called to proclaim jesus christ. The fact that he saves from sin and makes us holy is part of the effect of the wonderful abandonment of god. Abandonment never produces the consciousness of its own effort, because the whole life is taken up with the one to whom we abandon. Beware of talk- ing about abandonment if you know nothing about it, and you will never know anything about it until you have realised what john 3:16 means, that god gave himself absolutely. In our abandonment we give ourselves over to god just as god gave himself for us, without any calculation. The consequence of abandonment never enters into our outlook because our life is taken up with him.

March 14   Obedience

His servants ye are to whom ye obey. Romans 6:16

The first thing to do in examining the power that dominates me is to take hold of the unwelcome fact that i am responsible for being thus dominated because i have yielded. If i am a slave to myself, i am to blame for it because at a point away back i yielded myself to myself. Likewise, if i obey god i do so because i have yielded myself to him. Yield in childhood to selfishness, and you will find it the most enchaining tyranny on earth. There is no power in the human soul of itself to break the bondage of a disposition formed by yielding. Yield for one second to anything in the nature of lust (remem- ber what lust is: i must have it at once, whether it be the lust of the flesh or the lust of the mind, once yield and though you may hate yourself for having yielded, you are a bond-slave to that thing. There is no release in human power at all, but only in the redemption. You must yield yourself in utter humili- ation to the only one who can break the dominating power, viz. , the lord jesus christ. He hath anointed me . . . To preach deliverance to the captives. We find this out in the most ridiculously small waysoh, i can give that habit up when i like. You cannot, you will find that the habit absolutely dominates you because you yielded to it willingly. It is easy to singhe will break every fetter, and at the same time be living a life of obvious slavery to yourself. Yielding to jesus will break every form of slavery in any human life.

March 15   The discipline of dismay

And as they followed, they were afraid. Mark 10:32

At the beginning we were sure we knew all about jesus christ, it was a delight to sell all and to fling ourselves out in a hardihood of love; but now we are not quite so sure. Jesus is on in front and he looks strange. Jesus went before them: and they were amazed. There is an aspect of jesus that chills the heart of a disciple to the core and makes the whole spiri- tual life gasp for breath. This strange being with his face set like a flint and his striding determination strikes terror into me. He is no longer counsellor and comrade, he is taken up with a point of view i know nothing about, and i am amazed at him. At first i was confident that i understood him, but now i am not so sure. I begin to realise there is a distance between jesus christ and me; i can no longer be familiar with him. He is ahead of me and he never turns round; i have no idea where he is going, and the goal has become strangely far off. Jesus christ had to fathom every sin and every sorrow man could experience, and that is what makes him seem strange. When we see him in this aspect we do not know him, we do not recognise one fea- ture of his life, and we do not know how to begin to follow him. He is on in front, a leader who is very strange, and we have no comradeship with him. The discipline of dismay is an essential necessity in the life of discipleship. The danger is to get back to a little fire of our own and kindle enthusiasm at it (cf. Isaiah 50:1011). When the darkness of dismay comes, endure until it is over, because out of it will come that following of jesus which is an unspeakable joy.

March 16   The master assizes

For we must all appear before the judgement seat of christ. 2 corinthians 5:10

Paul says that we must all, preacher and people alike, appear before the judgement seat of christ. If you learn to live in the white light of christ here and now Judgement finally will cause you to delight in the work of god in you. Keep yourself steadily faced by the judgement seat of christ; walk now in the light of the holiest you know. A wrong temper of mind about another soul will end in the spirit of the devil, no mat- ter how saintly you are. One carnal judgement, and the end of it is hell in you. Drag it to the light at once and saymy god, i have been guilty there. If you dont, hardness will come all through. The penalty of sin is confirmation in sin. It is not only god who pun- ishes for sin; sin confirms itself in the sinner and gives back full pay. No struggling or praying will enable you to stop doing some things, and the penalty of sin is that gradually you get used to it and do not know that it is sin. No power save the incoming of the holy ghost can alter the inherent consequences of sin. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light. Walking in the light means for many of us walking according to our standard for another person. The deadliest pharisaism to-day is not hypocrisy, but unconscious unreality.

March 17   The workers ruling passion

Wherefore we labour, that . . . We may be accepted of him. 2 corinthians 5:9

Wherefore we labour. . . . It is arduous work to keep the master ambition in front. It means holding ones self to the high ideal year in and year out, not being ambitious to win souls or to establish churches or to have revivals, but being ambitious only to be accepted of him. It is not lack of spiritual experi- ence that leads to failure, but lack of labouring to keep the ideal right. Once a week at least take stock before god, and see whether you are keeping your life up to the standard he wishes. Paul is like a musi- cian who does not heed the approval of the audience if he can catch the look of approval from his master. Any ambition which is in the tiniest degree away from this central one of being approved unto god may end in our being castaways. Learn to discern where the ambition leads, and you will see why it is so neces- sary to live facing the lord jesus christ. Paul says lest my body should make me take another line, i am constantly watching so that i may bring it into subjec- tion and keep it under (see 1 corinthians 9:27). I have to learn to relate everything to the master ambition, and to maintain it without any cessation. My worth to god in public is what i am in private. Is my master ambition to please him and be acceptable to him, or is it something less, no matter how noble?

March 18   Shall i rouse myself up to this?

Perfecting holiness in the fear of god. 2 corinthians 7:1

Having therefore these promises. I claim the fulfil- ment of gods promises, and rightly, but that is only the human side; the divine side is that through the prom- ises i recognise gods claim on me. For instance, am i realising that my body is the temple of the holy ghost, or have i a habit of body that plainly will not bear the light of god on it? By sanctification the son of god is formed in me, then i have to transform my natural life into a spiritual life by obedience to him. God educates us down to the scruple.12 when he begins to check, do not confer with flesh and blood, cleanse yourself at once. Keep yourself cleansed in your daily walk. I have to cleanse myself from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit until both are in accord with the nature of god. Is the mind of my spirit in perfect agreement with the life of the son of god in me, or am i insubor- dinate in intellect? Am i forming the mind of christ, who never spoke from his right to himself, but maintained an inner watchfulness whereby he con- tinually submitted his spirit to his father? I have the responsibility of keeping my spirit in agreement with his spirit, and by degrees jesus lifts me up to where he livedin perfect consecration to his fathers will, paying no attention to any other thing. Am i perfect- ing this type of holiness in the fear of god? Is god getting his way with me, and are other people begin- ning to see god in my life more and more? Be serious with god and leave the rest gaily alone. Put god first literally.

March 19    The way of abraham in faith

He went out, not knowing whither he went. Hebrews 11:8

In the old testament, personal relationship with god showed itself in separation, and this is symbolised in The life of abraham by his separation from his country and from his kith and kin. To-day the separation is more of a mental and moral separation from the way that those who are dearest to us look at things, that is, if they have not a personal relationship with god. Jesus christ emphasised this (see luke 14:26). Faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the one who is leading. It is a life of faith, not of intellect and reason, but a life of knowing who makes us go. The root of faith is the knowledge of a person, and one of the biggest snares is the idea that god is sure to lead us to success. The final stage in the life of faith is attainment of character. There are many passing transfigurations of character; when we pray we feel the blessing of god enwrapping us and for the time being we are changed, then we get back to the ordinary days and ways and the glory vanishes. The life of faith is not a life of mounting up with wings, but a life of walking and not fainting. It is not a question of sanctification; but of something infinitely further on than sanctifica- tion, of faith that has been tried and proved and has stood the test. Abraham is not a type of sanctifica- tion, but a type of the life of faith, a tried faith built on a real god. Abraham believed god.

March 20 friendship with God

Shall i hide from abraham that thing which i do? Genesis 18:17

Its delights. This chapter brings out the delight of real friendship with god as compared with occa- sional feelings of his presence in prayer. To be so much in contact with god that you never need to ask him to show you his will, is to be nearing the final stage of your discipline in the life of faith. When you are rightly related to god, it is a life of freedom and liberty and delight, you are gods will, and all your commonsense decisions are his will for you unless he checks. You decide things in perfect delightful friendship with god, knowing that if your decisions are wrong he will always check; when he checks, stop at once. Its difficulties. Why did abraham stop pray- ing when he did? He was not intimate enough yet to go boldly on until god granted his desire, there was something yet to be desired in his relation- ship to god. Whenever we stop short in prayer and saywell, i dont know; perhaps it is not gods willthere is still another stage to go. We are not so intimately acquainted with god as jesus was, and as he wants us to bethat they may be one, even as we are one. Think of the last thing you prayed aboutwere you devoted to your desire or to god? Determined to get some gift of the spirit or to get at god? Your heavenly father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him. The point of ask- ing is that you may get to know god better. Delight thyself also in the lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Keep praying in order to get a perfect understanding of god himself.

March 21   interest or identification?

I have been crucified with christ. Galatians 2:20 (rv)

The imperative need spiritually is to sign the death- warrant of the disposition of sin, to turn all emotional impressions and intellectual beliefs into a moral ver- dict against the disposition of sin, viz. , my claim to my right to myself. Paul saysi have been crucified with christ; he does not say, i have determined to imitate jesus christ, or, i will endeavour to follow him, but, i have been identified with him in his death. When i come to such a moral decision and act upon it, then all that christ wrought for me on the cross is wrought in me. The free committal of myself to god gives the holy spirit the chance to impart to me the holiness of jesus christ. . . . Nevertheless i live. . . . The individuality remains, but the mainspring, the ruling disposition, is radically altered. The same human body remains, but the old satanic right to myself is destroyed. And the life which i now live in the flesh, . . . Not the life which i long to live and pray to live, but the life i now live in my mortal flesh, the life which men can see, i live by the faith of the son of god. This faith is not pauls faith in jesus christ, but the faith that the son of god has imparted to himthe faith of the son of god. It is no longer faith in faith, but faith which has overleapt all conscious bounds, the identical faith of the son of god.

March 22   The burning heart

Did not our heart burn within us? Luke 24:32

We need to learn this secret of the burning heart. Suddenly jesus appears to us, the fires are kindled, we have wonderful visions; then we have to learn to keep the secret of the burning heart that will go through anything. It is the dull, bald, dreary, commonplace day, with commonplace duties and people, that kills The burning heart unless we have learned the secret of abiding in jesus. Much of our distress as christians comes not because of sin, but because we are ignorant of the laws of our own nature. For instance, the only test as to whether we ought to allow an emotion to have its way is to see what the outcome of the emotion will be. Push it to its logical conclusion, and if the outcome is something god would condemn, allow it no more way. But if it is an emotion kindled by the spirit of god and you do not let that emotion have its right issue in your life, it will react on a lower level. That is the way sentimentalists are made. The higher the emotion is, the deeper the degradation will be if it is not worked out on its proper level. If the spirit of god has stirred you, make as many things inevitable as possible, let the consequences be what they will. We cannot stay on the mount of transfiguration, but we must obey the light we received there; we must act it out. When god gives a vision, transact business on that line, no matter what it costs. We cannot kindle when we will the fire which in the heart resides, the spirit bloweth and is still, in mystery our soul abides; but tasks in hours or insight willd can be through hours of gloom fulfilld.13

March 23   Am i carnally minded?

Whereas there is among you jealousy and strife, are ye not carnal? 1 corinthians 3:3 (rv)

No natural man knows anything about carnality. The flesh lusting against the spirit that came in at regen- eration, and the spirit lusting against the flesh, pro- duces carnality. Walk in the spirit, says paul, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh; and carnality will disappear. Are you contentious, easily troubled about trifles? Oh, but no one who is a christian ever is! Paul says they are, he connects these things with carnality. Is there a truth in the bible that instantly awakens petu- lance in you? That is a proof that you are yet carnal. If sanctification is being worked out, there is no trace of that spirit left. If the spirit of god detects anything in you that is wrong, he does not ask you to put it right; he asks you to accept the light, and he will put it right. A child of the light confesses instantly and stands bared before god; a child of the darkness saysoh, i can explain that away. When once the light breaks and the conviction of wrong comes, be a child of the light, and confess, and god will deal with what is wrong; if you vindicate yourself, you prove yourself to be a child of the darkness. What is the proof that carnality has gone? Never deceive yourself; when carnality is gone it is the most real thing imaginable. God will see that you have any number of opportunities to prove to yourself the mar- vel of his grace. The practical test is the only proof. Why, you say, if this had happened before, there would have been the spirit of resentment! You will never cease to be the most amazed person on earth at what god has done for you on the inside.

March 24   decreasing into his purpose

He must increase, but i must decrease. John 3:30

If you become a necessity to a soul, you are out of gods order. As a worker, your great responsibility is to be a friend of the bridegroom. When once you see a soul in sight of the claims of jesus christ, you know that your influence has been in the right direc- tion, and instead of putting out a hand to prevent the throes, pray that they grow ten times stronger until there is no power on earth or in hell that can hold that soul away from jesus christ. Over and over again, we become amateur providences; we come in and prevent god, and saythis and that must not be. Instead of proving friends of the bridegroom, we put our sympathy in the way, and the soul will one day saythat one was a thief, he stole my affec- tions from jesus, and i lost my vision of him. Beware of rejoicing with a soul in the wrong thing, but see that you do rejoice in the right thing. The friend of the bridegroom . . . Rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegrooms voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled. He must increase, but i must decrease. This is spoken with joy and not with sad- nessat last they are to see the bridegroom! And john says this is his joy. It is the absolute effacement of the worker, he is never thought of again. Watch for all you are worth until you hear he bridegrooms voice in the life of another. Never mind what havoc it brings, what upsets, what crumblings of health, rejoice with divine hilarity when once his Voice is heard. You may often see jesus christ wreck a life before he saves it. (cf. Matthew 10:34. )

March 25   the most delicate mission on earth

The friend of the bridegroom. John 3:29

Goodness and purity ought never to attract attention to themselves, they ought simply to be magnets to draw to jesus christ. If my holiness is not drawing towards him, it is not holiness of the right order, but an influence that will awaken inordinate affec- tion and lead souls away into side-eddies. A beauti- ful saint may be a hindrance if he does not present jesus christ but only what christ has done for him; he will leave the impressionwhat a fine character that man is! That is not being a true friend of the bridegroom; i am increasing all the time, he is not. In order to maintain this friendship and loyalty to the bridegroom, we have to be more careful of our moral and vital relationship to him than of any other thing, even of obedience. Sometimes there is nothing to obey, the only thing to do is to maintain a vital connection with jesus christ, to see that noth- ing interferes with that. Only occasionally do we have to obey. When a crisis arises we have to find out what gods will is, but the greater part of the life is not conscious obedience but the maintenance of this rela- tionshipthe friend of the bridegroom. Christian work may be a means of evading the souls concentra- tion on jesus christ. Instead of being friends of the bridegroom, we become amateur providences and may work against him whilst we use his weapons.

March 26   Vision by personal purity

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see god. Matthew 5:8

Purity is not innocence, it is much more. Purity is the outcome of sustained spiritual sympathy with god. We have to grow in purity. The life with god may be right and the inner purity remain unsullied, and yet every now and again the bloom on the outside may be sullied. God does not shield us from this possibility, because in this way we realise the necessity of main- taining the vision by personal purity. If the spiritual bloom of our life with god is getting impaired in the tiniest degree, we must leave off everything and get it put right. Remember that vision depends on charac- terthe pure in heart see god. God makes us pure by his sovereign grace, but we have something to look after, this bodily life by which we come in contact with other people and with other points of view; it is these that are apt to sully. Not only must the inner sanctuary be kept right with god, but the outer courts as well are to be brought into per- fect accord with the purity god gives us by his grace. The spiritual understanding is blurred immediately the outer court is sullied. If we are going to retain personal contact with the lord jesus christ, it will mean there are some things we must scorn to do or to think, some legitimate things we must scorn to touch. A practical way of keeping personal purity unsul- lied in relation to other people is to say to yourself that man, that woman, perfect in christ jesus! That friend, that relative, perfect in christ jesus!

March 27   Vision by personal character

Come up hither, and i will shew thee things. Revela- tion 4:1

An elevated mood can only come out of an elevated habit of personal character. If in the externals of your life you live up to the highest you know, god will continually sayfriend, go up higher. The golden rule in temptation isgo higher. When you get higher up, you face other temptations and characteristics. Satan uses the strategy of elevation in temptation, and god does the same, but the effect is different. When the devil puts you into an elevated place, he makes you screw your idea of holiness beyond what flesh and blood could ever bear. It is a spiritual acrobatic performance, you are just poised and dare not move; but when god elevates you by his grace into the heavenly places, instead of find- ing a pinnacle to cling to, you find a great table-land where it is easy to move. Compare this week in your spiritual history with the same week last year and see how god has called you up higher. We have all been brought to see from a higher standpoint. Never let god give you one point of truth which you do not instantly live up to. Always work it out, keep in the light of it. Growth in grace is measured not by the fact that you have not gone back, but that you have an insight into where you are spiritually; you have heard god say come up higher, not to you personally, but to the insight of your character. Shall i hide from abraham that thing which i do? God has to hide  from us what he does until by personal character we get to the place where he can reveal it.

March 28    Isnt there some misunderstanding?

Let us go into judea again. His disciples say unto him, . . . Goest thou thither again? John 11:78

I may not understand what jesus christ says, but it is dangerous to say that therefore he was mistaken in what he said. It is never right to think that my obedience to a word of god will bring dishonour to jesus. The only thing that will bring dishonour is not obeying him. To put my view of his honour in place of what he is plainly impelling me to do is never right, although it may arise from a real desire to prevent him being put to open shame. I know when the proposition comes from god because of its quiet persistence. When i have to weigh the pros and cons, and doubt and debate come in, i am bringing in an element that is not of god, and i come to the conclu- sion that the suggestion was not a right one. Many of us are loyal to our notions of jesus christ, but how many of us are loyal to him? Loyalty to jesus means i have to step out where i do not see anything (cf. Matthew 14:29); loyalty to my notions means that i clear the ground first by my intelligence. Faith is not intelligent understanding, faith is deliberate commit- ment to a person where i see no way. Are you debating whether to take a step in faith in jesus or to wait until you can see how to do the thing yourself ? Obey him with glad reckless joy. When he says something and you begin to debate, it is because you have a conception of his honour which is not his honour. Are you loyal to jesus or loyal to your notion of him? Are you loyal to what he says, or are you trying to compromise with con- ceptions which never came from him? Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.

March 29   Our lords surprise visits

Be ye therefore ready also. Luke 12:40

The great need for the christian worker is to be ready to face jesus christ at any and every turn. This is not easy, no matter what our experience is. The battle is not against sin or difficulties or circumstances, but against being so absorbed in work that we are not ready to face jesus christ at every turn. That is the one great need, not facing our belief, or our creed, or the question whether we are of any use, but to face him. Jesus rarely comes where we expect him; he appears where we least expect him, and always in the most illogical connections. The only way a worker can keep true to god is by being ready for the lords surprise visits. It is not service that matters, but intense spiritual reality, expecting jesus christ at every turn. This will give our life the attitude of child-wonder which he wants it to have. If we are going to be ready for jesus christ, we have to stop being religious (that is, using religion as a higher kind of culture) and be spiritually real. If you are looking off unto jesus, avoiding the call of the religious age you live in, and setting your heart on what he wants, on thinking on his line, you will be called unpractical and dreamy; but when he appears in the burden and the heat of the day, you will be the only one who is ready. Trust no one, not even the finest saint who ever walked this earth, ignore him, if he hinders your sight of jesus christ.

March 30 Holiness v. Hardness towards God

And he . . . Wondered that there was no intercessor. Isaiah 59:16

The reason many of us leave off praying and become hard towards god is because we have only a senti- mental interest in prayer. It sounds right to say that we pray; we read books on prayer which tell us that prayer is beneficial, that our minds are quieted and our souls uplifted when we pray; but isaiah implies that god is amazed at such thoughts of prayer. Worship and intercession must go together, the one is impossible without the other. Intercession means that we rouse ourselves up to get the mind of christ about the one for whom we pray. Too often instead of worshipping god, we construct statements as to how prayer works. Are we worshipping or are we in dispute with godi dont see how you are going to do it. This is a sure sign that we are not worshipping. When we lose sight of god we become hard and dogmatic. We hurl our own petitions at gods throne and dictate to him as to what we wish him to do. We do not worship god, nor do we seek to form the mind of christ. If we are hard towards god, we will become hard towards other people.Are we so worshipping god that we rouse our- selves up to lay hold on him, that we may be brought into contact with his mind about the ones for whom we pray? Are we living in a holy relationship to god, or are we hard and dogmatic? But there is no one interceding properlythen be that one yourself, be the one who worships god and who lives in holy relationship to him. Get into the real work of intercession, and remember it is a work, a work that taxes every power; but a work which has no snare. Preaching the gospel has a snare; intercessory prayer has none.

March 31   Heedfulness v. Hypocrisy in ourselves

If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. 1 john 5:16

If we are not heedful of the way the spirit of god works in us, we shall become spiritual hypocrites. We see where other folks are failing, and we turn our discernment into the gibe of criticism instead of into intercession on their behalf. The revelation is made to us not through the acuteness of our minds, but by the direct penetration of the spirit of god, and if we are not heedful of the source of the revelation, we shall become criticising centres and forget that god says. . . He shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. Take care lest you play the hypocrite by spending all your time trying to get others right before you worship god yourself. One of the subtlest burdens god ever puts on us as saints is this burden of discernment concerning other souls. He reveals things in order that we may take the burden of these souls before him and form the mind of christ about them, and as we intercede on his line, god says he will give us life for them that sin not unto death. It is not that we bring god into touch with our minds, but that we rouse our- selves until god is able to convey his mind to us about the one for whom we intercede. Is jesus christ seeing the travail of his soul in us? He cannot unless we are so identified with himself that we are roused up to get his view about the peo- ple for whom we pray. May we learn to intercede so whole-heartedly that jesus christ will be abundantly satisfied with us as intercessors.

April 1 heartiness v. Heartlessness

Towards others it is christ . . . Who also maketh intercession for us. . . . The spirit . . . Maketh intercession for the saints. Romans 8:34, 27

Do we need any more argument than this to become intercessorsthat christ ever liveth to make inter- cession; that the holy spirit maketh intercession for the saints? Are we living in such vital relation- ship to our fellow men that we do the work of inter- cession as the spirit-taught children of god? Begin with the circumstances we are inour homes, our business, our country, the present crisis as it touches us and othersare these things crushing us? Are they badgering us out of the presence of god and leaving us no time for worship? Then let us call a halt, and get into such living relationship with god that our relationship to others may be maintained on the line of intercession whereby god works his marvels. Beware of outstripping god by your very longing to do his will. We run ahead of him in a thousand and one activities, consequently we get so burdened with persons and with difficulties that we do not worship god, we do not intercede. If once the bur- den and the pressure come upon us and we are not in the worshipping attitude, it will produce not only hardness toward god but despair in our own souls. God continually introduces us to people for whom we have no affinity, and unless we are worshipping god, the most natural thing to do is to treat them heartlessly, to give them a text like the jab of a spear, or leave them with a rapped-out counsel of god and go. A heartless christian must be a terrible grief to our lord. Are we in the direct line of the intercession of our lord and of the holy spirit?

April 2 the glory that excels

The lord . . . Hath sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight. Acts 9:17

When paul received his sight he received spiritually an insight into the person of jesus christ, and the Whole of his subsequent life and preaching was noth- ing but jesus christi determined not to know any thing among you, save jesus christ, and him cru- cified. No attraction was ever allowed to hold the mind and soul of paul save the face of jesus christ. We have to learn to maintain an unimpaired state of character up to the last notch revealed in the vision of jesus christ. The abiding characteristic of a spiritual man is the interpretation of the lord jesus christ to himself, and the interpretation to others of the purposes of god. The one concentrated passion of the life is jesus christ. Whenever you meet this note in a man, you feel he is a man after gods own heart. Never allow anything to deflect you from insight into jesus christ. It is the test of whether you are spiritual or not. To be unspiritual means that other things have a growing fascination for you. Since mine eyes have looked on jesus, ive lost sight of all beside, so enchained my spirits vision, gazing on the crucified.

April 3   If thou hadst known! If thou hadst known

. . . In this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! But now they are hid from thine eyes. Luke 19:42

Jesus had entered into jerusalem in triumph, the city was stirred to its foundations; but a strange god was there, the pride of pharisaism; it was religious and upright, but a whited sepulchre. What is it that blinds me in this my day? Have i a strange godnot a disgusting monster, but a disposi- tion that rules me? More than once god has brought me face to face with the strange god and i thought i should have to yield, but i did not do it. I got through the crisis by the skin of my teeth and i find myself in the possession of the strange god still; i am blind to the things which belong to my peace. It is an appall- ing thing that we can be in the place where the spirit of god should be getting at us unhinderedly, and yet increase our condemnation in gods sight. If thou hadst knowngod goes direct to the heart, with the tears of jesus behind. These words imply culpable responsibility; god holds us respon- sible for what we do not see. Now they are hid from thine eyesbecause the disposition has never been yielded. The unfathomable sadness of the might have been! God never opens doors that have been closed. He opens other doors, but he reminds us that there are doors which we have shut, doors which need never have been shut, imaginations which need never have been sullied. Never be afraid when god brings back the past. Let memory have its way. It is a minister of god with its rebuke and chastisement and sorrow. God will turn the might have been into a wonderful culture for the future.

April 4 those borders of distrust

Behold, the hour cometh . . . That ye shall be scattered. John 16:32

Jesus is not rebuking the disciples, their faith was real, but it was disturbed; it was not at work in actual things. The disciples were scattered to their own interests, alive to interests that never were in jesus christ. After we have been perfectly related to god in sanctification, our faith has to be worked out in actualities. We shall be scattered, not into work, but into inner desolations and made to know what internal death to gods bless- ings means. Are we prepared for this? It is not that we choose it, but that god engineers our circumstances so that we are brought there. Until we have been through that experience, our faith is bolstered up by feelings and by blessings. When once we get there, no matter where god places us or what the inner desolations are, we can praise god that all is well. That is faith being worked out in actualities. . . . And shall leave me alone. Have we left jesus alone by the scattering of his providence? Because we do not see god in our circumstances? Darkness comes by the sovereignty of god. Are we prepared to let god do as he likes with usprepared to be sepa- rated from conscious blessings? Until jesus christ is lord, we all have ends of our own to serve; our faith is real, but it is not permanent yet. God is never in a hurry; if we wait, we shall see that god is pointing out that we have not been interested in himself, but only in his blessings. The sense of gods blessing is elemental. Be of good cheer; i have overcome the world. Spiritual grit is what we need.

April 5   His agony and our fellowship

Then cometh jesus with them unto a place called geth- semane, and saith unto the disciples, . . . Tarry ye here, and watch with me. Matthew 26:36, 38

We can never fathom the agony in gethsemane, but at least we need not misunderstand it. It is the agony of god and man in one, face to face with sin. We know nothing about gethsemane in personal experi- ence. Gethsemane and calvary stand for something unique; they are the gateway into life for us. It was not the death on the cross that jesus feared in gethsemane; he stated most emphatically that he came on purpose to die. In gethsemane he feared lest he might not get through as son of man. He would get through as son of godsatan could not touch him there; but satans onslaught was that he would get through as an isolated figure only; and that would mean that he could be no saviour. Read the record of the agony in the light of the temptation: then the devil departed from him for a season. In gethsemane satan came back and was again over- thrown. Satans final onslaught against our lord as son of man is in gethsemane. The agony in gethsemane is the agony of the son of god in fulfilling his destiny as the saviour of the world. The veil is drawn aside to reveal all it cost him to make it possible for us to become sons of god. His agony is the basis of the simplicity of our salvation. The cross of christ is a triumph for the son of man. It was not only a sign that our lord had triumphed, but that he had triumphed to save the human race. Every human being can get through into the presence of god now because of what the son of man went through.

April 6   The collision of god and sin

Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree. 1 peter 2:24

The cross of jesus is the revelation of gods judge- ment on sin. Never tolerate the idea of martyrdom about the cross of jesus christ. The cross was a superb triumph in which the foundations of hell were shaken. There is nothing more certain in time or eternity than what jesus christ did on the cross: he switched the whole of the human race back into a right relationship with god. He made redemption the basis of human life, that is, he made a way for every son of man to get into communion with god. The cross did not happen to jesus: he came on purpose for it. He is the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. The whole meaning of the incarnation is the cross. Beware of separating god manifest in the flesh from the son becoming sin. The incarnation was for the purpose of redemption. God became incarnate for the purpose of putting away sin; not for the purpose of self-realisation. The cross is the centre of time and of eternity, the answer to the enigmas of both. The cross is not the cross of a man but the cross of god, and the cross of god can never be realised in human experience. The cross is the exhibition of the nature of god, the gateway whereby any individ- ual of the human race can enter into union with god. When we get to the cross, we do not go through it; we abide in the life to which the cross is the gateway. The centre of salvation is the cross of jesus, and the reason it is so easy to obtain salvation is because it cost god so much. The cross is the point where god and sinful man merge with a crash and the way to life is openedbut the crash is on the heart of god.

April 7   Why are we not told plainly?

He charged them that they should tell no man what things they had seen, till the son of man were risen from the dead. Mark 9:9

Say nothing until the son of man is risen in you until the life of the risen christ so dominates you that you understand what the historic christ taught. When you get to the right state on the inside, the word which jesus has spoken is so plain that you are amazed you did not see it before. You could not understand it before, you were not in the place in disposition where it could be borne. Our lord does not hide these things; they are unbearable until we get into a fit condition of spiri- tual life. I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. There must be com- munion with his risen life before a particular word can be borne by us. Do we know anything about the impartation of the risen life of jesus? The evidence that we do is that his word is becoming interpretable to us. God cannot reveal anything to us if we have not his spirit. An obstinate outlook will effectually hinder god from revealing anything to us. If we have made up our minds about a doctrine, the light of god will come no more to us on that line, we cannot get it. This obtuse stage will end immediately his resur- rection life has its way with us. Tell no man. . . . So many do tell what they saw on the mount of transfiguration. They have had the vision and they testify to it, but the life does not tally with it, the son of man is not yet risen in them. I won- der when he is going to be formed in you and in me?

April 8   His resurrection destiny

Ought not christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? Luke 24:26

Our lords cross is the gateway into his life: his resurrection means that he has power now to con- vey his life to me. When i am born again from above (rv mg), i receive from the risen lord his very life. Our lords resurrection destiny is to bring many sons unto glory. The fulfilling of his destiny gives him the right to make us sons and daughters of god. We are never in the relationship to god that the son of god is in; but we are brought by the son into the relation of sonship. When our lord rose from the dead, he rose to an absolutely new life, to a life he did not live before he was incarnate. He rose to a life that had never been before; and his resurrection means for us that we are raised to his risen life, not to our old life. One day we shall have a body like unto his glorious body, but we can know now the effi- cacy of his resurrection and walk in newness of life. I would know him in the power of his resurrection. As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. Holy spirit is the experimental name for eternal life working in human beings here and now. The holy spirit is the deity in proceeding power who applies the atonement to our experi- ence. Thank god it is gloriously and majestically true that the holy ghost can work in us the very nature of jesus if we will obey him.

April 9   Have i seen him?

After that he appeared in another form unto two of them. Mark 16:12

Being saved and seeing jesus are not the same thing. Many are partakers of gods grace who have never seen jesus. When once you have seen jesus, you can never be the same, other things do not appeal as they used to do. Always distinguish between what you see jesus to be, and what he has done for you. If you only know what he has done for you, you have not a big enough god; but if you have had a vision of jesus as he is, experiences can come and go, you will endure, as seeing him who is invisible. The man blind from his birth did not know who jesus was until he appeared and revealed himself to him. Jesus appears to those for whom he has done something; but we cannot dictate when he will come. Suddenly at any turn he may comenow i see him! Jesus must appear to your friend as well as to you; no one can see jesus with your eyes. Severance takes place where one and not the other has seen jesus. You cannot bring your friend unless god brings him. Have you seen jesus? Then you will want others to see him too. And they went and told it unto the residue: neither believed they them. You must tell, although they do not believe.

O could I tell, ye surely would believe it!
O could I only say what I have seen!
How should I tell or how can ye receive it,
How, till He bringeth you where I have been?
Frederick W. Myers

April 10   Moral decision about sin

Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. Romans 6:6

Co-crucifixion. Have i made this decision about sinthat it must be killed right out in me? It takes a long time to come to a moral decision about sin, but it is the great moment in my life when i do decide that just as jesus christ died for the sin of the world, so sin must die out in me, not be curbed or suppressed or counteracted, but crucified. No one can bring any one else to this decision. We may be earnestly convinced, and religiously convinced, but what we need to do is to come to the decision which paul forces here. Haul yourself up, take a time alone with god, make the moral decision and saylord, identify me with thy death until i know that sin is dead in me. Make the moral decision that sin in you must be put to death. It was not a divine anticipation on the part of paul, but a very radical and definite experience. Am i prepared to let the spirit of god search me until i know what the disposition of sin isthe thing that lusts against the spirit of god in me? Then if so, will i agree with gods verdict on that disposition of sin that it should be identified with the death of jesus? I cannot reckon myself dead indeed unto sin unless i have been through this radical issue of will before god. Have i entered into the glorious privilege of being crucified with christ until all that is left is the life of christ in my flesh and blood? I am crucified with christ; nevertheless i live; yet not i, but christ liveth in me.

April 11   Moral divinity

For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. Romans 6:5

Co-resurrection. The proof that i have been through crucifixion with jesus is that i have a decided likeness to him. The incoming of the spirit of jesus into me readjusts my personal life to god. The resurrection of jesus has given him authority to impart the life of god to me, and my experimental life must be constructed on the basis of his life. I can have the resurrection life of jesus now, and it will show itself in holiness. The idea all through the apostle pauls writings is that after the moral decision to be identified with jesus in his death has been made, the resurrection life of jesus invades every bit of my human nature. It takes omnipotence to live the life of the son of god in mortal flesh. The holy spirit cannot be located as a guest in a house, he invades everything. When once i decide that my old man (i. E. , the heredity of sin) should be identified with the death of jesus, then the holy spirit invades me. He takes charge of every- thing, my part is to walk in the light and to obey all that he reveals. When i have made the moral decision about sin, it is easy to reckon actually that i am dead unto sin, because i find the life of jesus there all the time. Just as there is only one stamp of humanity, so there is only one stamp of holiness, the holiness of jesus, and it is his holiness that is gifted to me. God puts the holiness of his son into me, and i belong to a new order spiritually.

April 12   Moral dominion

Death hath no more dominion over him . . . In that he liveth, he liveth unto god. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto god. Romans 6:911

Co-eternal life. Eternal life was the life which jesus christ exhibited on the human plane, and it is the same life, not a copy of it, which is manifested in our mortal flesh when we are born of god. Eternal life is not a gift from god, eternal life is the gift of god. The energy and the power which were manifested in jesus will be manifested in us by the sheer sovereign grace of god when once we have made the moral decision about sin. Ye shall receive the power of the holy ghost not power as a gift from the holy ghost; the power is the holy ghost, not something which he imparts. The life that was in jesus is made ours by means of his cross when once we make the decision to be identified with him. If it is difficult to get right with god, it is because we will not decide definitely about sin. Immediately we do decide, the full life of god comes in. Jesus came to give us endless supplies of life: that ye might be filled with all the fulness of god. Eternal life has nothing to do with time, it is the life which jesus lived when he was down here. The only source of life is the lord jesus christ. The weakest saint can experience the power of the deity of the son of god if once he is willing to let go. Any strand of our own energy in ourselves will blur the life of jesus. We have to keep letting go, and slowly and surely the great full life of god will invade us in every part, and men will take knowledge of us that we have been with jesus.

April 13   What to do under the conditions

Cast thy burden upon the lord . Psalm 55:22

We must distinguish between the burden-bearing that is right and the burden-bearing that is wrong. We ought never to bear the burden of sin or of doubt, but there are burdens placed on us by god which he does not intend to lift off, he wants us to roll them back on him. Cast what he hath given thee upon the lord (rv mg). If we undertake work for god and get out of touch with him, the sense of respon- sibility will be overwhelmingly crushing; but if we roll back on god that which he has put upon us, he takes away the sense of responsibility by bringing in the realisation of himself. Many workers have gone out with high courage and fine impulses, but with no intimate fellowship with jesus christ, and before long they are crushed. They do not know what to do with the burden, it produces weariness, and people saywhat an embittered end to such a beginning! Roll thy burden upon the lord (see psalm 37:5 rv mg)you have been bearing it all; deliberately put one end on the shoulders of god. The government shall be upon his shoulder. Commit to god what he hath given thee (rv mg); not fling it off, but put it over on to him and yourself with it, and the burden is lightened by the sense of compan- ionship. Never dissociate yourself from the burden.

April 14   Inspired invincibility

Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me. Matthew 11:29

Whom the lord loveth he chasteneth. How petty our complaining is! Our lord begins to bring us into the place where we can have communion with him, and we groan and sayoh lord, let me be like other people! Jesus is asking us to take one end of the yokemy yoke is easy, get alongside me and we will pull together. Are you identified with the lord jesus like that? If so, you will thank god for the pressure of his hand. To them that have no might he increaseth strength. God comes and takes us out of our senti- mentality, and our complaining turns into a psalm of praise. The only way to know the strength of god is to take the yoke of jesus upon us and learn of him. The joy of the l ord is your strength. Where do the saints get their joy from? If we did not know some saints, we would sayoh, he, or she, has nothing to bear. Lift the veil. The fact that the peace and the light and the joy of god are there is proof that the burden is there too. The burden god places squeezes the grapes and out comes the wine; most of us see the wine only. No power on earth or in hell can conquer the spirit of god in a human spirit, it is an inner unconquerableness. If you have the whine in you, kick it out ruthlessly. It is a positive crime to be weak in gods strength.

April 15   The relapse of concentration

But the high places were not taken away out of israel; nevertheless the heart of asa was perfect all his days. 2 chronicles 15:17

Asa was incomplete in his external obedience, he was right in the main but not entirely right. Beware of the thing of which you sayoh, that does not matter much. The fact that it does not matter much to you may mean that it matters a very great deal to god. Nothing is a light matter with a child of god. How much longer are some of us going to keep god try- ing to teach us one thing? He never loses patience. You sayi know i am right with god; but still the high places remain, there is something over which you have not obeyed. Are you protesting that your heart is right with god, and yet is there something in your life about which he has caused you to doubt? Whenever there is doubt, quit immediately, no mat- ter what it is. Nothing is a mere detail. Are there some things in connection with your bodily life, your intellectual life, upon which you are not concentrating at all? You are all right in the main, but you are slipshod; there is a relapse on the line of concentration. You no more need a holiday from spiritual concentration than your heart needs a holiday from beating. You cannot have a moral holi- day and remain moral, nor can you have a spiritual holiday and remain spiritual. God wants you to be entirely his, and this means that you have to watch to keep yourself fit. It takes a tremendous amount of time. Some of us expect to clear the numberless ascensions in about two minutes.

April 16   Can you come down?

While ye have light, believe in the light. John 12:36

We all have moments when we feel better than our best, and we sayi feel fit for anything; if only i could be like this always! We are not meant to be. Those moments are moments of insight which we have to live up to when we do not feel like it. Many of us are no good for this workaday world when there is no high hour. We must bring our commonplace life up to the standard revealed in the high hour. Never allow a feeling which was stirred in you in the high hour to evaporate. Dont put your mental feet on the mantelpiece and saywhat a marvellous state of mind to be in! Act immediately, do some- thing, if only because you would rather not do it. If in a prayer meeting god has shown you something to do, dont sayill do it; do it! Take yourself by the scruff of the neck and shake off your incarnate laziness. Laziness is always seen in cravings for the high hour; we talk about working up to a time on the mount. We have to learn to live in the grey day according to what we saw on the mount. Dont cave in because you have been baffled once, get at it again. Burn your bridges behind you, and stand committed to god by your own act. Never revise your decisions, but see that you make your decisions in the light of the high hour.

April 17   Neck or nothing

Now when simon peter heard that it was the lord, he girt his fishers coat unto him, . . . And did cast himself into the sea. John 21:7

Have you ever had a crisis in which you deliberately and emphatically and recklessly abandoned everything? It is a crisis of will. You may come up to it many times externally, but it amounts to nothing. The real deep crisis of abandonment is reached internally, not externally. The giving up of external things may be an indication of being in total bondage. Have you deliberately committed your will to jesus christ? It is a transaction of will, not of emotion; the emotion is simply the gilt edge of the trans- action. If you allow emotion first, you will never make the transaction. Do not ask god what the transaction is to be, but make it in regard to the thing you do see, either in the shallow or the profound place. If you have heard jesus christs voice on the billows, let your convictions go to the winds, let your consistency go to the winds, but maintain your relationship to him.

April 18   Readiness

God called unto him. . . . And he said, here am i. Exodus 3:4

When god speaks, many of us are like men in a fog, we give no answer. Moses reply revealed that he was somewhere. Readiness means a right relationship to god and a knowledge of where we are at present. We are so busy telling god where we would like to go. The man or woman who is ready for god and his work is the one who carries off the prize when the summons comes. We wait with the idea of some great opportunity, something sensational, and when it comes we are quick to cryhere am i. When- ever jesus christ is in the ascendant, we are there; but we are not ready for an obscure duty. Readiness for god means that we are ready to do the tiniest little thing or the great big thing, it makes no difference. We have no choice in what we want to do; whatever gods programme may be we are there, ready. When any duty presents itself we hear gods voice as our lord heard his fathers voice, and we are ready for it with all the alertness of our love for him. Jesus christ expects to do with us as his father did with him. He can put us where he likes, in pleasant duties or in mean14 duties, because the union is that of the father and himself. That they may be one, even as we are one. Be ready for the sudden surprise visits of god. A ready person never needs to get ready. Think of the time we waste trying to get ready when god has called! The burning bush is a symbol of everything that surrounds the ready soul, it is ablaze with the presence of god.

April 19  Is it not in the least likely?

For joab had turned after adonijah, though he turned not after absalom. 1 kings 2:28

Joab stood the big test, he remained absolutely loyal and true to david and did not turn after the fascinating and ambitious absalom, but yet towards the end of his life he turned after the craven adonijah. Always remain alert to the fact that where one man has gone back is exactly where any one may go back (see 1 corinthians 10:13). You have gone through the big crisis, now be alert over the least things; take into calculation the retired sphere of the leasts. We are apt to sayit is not in the least likely that having been through the supreme crisis, i shall turn now to the things of the world. Do not fore- cast where the temptation will come; it is the least likely thing that is the peril. In the aftermath of a great spiritual transaction the retired sphere of the leasts begins to tell; it is not dominant, but remember it is there, and if you are not warned, it will trip you up. You have remained true to god under great and intense trials, now beware of the undercurrent. Do not be morbidly introspective, looking forward with dread, but keep alert; keep your memory bright before god. Unguarded strength is double weakness, because that is where the retired sphere of the leasts saps. The bible characters fell on their strong points, never on their weak ones. Kept by the power of godthat is the only safety.

April 20   Can a saint slander God?

For all the promises of god in him are yea, and in him amen. 2 corinthians 1:20

Jesus told the parable of the talents recorded in matthew 25 as a warning that it is possible for usTo misjudge our capacity. This parable has not to do with natural gifts, but with the pentecostal gift of the holy ghost. We must not measure our spiritual capacity by education or by intellect; our capacity in spiritual things is measured by the promises of god. If we get less than god wants us to have, before long we will slander him as the servant slandered his mas- ter: you expect more than you give me power to do; you demand too much of me, i cannot stand true to you where i am placed. When it is a question of gods almighty spirit, never say i cant. Never let the limitation of natural ability come in. If we have received the holy spirit, god expects the work of the holy spirit to be manifested in us. The servant justified himself in everything he did and condemned his lord on every point your demand is out of all proportion to what you give. Have we been slandering god by daring to worry when he has said: seek ye first the kingdom of god, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you? Worrying means exactly what this servant implied i know you mean to leave me in the lurch. The person who is lazy naturally is always captiousi havent had a decent chance, and the one who is lazy spiritually is captious with god. Lazy people always strike out on an independent line. Never forget that our capacity in spiritual matters is measured by the promises of god. Is god able to fulfil his promises? Our answer depends on whether we have received the holy spirit.

April 21   Now dont hurt the lord!

Have i been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, philip? John 14:9

Our lord must be repeatedly astounded at us astounded at how unsimple we are. It is opinions of our own which make us stupid; when we are simple we are never stupid, we discern all the time. Philip expected the revelation of a tremendous mystery, but not in the one whom he knew. The mystery of god is not in what is going to be, it is now; we look for it presently, in some cataclysmic event. We have no reluctance in obeying jesus, but it is probable that we are hurting him by the questions we ask. Lord, shew us the father. His answer comes straight backthere he is, always here or nowhere. We look for god to manifest himself to his children: god only manifests himself in his children. Other people see the manifestation, the child of god does not. We want to be conscious of god; we cannot be conscious of our consciousness and remain sane. If we are asking god to give us experiences, or if conscious experience is in the road, we hurt the lord. The very questions we ask hurt jesus because they are not the questions of a child. Let not your heart be troubledthen am i hurting jesus by allowing my heart to be troubled? If i believe the character of jesus, am i living up to my belief ? Am i allowing anything to perturb my heart, any morbid questions to come in? I have to get to the implicit relationship that takes everything as it comes from him. God never guides presently, but always now. Realise that the lord is here now, and the emancipation is immediate.

April 22   The light that falls

We all with open face beholding . . . The glory of the lord. 2 corinthians 3:18

A servant of god must stand so much alone that he never knows he is alone. In the first phases of christian life disheartenments come, people who used to be lights flicker out, and those who used to stand with us pass away. We have to get so used to it that we never know we are standing alone. All men forsook me: . . . Notwithstanding the lord stood with me (2 timothy 4:1617). We must build our faith, not on the fading light, but on the light that never fails. When big men go we are sad, until we see that they are meant to go; the one thing that remains is looking in the face of god for ourselves. Allow nothing to keep you from looking god sternly in the face about yourself and about your doctrine, and every time you preach see that you look god in the face about things first, then the glory will remain all through. A christian worker is one who perpetually looks in the face of god and then goes forth to talk to the people. The characteristic of the ministry of christ is that of unconscious glory that abides. Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him. We are never called on to parade our doubts or to express the hidden ecstasies of our life with god. The secret of the workers life is that he keeps in tune with god all the time.

April 23   The worship of the work

Labourers together with god. 1 corinthians 3:9

Beware of any work for god which enables you to evade concentration on him. A great many christian workers worship their work. The one concern of a worker should be concentration on god, and this will mean that all the other margins of life, mental, moral and spiritual, are free with the freedom of a child a worshipping child, not a wayward child. A worker without this solemn, dominant note of concentration on god is apt to get his work on his neck; there is no margin of body, mind or spirit free, consequently he becomes spent out and crushed. There is no freedom, no delight in life; nerves, mind and heart are so crushingly burdened that gods blessing cannot rest. But the other side is just as true when once the concentration is on god, all the margins of life are free and under the dominance of god alone. There is no responsibility on you for the work; the only responsibility you have is to keep in living, constant touch with god, and to see that you allow nothing to hinder your co-operation with him. The freedom after sanctification is the freedom of a child, the things that used to keep the life pinned down are gone. But be careful to remember that you are freed for one thing only to be absolutely devoted to your co-worker. We have no right to judge where we should be put, or to have preconceived notions as to what god is fitting us for. God engineers everything; wherever he puts us our one great aim is to pour out a whole- hearted devotion to him in that particular work. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.

April 24 The warning against wantoning

Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you. Luke 10:20

As christian workers, worldliness is not our snare, sin is not our snare, but spiritual wantoning is, viz. : taking the pattern and print of the religious age we live in, making eyes at spiritual success. Never court anything other than the approval of god, go with- out the camp, bearing his reproach. Jesus told the disciples not to rejoice in successful service, and yet this seems to be the one thing in which most of us do rejoice. We have the commercial view so many souls saved and sanctified, thank god, now it is all right. Our work begins where gods grace has laid the foundation; we are not to save souls, but to disciple them. Salvation and sanctification are the work of gods sovereign grace; our work as his disciples is to disciple lives until they are wholly yielded to god. One life wholly devoted to god is of more value to god than one hundred lives simply awakened by his spirit. As workers for god we must reproduce our own kind spiritually, and that will be gods witness to us as workers. God brings us to a standard of life by his grace, and we are responsible for reproducing that standard in others. Unless the worker lives a life hidden with christ in god, he is apt to become an irritating dictator instead of an indwelling disciple. Many of us are dic- tators, we dictate to people and to meetings. Jesus never dictates to us in that way. Whenever our lord talked about discipleship, he always prefaced it with an if, never with an emphatic assertion you must. Discipleship carries an option with it.

April 25   Instant in season

Be instant in season, out of season. 2 timothy 4:2

Many of us suffer from the morbid tendency to be instant out of season. The season does not refer to time, but to us. Be instant in season, out of season, whether we feel like it or not. If we do only what we feel inclined to do, some of us would do nothing for ever and ever. There are unemployables in the spiritual domain, spiritually decrepit people, who refuse to do anything unless they are supernaturally inspired. The proof that we are rightly related to god is that we do our best whether we feel inspired or not. One of the great snares of the christian worker is to make a fetish of his rare moments. When the spirit of god gives you a time of inspiration and insight, you say now i will always be like this for god. No, you will not, god will take care you are not. Those times are the gift of god entirely. You cannot give them to yourself when you choose. If you say you will only be at your best, you become an intolerable drag on god; you will never do anything unless god keeps you consciously inspired. If you make a god of your best moments, you will find that god will fade out of your life and never come back until you do the duty that lies nearest, and have learned not to make a fetish of your rare moments.

April 26   The supreme climb

Take now thy son, . . . And offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which i will tell thee of. Genesis 22:2.

Character determines how a man interprets gods will (cf. Psalm 18:2526). Abraham interpreted gods command to mean that he had to kill his son, and he could only leave this tradition behind by the pain of a tremendous ordeal. God could purify his faith in no other way. If we obey what god says according to our sincere belief, god will break us from those traditions that misrepresent him. There are many such beliefs to be got rid of, e. G. , that god removes a child because the mother loves him too much a devils lie! And a travesty of the true nature of god. If the devil can hinder us from taking the supreme climb and getting rid of wrong traditions about god, he will do so; but if we keep true to god, god will take us through an ordeal which will bring us out into a better knowledge of himself. The great point of abrahams faith in god was that he was prepared to do anything for god. He was there to obey god, no matter to what belief he went contrary. Abraham was not a devotee of his convictions, or he would have slain isaac and said that the voice of the angel was the voice of the devil. That is the attitude of a fanatic. If you will remain true to god, god will lead you straight through every barrier into the inner chamber of the knowledge of himself; but there is always this point of giving up convictions and traditional beliefs. Dont ask god to test you. Never declare as peter did i will do anything, i will go to death with thee. Abraham did not make any such declaration, he remained true to god, and god purified his faith.

April 27   What do you want?

Seekest thou great things for thyself ? Jeremiah 45:5

Are you seeking great things for yourself ? Not seek- ing to be a great one, but seeking great things from god for yourself. God wants you in a closer relation- ship to himself than receiving his gifts, he wants you to get to know him. A great thing is accidental, it comes and goes. God never gives us anything accidental. Nothing is easier than getting into a right relationship with god except when it is not god whom you want but only what he gives. If you have only come the length of asking god for things, you have never come to the first strand of abandonment, you have become a christian from a standpoint of your own. I did ask god for the holy spirit, but he did not give me the rest and the peace i expected. Instantly god puts his finger on the reason you are not seeking the lord at all, you are seeking something for yourself. Jesus says ask, and it shall be given you. Ask god for what you want, and you cannot ask if you are not asking for a right thing. When you draw near to god, you cease from asking for things. Your father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. Then why ask? That you may get to know him. Are you seeking great things for yourself o lord, baptise me with the holy ghost? If god does not, it is because you are not abandoned enough to him, there is something you will not do. Are you prepared to ask yourself what it is you want from god, and why you want it? God always ignores the present perfection for the ultimate perfection. He is not concerned about making you blessed and happy just now; he is working out his ultimate perfection all the time that they may be one, even as we are.

April 28   What you will get

Thy life will i give unto thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest. Jeremiah 45:5

This is the unshakeable secret of the lord to those who trust himi will give thee thy life. What more does a man want than his life? It is the essential thing. Thy life . . . For a prey means that wherever you may go, even if it is into hell, you will come out with your life, nothing can harm it. So many of us are caught up in the show of things, not in the way of property and possessions, but of blessings. All these have to go; but there is something grander that never can go the life that is hid with christ in god. Are you prepared to let god take you into union with himself, and pay no more attention to what you call the great things? Are you prepared to abandon entirely and let go? The test of abandonment is in refusing to say well, what about this? Beware of suppositions. Immediately you allow what about this? It means you have not abandoned, you do not really trust god. Immediately you do abandon, you think no more about what god is going to do. Abandon means to refuse yourself the luxury of asking any questions. If you abandon entirely to god, he says at once, thy life will i give unto thee for a prey. The reason people are tired of life is because god has not given them anything, they have not got their life as a prey. The way to get out of that state is to abandon to god. When you do get through to abandonment to god, you will be the most surprised and delighted creature on earth; god has got you absolutely and has given you your life. If you are not there, it is either because of disobedience or a refusal to be simple enough.

April 29   The graciousness of uncertainty

It doth not yet appear what we shall be. 1 john 3:2

Naturally, we are inclined to be so mathematical and calculating that we look upon uncertainty as a bad thing. We imagine that we have to reach some end, but that is not the nature of spiritual life. The nature of spiritual life is that we are certain in our uncertainty, consequently we do not make our nests anywhere. Common sense sayswell, supposing i were in that condition. . . . We cannot suppose our- selves in any condition we have never been in. Certainty is the mark of the commonsense life: gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life. To be certain of god means that we are uncertain in all our ways, we do not know what a day may bring forth. This is generally said with a sigh of sadness; it should be rather an expression of breathless expectation. We are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of god. Immediately we abandon to god, and do the duty that lies nearest, he packs our life with surprises all the time. When we become advocates of a creed, something dies; we do not believe god, we only believe our belief about him. Jesus said except ye . . . Become as little children. Spiritual life is the life of a child. We are not uncertain of god, but uncertain of what he is going to do next. If we are only certain in our beliefs, we get dignified and severe and have the ban of finality 15 about our views; but when we are rightly related to god, life is full of spontaneous, joyful uncertainty and expectancy. Believe also in me, said jesus, not believe certain things about me. Leave the whole thing to him, it is gloriously uncertain how he will come in, but he will come. Remain loyal to him.

April 30   The spontaneity of love

Love suffereth long, and is kind. . . . 1 corinthians 13:4 (rv)

Love is not premeditated, it is spontaneous, that is, it bursts up in extraordinary ways. There is nothing of mathematical certainty in pauls category of love. We cannot say now i am going to think no evil; i am going to believe all things. The characteristic of love is spontaneity. We do not settle statements of jesus in front of us as a standard; but when his spirit is having his way with us, we live according to his standard without knowing it, and on looking back we are amazed at the disinterestedness of a particular emotion, which is the evidence that the spontaneity of real love was there. In everything to do with the life of god in us, its nature is only discerned when it is past. The springs of love are in god, not in us. It is absurd to look for the love of god in our hearts naturally, it is only there when it has been shed abroad in our hearts by the holy spirit. If we try to prove to god how much we love him, it is a sure sign that we do not love him. The evidence of our love for him is the absolute spontaneity of our love, it comes naturally. In looking back we cannot tell why we did certain things, we did them according to the spontaneous nature of his love in us. The life of god manifests itself in this spontaneous way because the springs of love are in the holy ghost. (romans 5:5)

 May 1  Insight not emotion

 I have to lead my life in faith, without seeing him. 2 corinthians 5:7 (moffatt)

For a time we are conscious of gods attentions, then, when god begins to use us in his enterprises, we take on a pathetic look and talk of the trials and the difficulties, and all the time god is trying to make us do our duty as obscure people. None of us would be obscure spiritually if we could help it. Can we do our duty when god has shut up heaven? Some of us always want to be illuminated saints with golden haloes and the flush of inspiration, and to have the saints of god dealing with us all the time. A giltedged saint is no good, he is abnormal, unfit for daily life, and altogether unlike god. We are here as men and women, not as half-fledged angels, to do the work of the world, and to do it with an infinitely greater power to stand the turmoil because we have been born from above (rv mg). If we try to re-introduce the rare moments of inspiration, it is a sign that it is not god we want. We are making a fetish of the moments when god did come and speak, and insisting that he must do it again; whereas what god wants us to do is to walk by faith. How many of us have laid ourselves by, as it were, and saidi cannot do any more until god appears to me. He never will, and without any inspi- ration, without any sudden touch of god, we will have to get up. Then comes the surprise why, he Was there all the time, and i never knew it! Never live for the rare moments, they are surprises. God will give us touches of inspiration when he sees we are not in danger of being led away by them. We must never make our moments of inspiration our standard; our standard is our duty.

May 2   The passion of patience

Though it tarry, wait for it. Habakkuk 2:3

Patience is not indifference; patience conveys the idea of an immensely strong rock withstanding all onslaughts. The vision of god is the source of patience, because it imparts a moral inspiration. Moses endured, not because he had an ideal of right and duty, but because he had a vision of god. He endured, as seeing him who is invisible. A man with the vision of god is not devoted to a cause or to any particu- lar issue; he is devoted to god himself. You always know when the vision is of god because of the inspi- ration that comes with it; things come with largeness and tonic to the life because everything is energised by god. If god gives you a time spiritually, as he gave his son actually, of temptation in the wilderness, with no word from himself at all, endure; and the power to endure is there because you see god. Though it tarry, wait for it. The proof that we have the vision is that we are reaching out for more than we have grasped. It is a bad thing to be satisfied spiritually. What shall i render unto the lord? Said the psalmist, i will take the cup of salvation. We are apt to look for satisfaction in ourselvesnow i have got the thing; now i am entirely sanctified; now i can endure. Instantly we are on the road to ruin. Our reach must exceed our grasp. Not as though i had already attained, either were already perfect. If we have only what we have experienced, we have noth- ing; if we have the inspiration of the vision of god, we have more than we can experience. Beware of the danger of relaxation spiritually.

May 3   Vital intercession

Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit. Ephesians 6:18

As we go on in intercession we may find that our obe- dience to god is going to cost other people more than we thought. The danger then is to begin to intercede in sympathy with those whom god was gradually lifting to a totally different sphere in answer to our prayers. Whenever we step back from identification with gods interest in others into sympathy with them, the vital connection with god has gone; we have put our sympathy, our consideration for them, in the way, and this is a deliberate rebuke to god. It is impossible to intercede vitally unless we are perfectly sure of god, and the greatest dissipater of our relationship to god is personal sympathy and personal prejudice. Identification is the key to intercession, and whenever we stop being identified with god, it is by sympathy, not by sin. It is not likely that sin will interfere with our relationship to god, but sympathy will, sympathy with ourselves or with others which makes us sayi will not allow that thing to happen. Instantly we are out of vital connection with god. Intercession leaves you neither time nor incli- nation to pray for your own sad sweet self. The thought of yourself is not kept out, because it is not there to keep out; you are completely and entirely identified with gods interests in other lives. Discernment is gods call to intercession, never to fault finding.

May 4   Vicarious intercession

Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of jesus. Hebrews 10:19

Beware of imagining that intercession means bring- ing our personal sympathies into the presence of god and demanding that he does what we ask. Our approach to god is due entirely to the vicarious iden- tification of our lord with sin. We have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of jesus. Spiritual stubbornness is the most effectual hin- drance to intercession, because it is based on sympa- thy with that in ourselves and in others that we do not think needs atoning for. We have the notion that there are certain right and virtuous things in us which do not need to be based on the atonement, and just in the domain of stodge that is produced by this idea we cannot intercede. We do not identify our- selves with gods interests in others, we get petulant with god; we are always ready with our own ideas, and intercession becomes the glorification of our own natural sympathies. We have to realise that the identification of jesus with sin means the radical altera- tion of all our sympathies. Vicarious intercession means that we deliberately substitute gods interests in others for our natural sympathy with them. Am i stubborn or substituted? Petted or perfect in my relationship to god? Sulky or spiritual? Deter-Mined to have my own way or determined to be identified with him?

May 5   Judgement on the abyss of love

For the time is come that judgement must begin at the house of god. 1 peter 4:17

The christian worker must never forget that salvation is gods thought, not mans; therefore it is an unfathomable abyss. Salvation is the great thought of god, not an experience. Experience is only a gate- way by which salvation comes into our conscious life. Never preach the experience; preach the great thought of god behind. When we preach we are not proclaiming how man can be saved from hell and be made moral and pure; we are conveying good news about god. In the teachings of jesus christ the element of judgement is always brought out, it is the sign of gods love. Never sympathise with a soul who finds it difficult to get to god; god is not to blame. It is not for us to find out the reason why it is difficult, but so to present the truth of god that the spirit of god will show what is wrong. The great sterling test in preaching is that it brings everyone to judgement. The spirit of god locates each one to himself. If jesus ever gave us a command he could not enable us to fulfil, he would be a liar; and if we make our inability a barrier to obedience, it means we are telling god there is something he has not taken into account. Every element of self-reliance must be slain by the power of god. Complete weakness and dependence will always be the occasion for the spirit of god to manifest his power.

May 6  Liberty on the abyss of the gospel

Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith christ hath made us free. Galatians 5:1

A spiritually minded man will never come to you with the demand believe this and that; but with the demand that you square your life with the standards of jesus. We are not asked to believe the bible, but to believe the one whom the bible reveals (cf. John 5:3940). We are called to present liberty of conscience, not liberty of view. If we are free with the liberty of christ, others will be brought into that same libertythe liberty of realising the dominance of jesus christ. Always keep your life measured by the standards of jesus. Bow your neck to his yoke alone, and to no other yoke whatever; and be careful to see that you never bind a yoke on others that is not placed by jesus christ. It takes god a long time to get us out of the way of thinking that unless everyone sees as we do, they must be wrong. That is never gods view. There is only one liberty, the liberty of jesus at work in our conscience enabling us to do what is right. Dont get impatient, remember how god dealt with you with patience and with gentleness; but never water down the truth of god. Let it have its way and never apologise for it. Jesus said, go . . . And make disciples (rv) not make converts to your opinions.

May 7   Building for eternity

For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Luke 14:28

Our lord refers not to a cost we have to count, but to a cost which he has counted. The cost was those thirty years in nazareth, those three years of popularity, scandal and hatred; the deep unfathomable agony in gethsemane, and the onslaught at calvary the pivot upon which the whole of time and eternity turns. Jesus christ has counted the cost. Men are not going to laugh at him at last and say this man began to build, and was not able to finish. The conditions of discipleship laid down by our lord in verses 2627 and 33 mean that the men and women he is going to use in his mighty building enterprises are those in whom he has done every- thing. If any man come to me, and hate not . . . , he cannot be my disciple. Our lord implies that the only men and women he will use in his building enterprises are those who love him personally, passionately and devotedly beyond any of the closest ties on earth. The conditions are stern, but they are glorious. All that we build is going to be inspected by god. Is god going to detect in his searching fire that we have built on the foundation of jesus some enterprise of our own? These are days of tremendous enterprises, days when we are trying to work for god, and therein is the snare. Profoundly speaking, we can never work for god. Jesus takes us over for his enterprises, his building schemes entirely, and no soul has any right to claim where he shall be put.

May 8 The patience of faith

Because thou hast kept the word of my patience. Revelation 3:10

Patience is more than endurance. A saints life is in the hands of god like a bow and arrow in the hands of an archer. God is aiming at something the saint cannot see, and he stretches and strains, and every now and again the saint says i cannot stand any more. God does not heed, he goes on stretching till his purpose is in sight, then he lets fly. Trust yourself in gods hands. For what have you need of patience just now? Maintain your relationship to jesus christ by the patience of faith. Though he slay me, yet will i wait for him (rv ). Faith is not a pathetic sentiment, but robust vigorous confidence built on the fact that god is holy love. You cannot see him just now, you cannot understand what he is doing, but you know him. Shipwreck occurs where there is not that mental poise which comes from being established on the eternal truth that god is holy love. Faith is the heroic effort of your life, you fling yourself in reckless confidence on god. God has ventured all in jesus christ to save us, now he wants us to venture our all in abandoned confidence in him. There are spots where that faith has not worked in us as yet, places untouched by the life of god. There were none of those spots in jesus christs life, and there are to be none in ours. This is life eternal, that they might know thee. The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we take this view, life becomes one great romance, a glorious opportunity for seeing marvellous things all the time. God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.

May 9   Grasp without reach

Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint. Proverbs 29:18 (rv)

There is a difference between an ideal and a vision. An ideal has no moral inspiration; a vision has. The people who give themselves over to ideals rarely do anything. A mans conception of deity may be used to justify his deliberate neglect of his duty. Jonah argued that because god was a god of justice and of mercy, therefore everything would be all right. I may have a right conception of god, and that may be the very reason why i do not do my duty. But wherever there is vision, there is also a life of rectitude because the vision imparts moral incentive. Ideals may lull to ruin. Take stock of yourself spiritually and see whether you have ideals only or if you have vision. Ah, but a mans reach should exceed his grasp, or whats a heaven for? Where there is no vision. . . . When once we lose sight of god, we begin to be reckless, we cast off certain restraints, we cast off praying, we cast off the vision of god in little things, and begin to act on our own initiative. If we are eating what we have out of our own hand, doing things on our own initiative without expecting god to come in, we are on the downward path, we have lost the vision. Is our attitude to-day an attitude that springs from our vision of god? Are we expecting god to do greater things than he has ever done? Is there a freshness and vigour in our spiritual outlook.

May 10   Take the initiative

Add to your faith virtue [furnish your faith with resolution, moffatt ]. . . . 2 peter 1:5

Add means there is something we have to do. We are in danger of forgetting that we cannot do what god does, and that god will not do what we can do. We cannot save ourselves nor sanctify ourselves, god does that; but god will not give us good habits, he will not give us character, he will not make us walk aright. We have to do all that ourselves, we have to work out the salvation god has worked in. Add means to get into the habit of doing things, and in the initial stages it is difficult. To take the initiative is to make a beginning, to instruct yourself in the way you have to go. Beware of the tendency of asking the way when you know it perfectly well. Take the initiative, stop hesitating, and take the first step. Be resolute when god speaks, act in faith immediately on what he says, and never revise your decisions. If you hesitate when god tells you to do a thing, you endanger your standing in grace. Take the initiative, take it yourself, take the step with your will now, make it impossible to go back. Burn your bridges behind you i will write that letter; i will pay that debt. Make the thing inevitable. We have to get into the habit of hearkening to god about everything, to form the habit of finding out what god says. If, when a crisis comes, we instinctively turn to god, we know that the habit has Been formed. We have to take the initiative where we are, not where we are not.

May 11   You wont reach it on tiptoe

Add . . . To your brotherliness . . . Love. 2 peter 1:5, 7 (see moffatt)

Love is indefinite to most of us, we do not know what we mean when we talk about love. Love is the sovereign preference of one person for another, and spiritually jesus demands that that preference be for himself (cf. Luke 14:26). When the love of god is shed abroad in our hearts by the holy ghost, jesus christ is easily first; then we must practise the work- ing out of these things mentioned by peter. The first thing god does is to knock pretence and the pious pose right out of me. The holy spirit reveals that god loved me not because i was loveable, but because it was his nature to do so. Now, he says to me, show the same love to others love as i have loved you. I will bring any number of people about you whom you cannot respect, and you must exhibit my love to them as i have exhibited it to you. You wont reach it on tiptoe. Some of us have tried to, but we were soon tired. The lord suffereth long. . . . Let me look within and see his dealings with me. The knowledge that god has loved me to the uttermost, to the end of all my sin and meanness16 and selfishness and wrong, will send me forth into the world to love in the same way. Gods love to me is inexhaustible, and i must love others from the bedrock of gods love to me. Growth in grace stops the moment i get huffed. I get huffed because i have a peculiar person to live with. Just think how disagreeable i have been to god! Am i prepared to be so identified with the lord jesus that his life and his sweetness are being poured out all the time? Neither natural love nor divine love will remain unless it is cultivated. Love is spontaneous, but it has to be maintained by discipline.

May 12   Make a habit of having

No habits for if these things are yours and abound, they make you to be not idle nor unfruitful. 2 peter 1:8 (rv )

When we begin to form a habit we are conscious of it. There are times when we are conscious of becom- ing virtuous and patient and godly, but it is only a stage; if we stop there we shall get the strut of the spiritual prig. The right thing to do with habits is to lose them in the life of the lord, until every habit is so practised that there is no conscious habit at all. Our spiritual life continually resolves into introspection because there are some qualities we have not added as yet. Ultimately the relationship is to be a completely simple one. Your god may be your little christian habit, the habit of prayer at stated times, or the habit of bible reading. Watch how your father will upset those times if you begin to worship your habit instead of what the habit symbolisesi cant do that just now, i am praying; it is my hour with god. No, it is your hour with your habit. There is a quality that is lacking in you. Recognise the defect, and then look for the opportunity of exercising yourself along the line of the quality to be added. Love means that there is no habit visible, you have come to the place where the habit is lost, and by practise you do the thing unconsciously. If you are consciously holy, there are certain things you imagine you cannot do, certain relationships in which you are far from simple; that means there is something to be added. The only supernatural life is the life the lord jesus lived, and he was at home with god anywhere. Is there anywhere where you are not at home with god? Let god press through in that particular circumstance until you gain him, and life becomes the simple life of a child.

May 13 the habit of a good conscience

A conscience void of offence toward god, and toward men. Acts 24:16

Gods commands are given to the life of his son in us, consequently to the human nature in which his son has been formed, his commands are difficult, but immediately we obey they become divinely easy. Conscience is that faculty in me which attaches itself to the highest that i know, and tells me what the highest i know demands that i do. It is the eye of the soul which looks out either towards god or towards what it regards as the highest, and therefore conscience records differently in different people.

If i am in the habit of steadily facing myself with god, my conscience will always introduce gods perfect law and indicate what i should do. The point is, will i obey? I have to make an effort to keep my conscience so sensitive that i walk without offence. I should be living in such perfect sympathy with gods son, that in every circumstance the spirit of my mind is renewed, and i make out (moffatt ) at once what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of god. God always educates us down to the scruple. Is my ear so keen to hear the tiniest whisper of the spirit that i know what i should do? Grieve not the holy spirit. He does not come with a voice like thunder; his voice is so gentle that it is easy to ignore it. The one thing that keeps the conscience sensitive to him is the continual habit of being open to god on the inside. When there is any debate, quit. Why shouldnt i do this? You are on the wrong track. There is no debate possible when conscience speaks. At your peril, you allow one thing to obscure your inner communion with god. Drop it, whatever it is, and see that you keep your inner vision clear.

May 14  The habit of enjoying the disagreeable

That the life also of jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. 2 corinthians 4:11

We have to form habits to express what gods grace has done in us. It is not a question of being saved from hell, but of being saved in order to manifest the life of the son of god in our mortal flesh, and it is the disagreeable things which make us exhibit whether or not we are manifesting his life. Do i manifest the essential sweetness of the son of god, or the essen- tial irritation of myself apart from him? The only thing that will enable me to enjoy the disagreeable is the keen enthusiasm of letting the life of the son of god manifest itself in me. No matter how disagree- able a thing may be, say lord, i am delighted to obey thee in this matter, and instantly the son of god will press to the front, and there will be manifested in my human life that which glorifies jesus. There must be no debate. The moment you obey the light, the son of god presses through you in that particular; but if you debate you grieve the spirit of god. You must keep yourself fit to let the life of the son of god be manifested, and you cannot keep yourself fit if you give way to self-pity. Our circumstances are the means of manifesting how wonder- fully perfect and extraordinarily pure the son of god is. The thing that ought to make the heart beat is a new way of manifesting the son of god. It is one thing to choose the disagreeable, and another thing to go into the disagreeable by gods engineering. If god puts you there, he is amply sufficient. Keep your soul fit to manifest the life of the son of god. Never live on memories; let the word of god be always living and active in you. M ay 15 the habit of rising to the occasion that ye may know what is the hope of his calling. . . . Ephesians 1:18 remember what you are saved forthat the son of god might be manifested in your mortal flesh. Bend the whole energy of your powers to realise your election as a child of god; rise to the occasion every time. You cannot do anything for your salvation, but you must do something to manifest it, you must work out what god has worked in. Are you working it out with your tongue, and your brain and your nerves? If you are still the same miserable crosspatch, set on your own way, then it is a lie to say that god has saved and sanctified you. God is the master engineer, he allows the difficulties to come in order to see if you can vault over them properly by my god have i leaped over a wall. God will never shield you from any of the requirements of a son or daughter of his. Peter says think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you. Rise to the occasion; do the thing. It does not matter how it hurts as long as it gives god the chance to manifest himself in your mortal flesh. May god not find the whine in us any more, but may he find us full of spiritual pluck and athleticism, ready to face anything he brings. We have to exercise ourselves in order that the son of god may be manifested in our mortal flesh. God never has museums. The only aim of the life is that the son of god may be manifested, and all dictation to god vanishes. Our lord never dictated to his father, and we are not here to dictate to god; we are here to submit to his will so that he may work through us what he wants. When we realise this, he will make us broken bread and poured-out wine to feed and nourish others.

May 16   The habit of wealth

Partakers of the divine nature. 2 peter 1:4

We are made partakers of the divine nature through the promises; then we have to manipulate the divine nature in our human nature by habits, and the first habit to form is the habit of realising the provision god has made. Oh, i cant afford it, we say one of the worst lies is tucked up in that phrase. It is ungovernably bad taste to talk about money in the natural domain, and so it is spiritually, and yet we talk as if our heavenly father had cut us off with a shilling! We think it a sign of real modesty to say at the end of a day oh, well, i have just got through, but it has been a severe tussle. And all the almighty god is ours in the lord Jesus! And he will tax the last grain of sand and the remotest star to bless us if we will obey him. What does it matter if external circumstances are hard? Why should they not be! If we give way to self-pity and indulge in the luxury of misery, we banish gods riches from our own lives and hinder others from entering into his provision. No sin is worse than the sin of self-pity, because it obliterates god and puts self-interest upon the throne. It opens our mouths to spit out murmurings and our lives become craving spiritual sponges, there is nothing lovely or generous about them. When god is beginning to be satisfied with us, he will impoverish everything in the nature of fictitious wealth, until we learn that all our fresh springs are in him (pbv).17 if the majesty and grace and power of god are not being manifested in us (not to our con- sciousness), god holds us responsible. God is able to make all grace abound, then learn to lavish the grace of god on others. Be stamped with gods nature, and his blessing will come through you all the time.

May 17 His ascension and our union

And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven. Luke 24:51

We have no corresponding experience to the events in our lords life after the transfiguration. From then on wards our lords life was altogether vicarious. Up to the time of the transfiguration he had exhibited the normal perfect life of a man; from the transfiguration on wards gethsemane, the cross, the resurrection everything is unfamiliar to us. His cross is the door by which every member of the human race can enter into the life of god; by his resurrection he has the right to give eternal life to any man, and by his ascension our lord enters heaven and keeps the door open for humanity. On the mount of ascension the transfiguration is completed. If Jesus had gone to heaven from the mount of transfiguration, he would have gone alone; he would have been nothing more to us than a glorious figure. But he turned his back on the glory, and came down from the mount to identify himself with fallen humanity. The ascension is the consummation of the trans- figuration. Our lord does now go back into his primal glory; but he does not go back simply as son of god: he goes back to god as son of man as well as son of god. There is now freedom of access for any- one straight to the very throne of god by the ascension of the son of man. As son of man jesus christ deliberately limited omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience in himself. Now they are his in absolute full power. As son of man jesus christ has all power at the throne of god. He is king of kings and lord of lords from the day of his ascension until now.

May 18   Careful unreasonableness

Behold the fowls of the air. . . . Consider the lilies of the field. Matthew 6:26, 28

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they simply are! Think of the sea, the air, the sun, the stars and the moon all these are, and what a ministration they exert. So often we mar gods designed influence through us by our self-conscious effort to be consistent and useful. Jesus says that there is only one way to develop spiritually, and that is by concentration on god. Do not bother about being of use to others, believe on mepay attention to the source, and out of you will flow rivers of living water. We cannot get at the springs of our natural life by common sense, and jesus is teaching that growth in spiritual life does not depend on our watching it, but on concentration on our father in heaven. Our heavenly father knows the circumstances we are in, and if we keep concentrated on him we will grow spiritually as the lilies. The people who influence us most are not those who buttonhole us and talk to us, but those who live their lives like the stars in heaven and the lilies in the field, perfectly simply and unaffectedly. Those are the lives that mould us.

If you want to be of use to god, get rightly related to Jesus christ and he will make you of use unconsciously every minute you live.

May 19   Out of the wreck i rise

Who shall separate us from the love of christ? Romans 8:35

God does not keep a man immune from trouble; he says i will be with him in trouble. It does not matter what actual troubles in the most extreme form get hold of a mans life, not one of them can separate him from his relationship to god. We are more than conquerors in all these things. Paul is not talking of imaginary things, but of things that are desperately actual; and he says we are super-victors in the midst of them, not by our ingenuity, or by our courage, or by anything other than the fact that not one of them affects our relationship to god in Jesus christ. Rightly or wrongly, we are where we are, exactly in the condition we are in. I am sorry for the christian who has not something in his circumstances he wishes was not there. Shall tribulation . . . ? Tribulation is never a noble thing; but let tribulation be what it may exhausting, galling, fatiguing, it is not able to separate us from the love of god. Never let cares or tribulations separate you from the fact that god loves you. Shall . . . Anguish . . . ? (rv)can gods love hold when everything says that his love is a lie, and that there is no such thing as justice? Shall . . . Famine . . . ? Can we not only believe in the love of god but be more than conquerors, even while we are being starved? Either Jesus christ is a deceiver and Paul is deluded, or some extraordinary thing happens to a man who holds on to the love of god when the odds are all against gods character. Logic is silenced in the face of every one of these things. Only one thing can account for it the love of god in Christ Jesus. Out of the wreck i rise every time.

May 20   The realm of the real

In your patience possess ye your souls. Luke 21:19

When a man is born again, there is not the same robustness in his thinking or reasoning for a time as formerly. We have to make an expression of the new life, to form the mind of christ. Acquire your soul with patience (rv). Many of us prefer to stay at the threshold of the christian life instead of going on to construct a soul in accordance with the new life god has put within. We fail because we are ignorant of the way we are made, we put things down to the devil instead of our own undisciplined natures. Think what we can be when we are roused! There are certain things we must not pray about moods, for instance. Moods never go by praying, moods go by kicking. A mood nearly always has its seat in the physical condition, not in the moral. It is a continual effort not to listen to the moods which arise from a physical condition; never submit to them for a second. We have to take ourselves by the scruff of the neck and shake ourselves, and we will find that we can do what we said we could not. The curse with most of us is that we wont. The christian life is one of incarnate spiritual pluck.

May 21   Divine reasonings of faith

But seek ye first the kingdom of god, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Matthew 6:33

Immediately we look at these words of jesus, we find them the most revolutionary statement human ears ever listened to. Seek ye first the kingdom of god. We argue in exactly the opposite way, even the most spiritually-minded of us but i must live; i must make so much money; i must be clothed; i must be fed. The great concern of our lives is not the kingdom of god, but how we are to fit ourselves to live. Jesus reverses the order: get rightly related to god first, maintain that as the great care of your life, and never put the concern of your care on the other things. Take no thought for your life. . . . Our lord points out the utter unreasonableness from his standpoint of being so anxious over the means of living. Jesus is not saying that the man who takes thought for nothing is blessed that man is a fool. Jesus taught that a disciple has to make his relationship to god the dominating concentration of his life, and to be care- fully careless about everything else in comparison to that. Jesus is saying dont make the ruling factor of your life what you shall eat and what you shall drink, but be concentrated absolutely on god. Some people are careless over what they eat and drink, and they suffer for it; they are careless about what they wear, and they look as they have no business to look; they are careless about their earthly affairs, and god holds them responsible. Jesus is saying that the great care Of the life is to put the relationship to god first, and everything else second. It is one of the severest disciplines of the christian life to allow the holy spirit to bring us into harmony with the teaching of jesus in these verses.

May 22   Now this explains it

That they all may be one; as thou, father, art in me, and i in thee, that they also may be one in us. John 17:21

If you are going through a solitary way, read john 17, it will explain exactly why you are where you are Jesus has prayed that you may be one with the father as he is. Are you helping god to answer that prayer, or have you some other end for your life? Since you became a disciple you cannot be as independent as you used to be. The purpose of god is not to answer our prayers, but by our prayers we come to discern the mind of god, and this is revealed in john 17. There is one prayer god must answer, and that is the prayer of jesus that they may be one, even as we are one. Are we as close to jesus christ as that? God is not concerned about our plans; he does not saydo you want to go through this bereavement; this upset? He allows these things for his own purpose. The things we are going through are either making us sweeter, better, nobler men and women; or they are making us more captious and fault-finding, more insistent upon our own way. The things that happen either make us fiends, or they make us saints; it depends entirely upon the relationship we are in to god. If we say thy will be done, we get the consolation of john 17, the consolation of knowing that our father is working according to his own wisdom. When we understand what god is after we will not get mean and cynical. Jesus has prayed nothing less for us than absolute oneness with himself as he was one with the father. Some of us are far off it, and yet god will not leave us alone until we are one with him, because jesus has prayed that we may be.

May 23   Careful infidelity

Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Matthew 6:25

Jesus sums up commonsense carefulness in a disciple as infidelity. If we have received the spirit of god, he will press through and say now where does god come in in this relationship, in this mapped-out holiday, in these new books? He always presses the point until we learn to make him our first consideration. Whenever we put other things first, there is confusion. Take no thought . . . Dont take the pressure of forethought upon yourself. It is not only wrong to worry, it is infidelity, because worrying means that we do not think that god can look after the practical details of our lives, and it is never anything else that worries us. Have you ever noticed what jesus said would choke the word he puts in? The devil? No, the cares of this world. It is the little worries always. I will not trust where i cannot see, that is where infidelity begins. The only cure for infidelity is obedience to the spirit. The great word of jesus to his disciples is abandon.

May 24   The delight of despair

And when i saw him, i fell at his feet as dead. Revelation 1:17

It may be that like the apostle john you know jesus christ intimately, when suddenly he appears with no familiar characteristic at all, and the only thing you can do is to fall at his feet as dead. There are times when god cannot reveal himself in any other way than in his majesty, and it is the awfulness of the vision which brings you to the delight of despair; if you are ever to be raised up, it must be by the hand of god. He laid his right hand upon me. In the midst of the awfulness, a touch comes, and you know it is the right hand of jesus christ. The right hand not of restraint nor of correction nor of chastisement, but the right hand of the everlasting father.

Whenever his hand is laid upon you, it is ineffable peace and comfort, the sense that underneath are the everlasting arms, full of sustaining and comfort and strength. When once his touch comes, nothing at all can cast you into fear again. In the midst of all his ascended glory the lord jesus comes to speak to an insignificant disciple, and to say fear not. His tenderness is ineffably sweet. Do i know him like that? Watch some of the things that strike despair. There is despair in which there is no delight, no horizon, no hope of anything brighter; but the delight of despair comes when i know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing. I delight to know that there is that in me which must fall prostrate before god when he manifests himself, and if i am ever to be raised up it must be by the hand of god. God can do nothing for me until i get to the limit of the possible.

May 25   The test of self-interest

If thou wilt take the left hand, then i will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then i will go to the left. Genesis 13:9

As soon as you begin to live the life of faith in god, fascinating and luxurious prospects will open up before you, and these things are yours by right; but if you are living the life of faith you will exercise your right to waive your rights, and let god choose for you. God sometimes allows you to get into a place of testing where your own welfare would be the right and proper thing to consider if you were not living a life of faith; but if you are, you will joyfully waive your right and leave god to choose for you. This is the discipline by means of which the natural is transformed into the spiritual by obedience to the voice of god. Whenever right is made the guidance in the life, it will blunt the spiritual insight. The great enemy of the life of faith in god is not sin, but the good which is not good enough. The good is always the enemy of the best. It would seem the wisest thing in the world for Abraham to choose, it was his right, and the people around would consider him a fool for not choosing. Many of us do not go on spiritually because we prefer to choose what is right instead of relying on god to choose for us. We have to learn to walk according to the standard which has its eye on god. Walk before me.

May 26 think as jesus taught

Pray without ceasing. 1 Thessalonians 5:17

We think rightly or wrongly about prayer according to the conception we have in our minds of prayer. If we think of prayer as the breath in our lungs and the blood from our hearts, we think rightly. The blood flows ceaselessly, and breathing continues ceaselessly; we are not conscious of it, but it is always going on. We are not always conscious of jesus keeping us in perfect joint with god, but if we are obeying him, he always is. Prayer is not an exercise, it is the life. Beware of anything that stops ejaculatory prayer. Pray without ceasing, keep the childlike habit of ejaculatory prayer in your heart to god all the time. Jesus never mentioned unanswered prayer; he had the boundless certainty that prayer is always answered. Have we by the spirit the unspeakable certainty that jesus had about prayer, or do we think of the times when god does not seem to have answered prayer? Every one that asketh receiveth. We say but, . . . But . . . God answers prayer in the best way, not sometimes, but every time, although the immediate manifestation of the answer in the domain in which we want it may not always follow. Do we expect god to answer prayer? The danger with us is that we want to water down the things that jesus says and make them mean something in accordance with common sense; if it were only common sense, it was not worth while for him to say it. The things jesus says about prayer are supernatural revelations.

May 27   The life that lives

Tarry ye in the city of jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high. Luke 24:49

The disciples had to tarry until the day of pentecost not for their own preparation only; they had to wait until the lord was glorified historically. As soon as he was glorified, what happened? Therefore being by the right hand of god exalted, and having received of the father the promise of the holy ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. The parenthesis in john 7:39 (for the holy ghost was not yet given; because that jesus was not yet glorified) does not apply to us; the holy ghost has been given, the lord is glorified; the waiting depends not on gods providence, but on our fitness. The holy spirits influence and power were at work before pentecost, but he was not here. Immediately our lord was glorified in ascension, the holy spirit came into this world, and he has been here ever since. We have to receive the revelation that he is here. The reception of the holy spirit is the maintained attitude of a believer. When we receive the holy spirit, we receive quickening life from the ascended lord. It is not the baptism of the holy ghost which changes men, but the power of the ascended christ coming into mens lives by the holy ghost that changes them. We too often divorce what the new testament never divorces. The baptism of the holy ghost is not an experience apart from jesus christ: it is the evidence of the ascended christ. The baptism of the holy ghost does not make you think of time or eternity, it is one amazing glorious now. This is life eternal, that they might know thee. Begin to know him now, and finish never.

May 28   Unquestioned revelation

And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. John 16:23

When is that day? When the ascended lord makes you one with the father. In that day you will be one with the father as Jesus is, and in that day, Jesus says, ye shall ask me nothing. Until the resurrection life of jesus is manifested in you, you want to ask this and that; then after a while you find all questions gone, you do not seem to have any left to ask. You have come to the place of entire reliance on the resurrection life of Jesus which brings you into perfect contact with the purpose of god. Are you living that life now? If not, why shouldnt you? There may be any number of things dark to your understanding, but they do not come in between your heart and god. And in that day ye shall ask me no question you do not need to, you are so certain that god will bring things out in accordance with his will. John 14:1 has become the real state of your heart, and there are no more questions to be asked. If anything is a mystery to you and it is coming in between you and god, never look for the explanation in your intellect, look for it in your disposition, it is that which is wrong. When once your disposition is willing to submit to the life of Jesus, the understanding will be perfectly clear, and you will get to the place where there is no distance between the father and his child because the lord has made you one, and in that day ye shall ask me no question.

May 29   Undisturbed relationship

At that day ye shall ask in my name. . . . The father himself loveth you. John 16:2627

at that day ye shall ask in my name, i. E. , in my nature. Notyou shall use my name as a magic word, but you will be so intimate with me that you will be one with me. That day is not a day here- after, but a day meant for here and now. The father himself loveth you the union is so complete and absolute. Our lord does not mean that life will be free from external perplexities but that just as he knew the fathers heart and mind, so by the baptism of the holy ghost he can lift us into the heavenly places where he can reveal the counsels of god to us. Whatsoever ye shall ask the father in my name . . . That day is a day of undisturbed relationship between god and the saint. Just as Jesus stood unsullied in the presence of his father, so by the mighty efficacy of the baptism of the holy ghost, we can be lifted into that relationship that they may be one, even as we are one. . . . He will give it you. Jesus says that god will recognise our prayers. What a challenge! By the resurrection and ascension power of Jesus, by the sent-down holy ghost, we can be lifted into such a relationship with the father that we are at one with the perfect sovereign will of god by our free choice even as Jesus was. In that wonderful position, placed there by Jesus christ, we can pray to god in his name, in his nature, which is gifted to us by the holy ghost, and jesus says whatsoever ye shall ask the father in my name, he will give it you. The sovereign character of Jesus christ is tested by his own statements.

May 30   yes but . . . !

Lord, i will follow thee; but . . . Luke 9:61

Supposing god tells you to do something which is an enormous test to your common sense, what are you going to do? Hang back? If you get into the habit of doing a thing in the physical domain, you will do it every time until you break the habit determinedly; and the same is true spiritually. Again and again you will get up to what Jesus christ wants, and every time you will turn back when it comes to the point, until you abandon resolutely. Yes, but supposing i do obey god in this matter, what about . . . ? Yes, i will obey god if he will let me use my common sense, but dont ask me to take a step in the dark. Jesus christ demands of the man who trusts him the same reckless sporting spirit that the natural man exhibits. If a man is going to do anything worthwhile, there are times when he has to risk everything on his leap, and in the spiritual domain Jesus christ demands that you risk everything you hold by common sense and leap into what he says, and immediately you do, you find that what he says fits on as solidly as common sense. At the bar of common sense Jesus christs statements may seem mad; but bring them to the bar of faith, and you begin to find with awe-struck spirit that they are the words of god. Trust entirely in god, and when he brings you to the venture, see that you take it. We act like pagans in a crisis, only one out of a crowd is daring enough to bank his faith in the character of God.

May 31   God first

Put god first in trust Jesus did not commit himself unto them, . . . For he knew what was in man. ( john 2:2425)

Our lord trusted no man; yet he was never suspicious, never bitter, never in despair about any man because he put god first in trust; he trusted absolutely in what gods grace could do for any man. If i put my trust in human beings first, i will end in despairing of everyone; i will become bitter, because i have insisted on man being what no man ever can be absolutely right. Never trust anything but the grace of god in yourself or in anyone else. Put gods needs first lo, i come to do thy will, o god. (Hebrews 10:9) a mans obedience is to what he sees to be a need; our lords obedience was to the will of his father. The cry today is we must get some work to do; the heathen are dying without god; we must go and tell them of him. We have to see first of all that gods needs in us personally are being met. Tarry ye until . . . The purpose of this college is to get us rightly related to the needs of god. When gods needs in us have been met, then he will open the way for us to realise his needs elsewhere. Put gods trust first and whoso receiveth one such little child in my name receiveth me. (Matthew 18:5) gods trust is that he gives me himself as a babe. God expects my personal life to be a Bethlehem. Am i allowing my natural life to be slowly trans- figured by the indwelling life of the son of god? Gods ultimate purpose is that his son might be manifested in my mortal flesh.

June 1   The staggering question

Son of man, can these bones live? Ezekiel 37:3

Can that sinner be turned into a saint? Can that twisted life be put right? There is only one answer: o lord, thou knowest, i dont. Never trample in with religious common sense and sayoh, yes, with a little more bible reading and devotion and prayer, i see how it can be done. It is much easier to do something than to trust in god; we mistake panic for inspiration. That is why there are so few fellow-workers with god and so many workers for him. We would far rather work for god than believe in him. Am i quite sure that god will do what i cannot do? I despair of men in the degree in which i have never realised that god has done anything for me. Is my experience such a wonderful realisation of gods power and might that i can never despair of anyone i see? Have i had any spiritual work done in me at all? The degree of panic is the degree of the lack of personal spiritual experience. Behold, o my people, i will open your graves. When god wants to show you what human nature is like apart from himself, he has to show it you in yourself. If the spirit of god has given you a vision of what you are apart from the grace of god (and he only does it when his spirit is at work), you know there is no criminal who is half so bad in actuality as you know yourself to be in possibility. My grave has been opened by god and i know that in me (that is in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing. Gods spirit continually reveals what human nature is like apart from his grace.

June 2   What are you haunted by?

What man is he that feareth the lord? Psalm 25:12

What are you haunted by? You will say by nothing, but we are all haunted by something, generally by ourselves, or, if we are Christians, by our experience. The psalmist says we are to be haunted by god. The abiding consciousness of the life is to be god, not thinking about him. The whole of our life inside and out is to be absolutely haunted by the presence of god. A childs consciousness is so mother-haunted that although the child is not consciously thinking of its mother, yet when calamity arises, the relationship that abides is that of the mother. So we are to live and move and have our being in god, to look at everything in relation to god, because the abiding consciousness of god pushes itself to the front all the time. If we are haunted by god, nothing else can get in, no cares, no tribulation, no anxieties. We see now why our lord so emphasised the sin of worry. How can we dare be so utterly unbelieving when god is round about us? To be haunted by god is to have an effective barricade against all the onslaughts of the enemy. His soul shall dwell at ease. In tribulation, misunderstanding, slander, in the midst of all these

Things, if our life is hid with Christ in god, he will keep us at ease. We rob ourselves of the marvellous revelation of this abiding companionship of god. God is our refuge nothing can come through that shelter.

June 3   The secret of the lord

The secret [friendship, rv ] of the lord is with them that fear him. Psalm 25:14

What is the sign of a friend? That he tells you secret sorrows? No, that he tells you secret joys. Many will confide to you their secret sorrows, but the last mark of intimacy is to confide secret joys. Have we ever let god tell us any of his joys, or are we telling god our secrets so continually that we leave no room for him to talk to us? At the beginning of our christian life we are full of requests to god, then we find that god wants to get us into relationship with himself, to get us in touch with his purposes. Are we so wedded to jesus christs idea of prayer thy will be done that we catch the secrets of god? The things that make god dear to us are not so much his great big blessings as the tiny things, because they show his amazing intimacy with us; he knows every detail of our individual lives. . . . Him shall he teach in the way that he shall choose. At first we want the consciousness of being guided by god, then as we go on we live so much in the consciousness of god that we do not need to ask what his will is, because the thought of choosing any other will never occur to us. If we are saved and sanctified god guides us by our ordinary choices, and if we are going to choose what he does not want, he will check, and we must heed. Whenever there is doubt, stop at once. Never reason it out and sayi wonder why i shouldnt? God instructs us in what we choose, that is, he guides our common sense, and we no longer hinder his spirit by continually saying now, lord, what is thy will?

June 4   The never-failing God

For he hath said, i will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. Hebrews 13:5

What line does my thought take? Does it turn to what god says or to what i fear? Am i learning to say not what god says, but to say something after i have heard what he says? He hath said, i will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, the lord is my helper, and i will not fear what man shall do unto me. I will in no wise fail thee (rv)not for all my sin and selfishness and stubbornness and waywardness. Have i really let god say to me that he will never fail me? If i have listened to this say-so of gods, then let me listen again. Neither will i in any wise forsake thee (rv ). Sometimes it is not difficulty that makes me think god will forsake me, but drudgery. There is no hill difficulty to climb, no vision given, nothing wonderful or beautiful, just the commonplace day in and day out can i hear gods say-so in these things? We have the idea that god is going to do some exceptional thing, that he is preparing and fitting us for some extraordinary thing by and by, but as we go on in grace we find that god is glorifying himself here and now, in the present minute. If we have gods say-so behind us, the most amazing strength comes, and we learn to sing in the ordinary days and ways.

June 5    Gods say-so

He hath said . . . So that we may boldly say . . . Hebrews 13:56

My say-so is to be built on gods say-so. God says i will never leave thee, then i can with good courage say the lord is my helper, i will not fear i will not be haunted by apprehension. This does not mean that i will not be tempted to fear, but i will remember gods say-so. I will be full of courage, like a child bucking himself up to reach the standard his father wants. Faith in many a one falters when the apprehensions come, they forget the meaning of gods say-so, forget to take a deep breath spiritually. The only way to get the dread taken out of us is to listen to gods say-so. What are you dreading? You are not a coward about it, you are going to face it, but there is a feeling of dread. When there is nothing and no one to help you, say but the lord is my helper, this second, in my present outlook. Are you learning to say things after listening to god, or are you saying things and trying to make gods word fit in? Get hold of the fathers say- so, and then say with good courage i will not fear. It does not matter what evil or wrong may be in the way, he has saidi will never leave thee. Frailty is another thing that gets in between gods say-so and ours. When we realise how feeble we are in facing difficulties, the difficulties become like giants, we become like grasshoppers, and god becomes a Nonentity. Remember gods say-so i will in no wise fail you (rv). Have we learned to sing after hearing gods key-note? Are we always possessed with the courage to say the lord is my helper, or are we succumbing?

June 6   Work out what god works in

Work out your own salvation. Philippians 2:12 

Your will agrees with god, but in your flesh there is a disposition which renders you powerless to do what you know you ought to do. When the lord is presented to the conscience, the first thing conscience does is to rouse the will, and the will always agrees with god. You say but i do not know whether my will is in agreement with god. Look to jesus and you will find that your will and your conscience are in agreement with him every time. The thing in you which makes you say i shant is something less profound than your will; it is perversity, or obstinacy, and they are never in agreement with god. The profound thing in man is his will, not sin. Will is the essential element in gods creation of man: sin is a perverse disposition which entered into man. In a regenerated man the source of will is almighty, for it is god which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. You have to work out with concentration and care what god works in; not work your own salvation, but work it out, while you base resolutely in unshaken faith on the complete and perfect redemption of the lord. As you do this, you do not bring an opposed will to gods will, gods will is your will, and your natural choices are along the line of gods will, and the life is as natural as breathing. God is the source of your will, therefore you are able to work out his will. Obstinacy is an unintelligent wadge that refuses to be enlightened; the only thing is for it to be blown up with dynamite, and the dynamite is obedience to the holy spirit. Do i believe that almighty god is the source of my will? God not only expects me to do his will, but he is in me to do it.

June 7   Dont slack off

Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will i do. John 14:13

Am i fulfilling this ministry of the interior? There is no snare, or any danger of infatuation or pride in intercession, it is a hidden ministry that brings forth fruit whereby the father is glorified. Am i allowing my spiritual life to be frittered away, or am i bringing it all to one centre the atonement of my lord? Is Jesus christ more and more dominating every interest in my life? If the one central point, the great exerting influence in my life, is the atonement of the lord, then every phase of my life will bear fruit for him. I must take time to realise what is the central point of power. Do i give one minute out of sixty to concentrate upon it? If ye abide in me continue to act and think and work from that centre ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Am i abiding? Am i taking time to abide? What is the greatest factor of power in my life? Is it work, service, sacrifice for others, or trying to work for god? The thing that ought to exert the greatest power in my life is the atonement of the lord. It is not the thing we spend the most time on that moulds us most; the greatest element is the thing that exerts most power. We must determine to be limited and concentrate our affinities. Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will i do. The disciple who abides in jesus is the will of god, and his apparently free choices are gods fore- ordained decrees. Mysterious? Logically contradictory and absurd? Yes, but a glorious truth to a saint.

June 8   What next?

Determine to know more than others if ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them. John 13:17

If you do not cut the moorings, god will have to break them by a storm and send you out. Launch all on god, go out on the great swelling tide of his purpose, and you will get your eyes open. If you believe in jesus, you are not to spend all your time in the smooth waters just inside the harbour bar, full of delight, but always moored; you have to get out through the harbour bar into the great deeps of god and begin to know for yourself, begin to have spiritual discernment. When you know you should do a thing, and do it, immediately you know more. Revise where you have become stodgy spiritually, and you will find it goes back to a point where there was something you knew you should do, but you did not do it because there seemed no immediate call to, and now you have no perception, no discernment; at a time of crisis you are spiritually distracted instead of spiritually self-possessed. It is a dangerous thing to refuse to go on knowing

The counterfe it of obedience is a state of mind in which you work up occasions to sacrifice yourself; ardour is mistaken for discernment. It is easier to sacrifice yourself than to fulfil your spiritual destiny, which is stated in romans 12:12. It is a great deal better to fulfil the purpose of god in your life by discerning his will than to perform great acts of self- sacrifice. To obey is better than sacrifice. Beware of harking back to what you were once when god wants you to be something you have never been. If any man will do . . . , he shall know. . . .

June 9   The next best thing to do

Ask if you have not received for every one that asketh receiveth. Luke 11:10

There is nothing more difficult than to ask. We will long and desire and crave and suffer, but not until we are at the extreme limit will we ask. A sense of unreality makes us ask. Have you ever asked out of the depths of moral poverty? If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of god. . . . But be sure that you do lack wisdom. You cannot bring yourself up against reality when you like. The next best thing to do if you are not spiritually real, is to ask god for the holy spirit on the word of jesus christ (see luke 11:13). The holy spirit is the one who makes real in you all that jesus did for you. For every one that asketh receiveth. This does not mean you will not get if you do not ask (cf. Mat- thew 5:45), but until you get to the point of asking you wont receive from god. To receive means you have come into the relationship of a child of god, and now you perceive with intelligent and moral appreciation and spiritual understanding that these things come from god. If any of you lack wisdom . . . If you realise you are lacking, it is because you have come in con- tact with spiritual reality; do not put your reasonable blinkers on again. People say preach us the simple gospel: dont tell us we have to be holy, because that produces a sense of abject poverty, and it is not nice to feel abjectly poor. Ask means beg. Some people are poor enough to be interested in their poverty, and some of us are like that spiritually. We will never receive if we ask with an end in view; if we ask, not out of our poverty but out of our lust. A pauper does not ask from any other reason than the abject pang- ing condition of his poverty, he is not ashamed to beg. Blessed are the paupers in spirit.

June 10   The next best thing to do

Seek if you have not found seek, and ye shall find. Luke 11:9

Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss. If you ask for things from life instead of from god, you ask amiss, that is, you ask from a desire for self- realisation. The more you realise yourself the less will you seek god. Seek, and ye shall find. Get to work, narrow your interests to this one. Have you ever sought god with your whole heart, or have you only given a languid cry to him after a twinge of moral neuralgia? Seek, concentrate, and you will find. Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters. Are you thirsty, or smugly indifferent so satisfied with your experience that you want nothing more of god? Experience is a gateway, not an end. Beware of building your faith on experience, the metallic note will come in at once, the censorious note. You can never give another person that which you have found, but you can make him homesick for what you have. Draw nigh to god. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you. Knock the door is closed, and you suffer from palpitation as you knock. Cleanse your hands knock a bit louder, you begin to find you are dirty. Purify your heart this is more personal still, you are desperately in earnest now you will do anything. Be afflicted have you ever been afflicted before god at the state of your inner life? There is no strand of self-pity left, but a heartbreaking affliction of amazement to find you are the kind of person that you are. Humble yourself it is a humbling business to knock at gods door you have to knock with the crucified thief. To him that knocketh, it shall be opened.

June 11   Getting there

Where the sin and the sorrow cease and the song and the saint commence come unto me. Matthew 11:28

Do i want to get there? I can now. The questions that matter in life are remarkably few, and they are all answered by the words come unto me. Not do this, or dont do that; but come unto me. If i will come to Jesus my actual life will be Brought into accordance with my real desires; i will actually cease from sin, and actually find the song of the lord begin. Have you ever come to Jesus? Watch the stubbornness of your heart, you will do anything rather than the one simple childlike thing come unto me. If you want the actual experience of ceasing from sin, you must come to jesus. Jesus christ makes himself the touchstone. Watch how he used the word come. At the most unexpected moments there is the whisper of the lord come unto me, and you are drawn immediately. Personal contact with Jesus alters everything. Be stupid enough to come and commit yourself to what he says. The attitude of coming is that the will resolutely lets go of everything and deliberately commits all to him. And i will give you rest, i. E. , i will stay you. Not i will put you to bed and hold your hand and sing you to sleep; buti will get you out of bed, out of the languor and exhaustion, out of the state of being half dead while you are alive; i will imbue you with the spirit of life, and you will be stayed by the perfection of vital activity. We get pathetic and talk about suffering the will of the lord! Where is the majestic vitality and might of the son of god about that?

June 12   Getting there

Where the self-interest sleeps and the real interest awakens master, where dwellest thou? . . . Come and see. . . . John 1:3839

Come with me they . . . Abode with him that day. That is about all some of us ever do, then we wake up to actualities, self-interest arises and the abiding is passed. There is no condition of life in which we cannot abide in Jesus. Thou art Simon . . . : thou shalt be called cephas. God writes the new name on those places only in our lives where he has erased the pride and self- sufficiency and self-interest. Some of us have the new name in spots only, like spiritual measles. In sections we look all right. When we have our best spiritual mood on, you would think we were very high-toned saints; but dont look at us when we are not in that mood. The disciple is one who has the new name written all over him; self-interest and pride and self- sufficiency have been completely erased. Pride is the deification of self, and this today in some of us is not of the order of the pharisee, but of the publican. To say oh, im no saint, is acceptable to human pride, but it is unconscious blasphemy against god. It literally means that you defy god to make you a saint. I am much too weak and hopeless, i am outside the reach of the atonement. Humility before men may be unconscious blasphemy before god. Why are you not a saint? It is either that you do not want to be a saint, or that you do not believe god can make you one. It would be all right, you say, if god saved you and took you straight to heaven. That is just what he will do! We will come unto him, and make our abode with him. Make no conditions, let Jesus be everything, and he will take you home with him not only for a day, but for ever.

June 13    Getting there

Here the selective affinity dies and the sanctified abandon lives come ye after me. Mark 1:17

One of the greatest hindrances in coming to Jesus is the excuse of temperament. We make our temperament and our natural affinities barriers to coming to Jesus. The first thing we realise when we come to Jesus is that he pays no attention whatever to our natural affinities. We have the notion that we can consecrate our gifts to god. You cannot consecrate what is not yours; there is only one thing you can consecrate to god, and that is your right to yourself (Romans 12:1). If you will give god your right to yourself, he will make a holy experiment out of you. Gods experiments always succeed. The one mark of a saint is the moral originality which springs from abandonment to jesus christ. In the life of a saint there is this amazing wellspring of original life all the time; the spirit of god is a well of water springing up, perennially fresh. The saint realises that it is god who engineers circumstances, consequently there is no whine, but a reckless abandon to jesus. Never make a principle out of your experience; let god be as original with other people as he is with you. If you abandon to Jesus, and come when he says come, he will continue to say come through you; you will go out into life reproducing the echo of christs come. That is the result in every soul who has abandoned and come to jesus. Have i come to Jesus? Will i come now?

June 14   Get a move on In the Matter of Determination 

Abide in Me. John 15:4

The Spirit of Jesus is put into me by the Atonement, then I have to construct with patience the way of thinking that is exactly in accordance with my Lord. God will not make me think like Jesus, I have to do it myself; I have to bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. Abide in Mein intellectual matters, in money matters, in every one of the matters that make human life what it is. It is not a bandbox18 life.

Am I preventing God from doing things in my circumstances because I say it will hinder my communion with Him? That is an impertinence. It does not matter what my circumstances are, I can be as sure of abiding in Jesus in them as in a prayer meeting. I have not to change and arrange my circumstances myself. With Our Lord the inner abiding was unsullied; He was at home with God wherever His body was placed. He never chose His own circumstances, but was meek towards His Fathers dispensations for Him. Think of the amazing leisure of Our Lords Life! We keep God at excitement point, there is none of the serenity of the life hid with Christ in God about us. Think of the things that take you out of abiding in Christ Yes, Lord, just a minute, I have got this to do; Yes, I will abide when once this is finished; when this week is over, it will be all right, I will abide then. Get a move on; begin to abide now. In the initial stages it is a continual effort until it becomes so much the law of life that you abide in Him unconsciously. Determine to abide in Jesus wherever you are placed.

June 15   Get a move on In the Matter of Drudgery

And beside this, . . . add . . . 2 Peter 1:5

You have inherited the Divine nature, says Peter (v. 4), now screw your attention down and form habits, give diligence, concentrate. Add means all that character means. No man is born either naturally or supernaturally with character; he has to make character. Nor are we born with habits; we have to form habits on the basis of the new life God has put into us. We are not meant to be illuminated versions, but the common stuff of ordinary life exhibiting the marvel of the grace of God. Drudgery is the touchstone of character. The great hindrance in spiritual life is that we will look for big things to do. Jesus . . . took a towel, . . . and began to wash the disciples feet. There are times when there is no illumination and no thrill, but just the daily round, the common task. Routine is Gods way of saving us between our times of inspiration. Do not expect God always to give you His thrilling minutes, but learn to live in the domain of drudgery by the power of God. It is the adding that is difficult. We say we do not expect God to carry us to heaven on flowery beds of ease, and yet we act as if we did! The tiniest detail in which I obey has all the omnipotent power of the grace of God behind it. If I do my duty, not for dutys sake, but because I believe God is engineering my circumstances, then at the very point of my obedience the whole superb grace of God is mine through the Atonement.

June 16    what do you make of this?

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. . . . I have called you friends. John 15:13, 15

Jesus does not ask me to die for Him, but to lay down my life for Him. Peter saidI will lay down my life for Thy sake, and he meant it; his sense of the heroic was magnificent. It would be a bad thing to be incapable of making such a declaration as Peter made; the sense of our duty is only realised by our sense of the heroic. Has the Lord ever asked you Wilt thou lay down thy life for My sake? It is far easier to die than to lay down the life day in and day out with the sense of the high calling. We are not made for brilliant moments, but we have to walk in the light of them in ordinary ways. There was only one brilliant moment in the life of Jesus, and that was on the Mount of Transfiguration; then He emptied Himself the second time of His glory, and came down into the demon-possessed valley. For thirty-three years Jesus laid out His life to do the will of His Father, and, John says, we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. It is contrary to human nature to do it. If I am a friend of Jesus, I have deliberately and carefully to lay down my life for Him. It is difficult, and thank God it is difficult. Salvation is easy because it cost God so much, but the manifestation of it in my life is difficult. God saves a man and endues him with the Holy Spirit, and then says in effect Now work it out, be loyal to Me, whilst the nature of things round about you would make you disloyal. I have called you friends. Stand loyal to your Friend, and remember that His honour is at stake in your bodily life.

June 17    The uncritical temper

Judge not, that ye be not judged. Matthew 7:1

Jesus says regarding judging Dont. The average Christian is the most penetratingly critical individual. Criticism is a part of the ordinary faculty of man; but in the spiritual domain nothing is accomplished by criticism. The effect of criticism is a dividing up of the powers of the one criticised; the Holy Ghost is the One in the true position to criticise, He alone is able to show what is wrong without hurting and wounding. It is impossible to enter into communion with God when you are in a critical temper; it makes you hard and vindictive and cruel, and leaves you with the flattering unction that you are a superior person. Jesus says, as a disciple, cultivate the uncritical temper. It is not done once and for all. Beware of anything that puts you in the superior persons place. There is no getting away from the penetration of Jesus. If I see the mote in your eye, it means I have a beam in my own. Every wrong thing that I see in you, God locates in me. Every time I judge, I condemn myself (see Romans 2:1720). Stop having a mea- suring rod for other people. There is always one fact more in every mans case about which we know nothing. The first thing God does is to give us a spiritual spring-cleaning; there is no possibility of pride left in a man after that. I have never met the man I could despair of after discerning what lies in me apart from the grace of God.

June 18   Dont think now, take the road

And Peter . . . walked on the water, to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid. Matthew 14:2930

The wind was actually boisterous, the waves were actually high, but Peter did not see them at first. He did not reckon with them, he simply recognised his Lord, and stepped out in recognition of Him and walked on the water. Then he began to reckon with the actual things, and down he went instantly. Why could not our Lord have enabled him to walk at the bottom of the waves as well as on the top of them? Neither could be done saving by recognition of the Lord Jesus. We step right out on God over some things, then self-consideration enters in and down we go. If you are recognising your Lord, you have no business with where He engineers your circumstances. The actual things are, but immediately you look at them you are overwhelmed, you cannot recognise Jesus, and the rebuke comes: Wherefore didst thou doubt? Let actual circumstances be what they may, keep recognising Jesus, maintain complete reliance on Him. If you debate for a second when God has spoken, it is all up. Never begin to say Well, I wonder if He did speak? Be reckless immediately, fling it all out on Him. You do not know when His voice will come, but whenever the realisation of God comes in the faintest way imaginable, recklessly abandon. It is only by abandon that you recognise Him. You will only realise His voice more clearly by recklessness.

June 19   The service of passionate devotion Lovest thou Me?

. . . Feed My sheep. John 21:17

Jesus did not say Make converts to your way of thinking, but look after My sheep, see that they get nourished in the knowledge of Me. We count as service what we do in the way of Christian work; Jesus Christ calls service what we are to Him, not what we do for Him. Discipleship is based on devotion to Jesus Christ, not on adherence to a belief or a creed. If any man come to Me, and hate not . . . , he cannot be My disciple. There is no argument and no compulsion, but simplify you would be My disciple, you must be devoted to Me. A man touched by the Spirit of God suddenly says Now I see Who Jesus is, and that is the source of devotion. To-day we have substituted credal belief for personal belief, and that is why so many are devoted to causes and so few devoted to Jesus Christ. People do not want to be devoted to Jesus, but only to the cause He started. Jesus Christ is a source of deep offense to the educated mind of to-day that does not want Him in any other way than as a Comrade. Our Lords first obedience was to the will of His Father, not to the needs of men; the saving of men was the natural outcome of His obedience to the Father. If I am devoted to the cause of humanity only, I will soon be exhausted and come to the place where my love will falter; but if I love Jesus Christ personally and passionately, I can serve humanity though men treat me as a door-mat. The secret of a disciples life is devotion to Jesus Christ, and the characteristic of the life is its unobtrusiveness. It is like a corn of wheat, which falls into the ground and dies, but presently it will spring up and alter the whole landscape (see John 12:24).

June 20   Have you come to when yet?

And the Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends. Job 42:10

The plaintive, self-centred, morbid kind of prayer, a dead-set that I want to be right, is never found in the New Testament. The fact that I am trying to be right with God is a sign that I am rebelling against the Atonement. Lord, I will purify my heart if You will answer my prayer; I will walk rightly if You will help me. I cannot make myself right with God, I cannot make my life perfect; I can only be right with God if I accept the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ as an absolute gift. Am I humble enough to accept it? I have to resign every kind of claim and cease from every effort, and leave myself entirely alone in His hands, and then begin to pour out in the priestly work of intercession. There is much prayer that arises from real disbelief in the Atonement. Jesus is not begin- ning to save us, He has saved us, the thing is done, and it is an insult to ask Him to do it. If you are not getting the hundredfold more, not getting insight into Gods word, then start praying for your friends, enter into the ministry of the inte- rior. The Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends. The real business of your life as a saved soul is intercessory prayer. Wherever God puts you in circumstances, pray immediately, pray that His Atonement may be realised in other lives as it has been in yours. Pray for your friends now; pray for those with whom you come in contact now.

June 21     The ministry of the Interior

But ye are . . . a royal priesthood. 1 Peter 2:9

By what right do we become a royal priesthood? By the right of the Atonement. Are we prepared to leave ourselves resolutely alone and to launch out into the priestly work of prayer? The continual grubbing on the inside to see whether we are what we ought to be, generates a self-centred, morbid type of Christi- anity, not the robust, simple life of the child of God. Until we get into a right relationship to God, it is a case of hanging on by the skin of our teeth, and we say What a wonderful victory I have got! There is nothing indicative of the miracle of Redemption in that. Launch out in reckless belief that the Redemption is complete, and then bother no more about yourself, but begin to do as Jesus Christ said pray for the friend who comes to you at midnight, pray for the saints, pray for all men. Pray on the realisation that you are only perfect in Christ Jesus, not on this plea O Lord, I have done my best, please hear me. How long is it going to take God to free us from the morbid habit of thinking about ourselves? We must get sick unto death of ourselves, until there is no longer any surprise at anything God can tell us about ourselves. We cannot touch the depths of meanness in ourselves. There is only one place where we are right, and that is in Christ Jesus. When we are there, we have to pour out for all we are worth in the min- istry of the interior.

June   22 the undeviating test

For with what judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. Matthew 7:2

This statement is not a haphazard guess, it is an eter- nal law of God. Whatever judgement you give, it is measured to you again. There is a difference between retaliation and retribution. Jesus says that the basis of life is retribution with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. If you have been shrewd in finding out the defects in others, remember that will be exactly the measure given to you. Life serves back in the coin you pay. This law works from Gods throne downwards (cf. Psalm 18:2526). Romans 2 applies it in a still more definite way, and says that the one who criticises another is guilty of the very same thing. God looks not only at the act, He looks at the possibility. We do not believe the statements of the Bible to begin with. For instance, do we believe this statement, that the things we criticise in others we are guilty of ourselves? The reason we see hypocrisy and fraud and unreality in others is because they are all in our own hearts. The great characteristic of a saint is humility Yes, all those things and other evils would have been manifested in me but for the grace of God; therefore I have no right to judge. Jesus says Judge not, that ye be not judged; if you do judge, it will be measured to you exactly as you have judged. Who of us would dare to stand before God and say My God, judge me as I have judged my fellow men? We have judged our fellow men as sinners; if God should judge us like that we would be in hell. God judges us through the marvellous Atonement of Jesus Christ.

June 23   Acquaintance with Grief

A Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. Isaiah 53:3

We are not acquainted with grief in the way in which Our Lord was acquainted with it; we endure it, we get through it, but we do not become intimate with it. At the beginning of life we do not reconcile our- selves to the fact of sin. We take a rational view of life and say that a man by controlling his instincts, and by educating himself, can produce a life which will slowly evolve into the life of God. But as we go on, we find the presence of something which we have not taken into consideration, viz. , sin, and it upsets all our calculations. Sin has made the basis of things wild and not rational. We have to recognise that sin is a fact, not a defect; sin is red-handed mutiny against God. Either God or sin must die in my life. The New Testament brings us right down to this one issue. If sin rules in me, Gods life in me will be killed; if God rules in me, sin in me will be killed. There is no possible ultimate but that. The climax of sin is that it crucified Jesus Christ, and what was true in the his- tory of God on earth will be true in your history and in mine. In our mental outlook we have to reconcile ourselves to the fact of sin as the only explanation as to why Jesus Christ came, and the explanation of the grief and sorrow in life.

June 24   Reconciling ones self to the Fact of sin

This is your hour, and the power of darkness. Luke 22:53

It is not being reconciled to the fact of sin that pro- duces all the disasters in life. You may talk about the nobility of human nature, but there is something in human nature which will laugh in the face of every ideal you have. If you refuse to agree with the fact that there is vice and self-seeking, something down- right spiteful and wrong in human beings, instead of reconciling yourself to it when it strikes your life, you will compromise with it and say it is of no use to battle against it. Have you made allowance for this hour and the power of darkness, or do you take a recognition of yourself that misses out sin? In your bodily relationships and friendships do you reconcile yourself to the fact of sin? If not, you will be caught round the next corner and you will com- promise with it. If you reconcile yourself to the fact of sin, you will realise the danger at once Yes, I see what that would mean. The recognition of sin does not destroy the basis of friendship; it establishes a mutual regard for the fact that the basis of life is tragic. Always beware of an estimate of life which does not recognise the fact that there is sin. Jesus Christ never trusted human nature, yet He was never cynical, never suspicious, because He trusted absolutely in what He could do for human nature. The pure man or woman, not the innocent, is the safe- guarded man or woman. You are never safe with an innocent man or woman. Men and women have no business to be innocent; God demands that they be pure and virtuous. Innocence is the characteristic of a child; it is a blameworthy thing for a man or woman not to be reconciled to the fact of sin.

June 25     Receiving ones self In the Fires of sorrow 

What shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? [mg] But for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify Thy name. John 12:2729 (rv)

My attitude as a saint to sorrow and difficulty is not to ask that they may be prevented, but to ask that I may preserve the self God created me to be through every fire of sorrow. Our Lord received Himself in the fire of sorrow, He was saved not from the hour, but out of the hour. We say that there ought to be no sorrow, but there is sorrow, and we have to receive ourselves in its fires. If we try and evade sorrow, refuse to lay our account with it, we are foolish. Sorrow is one of the biggest facts in life; it is no use saying sorrow ought not to be. Sin and sorrow and suffering are, and it is not for us to say that God has made a mistake in allowing them. Sorrow burns up a great amount of shallowness, but it does not always make a man better. Suffering either gives me my self or it destroys my self. You cannot receive your self in success, you lose your head; you cannot receive your self in monotony, you grouse. The way to find your self is in the fires of sorrow. Why it should be so is another matter, but that it is so is true in the Scriptures and in human experience. You always know the man who has been through the fires of sorrow and received himself, you are certain you can go to him in trouble and find that he has ample leisure for you. If a man has not been through the fires of sorrow, he is apt to be contemptuous, he has no time for you. If you receive yourself in the fires of sorrow, God will make you nourishment for other people.

June 26   Always now

We . . . beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain. 2 Corinthians 6:1

The grace you had yesterday will not do for to- day. Grace is the overflowing favour of God; you can always reckon it is there to draw upon. In much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses that is where the test for patience comes. Are you failing the grace of God there? Are you saying Oh, well, I wont count this time? It is not a question of praying and asking God to help you; it is taking the grace of God now. We make prayer the preparation for work, it is never that in the Bible. Prayer is the exercise of drawing on the grace of God. Dont say I will endure this until I can get away and pray. Pray now; draw on the grace of God in the moment of need. Prayer is the most practical thing, it is not the reflex action of devotion. Prayer is the last thing in which we learn to draw on Gods grace. In stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labour sin all these things manifest a drawing upon the grace of God that will make you a marvel to yourself and to others. Draw now, not presently: The one word in the spiritual vocabulary is Now. Let circumstances bring you where they will, keep draw- ing on the grace of God in every conceivable condition you may be in. One of the greatest proofs that you are drawing on the grace of God is that you can be humiliated without manifesting the slightest trace of anything but His grace. Having nothing. . . . Never reserve anything. Pour out the best you have, and always be poor. Never be diplomatic and careful about the treasure God gives. This is poverty triumphant.

June 27    the over shadowing personal deliverance

I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord . Jeremiah 1:8

God promised Jeremiah that He would deliver him personally Thy life will I give unto thee for a prey. That is all God promises His children. Wherever God sends us, He will guard our lives. Our personal property and possessions are a matter of indifference, we have to sit loosely to all these things; if we do not, there will be panic and heartbreak and distress. That is the in wardness of the overshadowing of personal deliverance. The Sermon on the Mount indicates that when we are on Jesus Christs errands, there is no time to stand up for ourselves. Jesus says, in effect, Do not be bothered with whether you are being justly dealt with or not. To look for justice is a sign of deflection from devotion to Him. Never look for justice in this world, but never cease to give it. If we look for justice, we will begin to grouse and to indulge in the discontent of self pity Why should I be treated like this? If we are devoted to Jesus Christ we have nothing to do with what we meet, whether it is just or unjust. Jesus says Go steadily on with what I have told you to do and I will guard your life. If you try to guard it yourself, you remove yourself from My deliverance. The most devout among us become atheistic in this connection; we do not believe God, we enthrone common sense and tack the name of God on to it. We do lean to our own understanding, instead of trusting God with all our hearts.

June 28     Apprehended by God

If that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended. Philippians 3:12

Never choose to be a worker; but when once God has put His call on you, woe be to you if you turn to the right hand or to the left. We are not here to work for God because we have chosen to do so, but because God has apprehended us. There is never any thought of Oh well, I am not fitted for this. What you are to preach is determined by God, not by your own natural inclinations. Keep your soul steadfastly related to God, and remember that you are called not to bear testimony only, but to preach the gospel.

Every Christian must testify, but when it comes to the call to preach, there must be the agonising grip of Gods hand on you. Your life is in the grip of God for that one thing. How many of us are held like that? Never water down the word of God; preach it in its undiluted sternness. There must be unflinching loyalty to the word of God; but when you come to personal dealing with your fellow men, remember who you are not a special being made up in heaven, but a sinner saved by grace. I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do . . .

June 29   Direction of discipline

And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. Matthew 5:30

Jesus did not say that everyone must cut off the right hand, but If your right hand offends you in your walk with Me, cut it off. There are many things that are perfectly legitimate, but if you are going to concentrate on God you cannot do them. Your right hand is one of the best things you have, but Jesus says if it hinders you in following His precepts, cut it off. This line of discipline is the sternest one that ever struck mankind. When God alters a man by regeneration, the characteristic of the life to begin with is that it is maimed. There are a hundred and one things you dare not do, things that to you and in the eyes of the world that knows you are as your right hand and your eye, and the unspiritual person says Whatever is wrong in that? How absurd you are! There never has been a saint yet who did not have to live a maimed life to start with. But it is better to enter into life maimed and lovely in Gods sight than to be lovely in mans sight and lame in Gods. In the beginning Jesus Christ by His Spirit has to check you from doing a great many things that may be perfectly right for everyone else but not right for you. See that you do not use your limitations to criticise someone else. It is a maimed life to begin with, but in v. 48 Jesus gives the picture of a perfectly full-orbed life Ye shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

June 30    Do It now

Agree with thine adversary quickly. Matthew 5:25

Jesus Christ is laying down this principle Do what you know you must do, now, and do it quickly; if you do not, the inevitable process will begin to work and you will have to pay to the last farthing in pain and agony and distress. Gods laws are unalterable; there is no escape from them. The teaching of Jesus goes straight to the way we are made up. To see that my adversary gives me my rights is natural; but Jesus says that it is a matter of eternal and imperative importance to me that I pay my adversary what I owe him. From our Lords standpoint it does not matter whether I am defrauded or not; what does matter is that I do not defraud. Am I insisting on my rights, or am I paying what I owe from Jesus Christs standpoint? Do the thing quickly, bring yourself to judgement now. In moral and spiritual matters, you must do it at once; if you do not, the inexorable process will begin to work. God is determined to have His child as pure and clean and white as driven snow, and as long as there is disobedience in any point of His teaching, He will prevent none of the working of His Spirit. Our insistence in proving that we are right is nearly always an indication that there has been some point of disobedience. No wonder the Spirit so strongly urges to keep steadfastly in the light! Agree with thine adversary quickly. Have you suddenly turned a corner in any relationship and found that you had anger in your heart? Confess it quickly, quickly put it right before God, be reconciled to that one do it now.

July 1    The Inevitable penalty

Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou have paid the uttermost farthing. Matthew 5:26 (rv)

There is no heaven with a little of hell in it. God is determined to make you pure and holy and right; He will not allow you to escape for one moment from the scrutiny of the Holy Spirit. He urged you to come to judgement right away when He convicted you, but you did not; the inevitable process began to work and now you are in prison, and you will only get out when you have paid the uttermost farthing. Is this a God of mercy, and of love? you say. Seen from Gods side, it is a glorious ministry of love. God is going to bring you out pure and spotless and undefiled; but He wants you to recognise the disposition you were showing the disposition of your right to yourself. The moment you are willing that God should alter your disposition, His re-creating forces will begin to work. The moment you realise Gods purpose, which is to get you rightly related to Himself and then to your fellow men, He will tax the last limit of the uni- verse to help you take the right road. Decide it now Yes, Lord, I will write that letter to-night; I will be reconciled to that man now. These messages of Jesus Christ are for the will and the conscience, not for the head. If you dispute the Sermon on the Mount with your head, you will blunt the appeal to your heart. I wonder why I dont go on with God! Are you paying your debts from Gods standpoint? Do now what you will have to do some day. Every moral call has an ought behind it.

July 2    The conditions of discipleship

If any man come to Me, and hate not . . . , he cannot be My disciple. Luke 14:26, see also 27, 33

If the closest relationships of life clash with the claims of Jesus Christ, He says it must be instant obedience to Himself. Discipleship means personal, passionate devotion to a Person, Our Lord Jesus Christ. There is a difference between devotion to a Person and devotion to principles or to a cause. Our Lord never proclaimed a cause; He proclaimed personal devotion to Himself. To be a disciple is to be a devoted love- slave of the Lord Jesus. Many of us who call ourselves Christians are not devoted to Jesus Christ. No man on earth has this passionate love to the Lord Jesus unless the Holy Ghost has imparted it to him. We may admire Him, we may respect Him and reverence Him, but we cannot love Him. The only Lover of the Lord Jesus is the Holy Ghost, and He sheds abroad the very love of God in our hearts. Whenever the Holy Ghost sees a chance of glorifying Jesus, He will take your heart, your nerves, your whole personality, and simply make you blaze and glow with devotion to Jesus Christ. The Christian life is stamped by moral spontaneous originality, consequently the disciple is open to the same charge that Jesus Christ was, viz. , that of inconsistency. But Jesus Christ was always consistent to God, and the Christian must be consistent to the life of the Son of God in him, not consistent to hard and fast creeds. Men pour themselves into creeds, and God has to blast them out of their prejudices before they can become devoted to Jesus Christ.

July 3    The concentration of personal sin

Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips. Isaiah 6:5

When I get into the presence of God, I do not realise that I am a sinner in an indefinite sense; I realise the concentration of sin in a particular feature of my life. A man will say easily Oh yes, I know I am a sinner, but when he gets into the presence of God he cannot get off with that statement. The conviction is concentrated on I am this, or that, or the other. This is always the sign that a man or woman is in the presence of God. There is never any vague sense of sin, but the concentration of sin in some personal particular. God begins by convicting us of one thing fixed on in the mind that is prompted by His Spirit; if we will yield to His conviction on that point, He will lead us down to the great disposition of sin under- neath. That is the way God always deals with us when we are consciously in His presence. This experience of the concentration of sin is true in the greatest and the least of saints as well as in the greatest and the least of sinners. When a man is on the first rung of the ladder of experience, he may say I do not know where I have gone wrong, but the Spirit of God will point out some particular definite thing. The effect of the vision of the holiness of the Lord on Isaiah was to bring home to him that he was a man of unclean lips. And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. The cleansing fire had to be applied where the sin had been concentrated.

July 4    One of Gods Great donts

Fret not thyself, it tendeth only to evil doing. Psalm 37:8 (rv)

Fretting means getting out at elbows mentally or spiritually. It is one thing to say Fret not, but a very different thing to have such a disposition that you find yourself able not to fret. It sounds so easy to talk about resting in the Lord and waiting patiently for Him, until the nest is upset until we live, as so many are doing, in tumult and anguish, is it possible then to rest in the Lord? If this don’t does not work there, it will work nowhere. This don’t must work in days of perplexity as well as in days of peace, or it never will work. And if it will not work in your particular case, it will not work in anyone elses case. Resting in the Lord does not depend on external circumstances at all, but on your relationship to God Himself. Fussing always ends in sin. We imagine that a little anxiety and worry are an indication of how really wise we are; it is much more an indication of how really wicked we are. Fretting springs from a determination to get our own way. Our Lord never worried and He was never anxious, because He was not out to realise His own ideas; He was out to realise Gods ideas. Fretting is wicked if you are a child of God. Have you been bolstering up that stupid soul of yours with the idea that your circumstances are too much for God? Put all supposing on one side and dwell in the shadow of the Almighty. Deliberately tell God that you will not fret about that thing. All our fret and worry is caused by calculating without God.

July 5    Dont calculate without God

Commit thy way unto the Lord ; trust also in Him; and He shall bring it to pass. Psalm 37:5

Dont calculate without God. God seems to have a delightful way of upsetting the things we have calcu- lated on without taking Him into account. We get into circumstances which were not chosen by God, and suddenly we find we have been calculating without God; He has not entered in as a living factor. The one thing that keeps us from the possibility of worrying is bringing God in as the greatest factor in all our calculations. In our religion it is customary to put God first, but we are apt to think it is an impertinence to put Him first in the practical issues of our lives. If we imagine we have to put on our Sunday moods before we come near to God, we will never come near Him. We must come as we are. Dont calculate with the evil in view. Does God really mean us to take no account of the evil? Love . . . taketh not account of evil (rv). Love is not igno- rant of the existence of the evil, but it does not take it in as a calculating factor. Apart from God, we do reckon with evil; we calculate with it in view and work all reasonings from that standpoint. Dont calculate with the rainy day in view. You cannot lay up for a rainy day if you are trusting Jesus Christ. Jesus said Let not your heart be troubled. God will not keep your heart from being troubled. It is a commandLet not . . . Haul yourself up a hundred and one times a day in order to do it, until you get into the habit of putting God first and calculating with Him in view.

July 6     Vision and reality

And the parched ground shall become a pool. Isaiah 35:7

We always have visions before a thing is made real. When we realise that although the vision is real, it is not real in us, then is the time that Satan comes in with his temptations, and we are apt to say it is no use to go on. Instead of the vision becoming real, there has come the valley of humiliation.

Life is not as idle ore,
But iron dug from central gloom,
And batter’d by the shocks of doom
To shape and use.

God gives us the vision, then He takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of the vision, and it is in the valley that so many of us faint and give way. Every vision will be made real if we will have patience. Think of the enormous leisure of God! He is never in a hurry. We are always in such a frantic hurry. In the light of the glory of the vision we go forth to do things, but the vision is not real in us yet; and God has to take us into the valley, and put us through fires and floods to batter us into shape, until we get to the place where He can trust us with the veritable reality. Ever since we had the vision God has been at work, getting us into the shape of the ideal, and over and over again we escape from His hand and try to batter ourselves into our own shape. The vision is not a castle in the air, but a vision of what God wants you to be. Let Him put you on His wheel and whirl you as He likes, and as sure as God is God and you are you, you will turn out exactly in accordance with the vision. Dont lose heart in the process. If you have ever had the vision of God, you may try as you like to be satisfied on a lower level, but God will never let you.

July 7    All noble things are difficult

Enter ye in at the strait gate . . . : because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way. . . . Matthew 7:1314.

If we are going to live as disciples of Jesus, we have to remember that all noble things are difficult. The Christian life is gloriously difficult, but the difficulty of it does not make us faint and cave in, it rouses us up to overcome. Do we so appreciate the marvellous salvation of Jesus Christ that we are our utmost for His highest? God saves men by His sovereign grace through the Atonement of Jesus; He works in us to will and to do of His good pleasure; but we have to work out that salvation in practical living. If once we start on the basis of His Redemption to do what He commands, we find that we can do it. If we fail, it is because we have not practised. The crisis will reveal whether we have been practising or not. If we obey the Spirit of God and practise in our physical life what God has put in us by His Spirit, then when the crisis comes, we shall find that our own nature as well as the grace of God will stand by us. Thank God He does give us difficult things to do! His salvation is a glad thing, but it is also a heroic, holy thing. It tests us for all we are worth. Jesus is bringing many sons unto glory, and God will not shield us from the requirements of a son. Gods grace turns out men and women with a strong family likeness to Jesus Christ, not milksops. It takes a tremendous amount of discipline to live the noble life of a disciple of Jesus in actual things. It is always necessary to make an effort to be noble.

July 8    The will to loyalty

Choose you this day whom ye will serve. Joshua 24:15

Will is the whole man active. I cannot give up my will, I must exercise it. I must will to obey, and I must will to receive Gods Spirit. When God gives a vision of truth it is never a question of what He will do, but of what we will do. The Lord has been put- ting before us all some big propositions, and the best thing to do is to remember what you did when you were touched by God beforethe time when you were saved, or first saw Jesus, or realised some truth. It was easy then to yield allegiance to God; recall those moments now as the Spirit of God brings before you some new proposition. Choose you this day whom ye will serve. It is a deliberate calculation, not something into which you drift easily; and everything else is in abeyance until you decide. The proposition is between you and God; do not confer with flesh and blood about it. With every new proposition other people get more and more out of it, that is where the strain comes. God allows the opinion of His saints to matter to you, and yet you are brought more and more out of the certainty that others understand the step you are taking. You have no business to find out where God is leading, the only thing God will explain to you is Himself. Profess to Him I will be loyal. Immediately you choose to be loyal to Jesus Christ, you are a witness against yourself. Dont consult other Christians, but profess before Him I will serve Thee. Will to be loya land give other people credit for being loyal too.

July 9   The Great probing

Ye cannot serve the Lord . Joshua 24:19

Have you the slightest reliance on any thing other than God? Is there a remnant of reliance left on any natural virtue, any set of circumstances? Are you relying on yourself in any particular in this new proposition which God has put before you? That is what the probing means. It is quite true to sayI cannot live a holy life; but you can decide to let Jesus Christ make you holy. Ye cannot serve the Lord God but you can put yourself in the place where Gods Almighty power will work through you. Are you sufficiently right with God to expect Him to manifest His wonderful life in you? Nay; but we will serve the lord . It is not an impulse, but a deliberate commitment. You say But God can never have called me to this, I am too unworthy, it cant mean me. It does mean you, and the weaker and feebler you are, the better. The one who has something to trust in is the last one to come anywhere near saying I will serve the Lord. We say If I really could believe! The point is If I really will believe. No wonder Jesus Christ lays such emphasis on the sin of unbelief. And He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief. If we really believed that God meant what He said what should we be like! Dare I really let God be to me all that He says He will be?

July 10    The spiritual sluggard

Let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together. Hebrews 10:2425

We are all capable of being spiritual sluggards; we do not want to mix with the rough and tumble of life as it is, our one object is to secure retirement. The note struck in Hebrews 10 is that of provoking one another and of keeping togetherboth of which require initiative, the initiative of Christ- realisation, not of self- realisation. To live a remote, retired, secluded life is the antipodes of spirituality as Jesus Christ taught it. The test of our spirituality comes when we come up against injustice and meanness and ingratitude and turmoil, all of which have the tendency to make us spiritual sluggards. We want to use prayer and Bible reading for the purpose of retirement. We utilize God for the sake of getting peace and joy, that is, we do not want to realise Jesus Christ, but only our enjoyment of Him. This is the first step in the wrong direction. All these things are effects and we try to make them causes. I think it meet, said Peter, . . . to stir you up by putting you in remembrance. It is a most disturb- ing thing to be smitten in the ribs by some provoker of God, by someone who is full of spiritual activity. Active work and spiritual activity are not the same thing. Active work may be the counterfeit of spiritual activity. The danger of spiritual sluggishness is that we do not wish to be stirred up, all we want to hear about is spiritual retirement. Jesus Christ never encourages the idea of retirement Go tell My brethren . . .

July 11    The spiritual saint

That I may know Him. Philippians 3:10

The initiative of the saint is not towards self-realisation, but towards knowing Jesus Christ. The spiritual saint never believes circumstances to be haphazard, or thinks of his life as secular and sacred; he sees everything he is dumped down in as the means of securing the knowledge of Jesus Christ. There is a reckless abandonment about him. The Holy Spirit is determined that we shall realise Jesus Christ in every domain of life, and He will bring us back to the same point again and again until we do. Self-realisation leads to the enthronement of work; whereas the saint enthrones Jesus Christ in his work. Whether it be eating or drinking or washing disciples feet, what- ever it is, we have to take the initiative of realising Jesus Christ in it. Every phase of our actual life has its counterpart in the life of Jesus. Our Lord realised His relationship to the Father even in the most menial work. Jesus knowing . . . that He was come from God, and went to God; . . . took a towel, . . . and began to wash the disciples feet. The aim of the spiritual saint is that I may know Him. Do I know Him where I am to-day? If not, I am failing Him. I am here not to realise myself, but to know Jesus. In Christian work the initiative is too often the realisation that something has to be done and I must do it. That is never the attitude of the spiritual saint, his aim is to secure the realisation of Jesus Christ in every set of circumstances he is in.

July 12   The spiritual society

Till we all come . . . unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. Ephesians 4:13

Rehabilitation means the putting back of the whole human race into the relationship God designed it to be in, and this is what Jesus Christ did in Redemption. The Church ceases to be a spiritual society when it is on the look-out for the development of its own organisation. The rehabilitation of the human race on Jesus Christs plan means the realisation of Jesus Christ in corporate life as well as in individual life. Jesus Christ sent apostles and teachers for this purpose that the corporate Personality might be realised. We are not here to develop a spiritual life of our own, or to enjoy spiritual retirement; we are here so to realise Jesus Christ that the Body of Christ may be built up. Am I building up the Body of Christ, or am I looking for my own personal development only? The essential thing is my personal relationship to Jesus Christ That I may know Him. To fulfill Gods design means entire abandonment to him. Whenever I want things for myself, the relationship is distorted. It will be a big humiliation to realise that I have not been concerned about realising Jesus Christ, but only about realising what He has done for me.

My goal is God Himself, not joy nor peace,
Nor even blessing, but Himself, my God.

Am I measuring my life by this standard or by anything less?

July 13     The price of vision

In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord. Isaiah 6:1

Our souls history with God is frequently the history of the passing of the hero. Over and over again God has to remove our friends in order to bring Himself in their place, and that is where we faint and fail and get discouraged. Take it personally: In the year that the one who stood to me for all that God was, died I gave up everything? I became ill? I got disheartened? or I saw the Lord? My vision of God depends upon the state of my character. Character determines revelation. Before I can say I saw also the Lord, there must be some- thing corresponding to God in my character. Until I am born again and begin to see the Kingdom of God, I see along the line of my prejudices only; I need the surgical operation of external events and an internal purification. It must be God first, God second, and God third, until the life is faced steadily with God and no one else is of any account whatever. In all the world there is none but Thee, my God, there is none but Thee. Keep paying the price. Let God see that you are willing to live up to the vision.

July 14       The account with persecution

But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whoso- ever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. Matthew 5:39, etc.

These verses reveal the humiliation of being a Christian. Naturally, if a man does not hit back, it is because he is a coward; but spiritually if a man does not hit back, it is a manifestation of the Son of God in him. When you are insulted, you must not only not resent it, but make it an occasion to exhibit the Son of God. You cannot imitate the disposition of Jesus; it is either there or it is not. To the saint personal insult becomes the occasion of revealing the incredible sweetness of the Lord Jesus. The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is not Do your duty, but Do what is not your duty. It is not your duty to go the second mile, to turn the other cheek, but Jesus says if we are His disciples, we shall always do these things. There will be no spirit of Oh well, I cannot do any more, I have been so misrepresented and misunderstood. Every time I insist upon my rights, I hurt the Son of God; whereas I can prevent Jesus from being hurt if I take the blow myself. That is the meaning of filling up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ. The disciple realises that it is his Lords honour that is at stake in his life, not his own honour. Never look for right in the other man, but never cease to be right yourself. We are always looking for justice; the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount isNever look for justice, but never cease to give it.

July 15   The point of spiritual honour

I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians. Romans 1:14

Paul was overwhelmed with the sense of his indebtedness to Jesus Christ, and he spent himself to express it. The great inspiration in Pauls life was his view of Jesus Christ as his spiritual creditor. Do I feel that sense of indebtedness to Christ in regard to every unsaved soul? The spiritual honour of my life as a saint is to fulfill my debt to Christ in relation to them. Every bit of my life that is of value I owe to the Redemption of Jesus Christ; am I doing anything to enable Him to bring His Redemption into actual manifestation in other lives? I can only do it as the Spirit of God works in me this sense of indebtedness. I am not to be a superior person amongst men, but a bond slave of the Lord Jesus. Ye are not your own. Paul sold himself to Jesus Christ. He saysI am a debtor to everyone on the face of the earth because of the Gospel of Jesus; I am free to be an absolute slave only. That is the characteristic of the life when once this point of spiritual honour is realised. Quit praying about yourself and be spent for others as the bond- slave of Jesus. That is the meaning of being made broken bread and poured-out wine in reality.

July 16      The notion of divine control

How much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him? Matthew 7:11

Jesus is laying down rules of conduct for those who have His Spirit. By the simple argument of these verses He urges us to keep our minds filled with the notion of Gods control behind everything, which means that the disciple must maintain an attitude of perfect trust and an eagerness to ask and to seek. Notion your mind with the idea that God is there. If once the mind is notioned along that line, then when you are in difficulties it is as easy as breathing to remember Why, my Father knows all about it! It is not an effort, it comes naturally when perplexities press. Before, you used to go to this person and that, but now the notion of the Divine control is forming so powerfully in you that you go to God about it. Jesus is laying down the rules of conduct for those who have His Spirit, and it works on this principle God is my Father, He loves me, I shall never think of anything He will forget, why should I worry? There are times, says Jesus, when God cannot lift the darkness from you, but trust Him. God will appear like an unkind friend, but He is not; He will appear like an unnatural Father, but He is not; He will appear like an unjust judge, but He is not. Keep the notion of the mind of God behind all things strong and growing. Nothing happens in any particular unless Gods will is behind it, therefore you can rest in perfect confidence in Him. Prayer is not only asking, but an attitude of mind which produces the atmosphere in which asking is perfectly natural. Ask, and it shall be given you.

July 17 the miracle of belief

My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words. 1 Corinthians 2:4

Paul was a scholar and an orator of the first rank; he is not speaking out of abject humility, but saying that he would veil the power of God if, when he preached the gospel, he impressed people with his excellency of speech. Belief in Jesus is a miracle produced only by the efficacy of Redemption, not by impressiveness of speech, not by wooing and winning, but by the sheer unaided power of God. The creative power of the Redemption comes through the preaching of the Gospel, but never because of the personality of the preacher. The real fasting of the preacher is not from food, but rather from eloquence, from impressiveness and exquisite diction, from everything that might hinder the gospel of God being presented. The preacher is there as the representative of God as though God did beseech you by us. He is there to present the Gospel of God, not human ideals. If it is only because of my preaching that people desire to be better, they will never get anywhere near Jesus Christ. Anything that flatters me in my preaching of the Gospel will end in making me a traitor to Jesus; I prevent the creative power of His redemption from doing its work. I, if I be lifted up . . . , will draw all men unto Me.

July 18    The mystery of believing

And he said, Who art Thou, Lord? Acts 9:5 (rv )

By the miracle of Redemption Saul of Tarsus was turned in one second from a strong-willed, intense Pharisee into a humble, devoted slave of the Lord Jesus. There is nothing miraculous about the things we can explain. We command what we are able to explain, consequently it is natural to seek to explain. It is not natural to obey; nor is it necessarily sinful to disobey. There is no moral virtue in obedience unless there is a recognition of a higher authority in the one who dictates. It is possibly an emancipation to the other person if he does not obey. If one man says to another You must, and You shall, he breaks the human spirit and unfits it for God. A man is a slave for obeying unless behind his obedience there is a recognition of a holy God. Many a soul begins to come to God when he flings off being religious, because there is only one Master of the human heart, and that is not religion but Jesus Christ. But woe be to me if when I see Him I say I will not. He will never insist that I do, but I have begun to sign the death-warrant of the Son of God in my soul. When I stand face to face with Jesus Christ and sayI will not, He will never insist; but I am backing away from the re-creating power of His Redemption. It is a matter of indifference to Gods grace how abominable I am if I come to the light; but woe be to me if I refuse the light (see John 3:1921).

July 19   Mastery over the believer

Ye call Me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. John 13:13

Our Lord never insists on having authority; He never says Thou shalt. He leaves us perfectly free so free that we can spit in His face, as men did; so free that we can put Him to death, as men did; and He will never say a word. But when His life has been created in me by His Redemption, I instantly recognise His right to absolute authority over me. It is a moral domination Thou art worthy. . . . It is only the unworthy in me that refuses to bow down to the worthy. If when I meet a man who is more holy than myself, I do not recognise his worthiness and obey what comes through him, it is a revelation of the unworthy in me. God educates us by means of people who are little better than we are, not intellectually, but holly, until we get under the domination of the Lord Himself, and then the whole attitude of the life is one of obedience to Him. If Our Lord insisted upon obedience He would become a taskmaster, and He would cease to have any authority. He never insists on obedience, but when we do see Him we obey Him instantly. He is easily Lord, and we live in adoration of Him from morning till night. The revelation of my growth in grace is the way in which I look upon obedience. We have to res- cue the word obedience from the mire. Obedience is only possible between equals. It is the relationship between father and son, not between master and servant. I and My Father are one. Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered. The Sons obedience was as Redeemer, because He was Son, not in order to be Son.

July 20   Dependent on Gods presence

They that wait upon the Lord . . . shall walk, and not faint. Isaiah 40:31

There is no thrill in walking; it is the test of all the stable qualities. To walk and not faint is the highest reach possible for strength. The word walk is used in the Bible to express the character John, looking upon Jesus as He walked, said, Behold the Lamb of God! There is never anything abstract in the Bible, it is always vivid and real. God does not say Be spiritual, but Walk before Me. When we are in an unhealthy state physically or emotionally, we always want thrills. In the physical domain this will lead to counterfeiting the Holy Ghost; in the emotional life it leads to inordinate affection and the destruction of morality; and in the spiritual domain if we insist on getting thrills, on mounting up with wings, it will end in the destruction of spirituality. The reality of Gods presence is not dependent on any place, but only dependent upon the determination to set the Lord always before us. Our problems come when we refuse to bank on the reality of His presence. The experience the Psalmist speaks of Therefore will we not fear, though . . . will be ours when once we are based on Reality; not the consciousness of Gods presence but the reality of it Why, He has been here all the time. At critical moments it is necessary to ask guidance, but it ought to be unnecessary to be saying always Oh Lord, direct me here, and there. Of course He will! If our commonsense decisions are not Gods order, He will press through them and check; then we must be quiet and wait for the direction of His presence.

July 21     The Gateway to the kingdom

Blessed are the poor in spirit. Matthew 5:3

Beware of placing Our Lord as a Teacher first. If Jesus Christ is a Teacher only, then all He can do is to tantalise me by erecting a standard I cannot attain. What is the use of presenting me with an ideal I can- not possibly come near? I am happier without knowing it. What is the good of telling me to be what I never can be to be pure in heart, to do more than my duty, to be perfectly devoted to God? I must know Jesus Christ as Saviour before His teaching has any meaning for me other than that of an ideal which leads to despair. But when I am born again of the Spirit of God, I know that Jesus Christ did not come to teach only: He came to make me what He teaches I should be. The Redemption means that Jesus Christ can put into any man the disposition that ruled His own life, and all the standards God gives are based on that disposition. The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount produces despair in the natural man the very thing Jesus means it to do. As long as we have a self- righteous, conceited notion that we can carry out Our Lords teaching, God will allow us to go on until we break our ignorance over some obstacle, then we are willing to come to Him as paupers and receive from Him. Blessed are the paupers in spirit, that is the first principle in the kingdom of God. The bedrock in Jesus Christs kingdom is poverty, not possession; not decisions for Jesus Christ, but a sense of absolute futility I cannot begin to do it. Then Jesus says Blessed are you. That is the entrance, and it does take us a long while to believe we are poor! The knowledge of our own poverty brings us on to the moral frontier where Jesus Christ works.

July 22   Sanctification

This is the will of God, even your sanctification. 1 Thessalonians 4:3

The Death Side In sanctification God has to deal with us on the death side as well as on the life side. Many of us spend so much time in the place of death that we get sepulchral. There is always a battle royal before sanctification, always something that tugs with resentment against the demands of Jesus Christ. Immediately the Spirit of God begins to show us what sanctification means, the struggle begins. If any man come to Me, and hate not . . . his own life, he cannot be My disciple. The Spirit of God in the process of sanctification will strip me until I am nothing but myself, that is the place of death. Am I willing to be myself, and nothing more no friends, no father, no brother, no self-interest, simply ready for death? That is the condition of sanctification. No wonder Jesus said: I came not to send peace, but a sword. This is where the bat- tle comes, and where so many of us faint. We refuse to be identified with the death of Jesus on this point. But it is so stern, we say; He cannot wish me to do that. Our Lord is stern; and He does wish me to do that. Am I willing to reduce myself simply to me, determinedly to strip myself of all my friends think of me, of all I think of myself, and to hand that simple naked self over to God? Immediately I am, He will sanctify me wholly, and my life will be free from earnestness in connection with everything but God. When I pray Lord, show me what sanctification means for me, He will show me. It means being made one with Jesus. Sanctification is not something Jesus Christ puts into me: it is Himself in me.

July 23    Sanctification

Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us . . . sanctification. 1 Corinthians 1:30

The Life Side The mystery of sanctification is that the perfections of Jesus Christ are imparted to me, not gradually, but instantly when by faith I enter into the realisation that Jesus Christ is made unto me sanctification. Sanctification does not mean anything less than the holiness of Jesus being made mine manifestly. The one marvellous secret of a holy life lies not in imitating Jesus, but in letting the perfections of Jesus manifest themselves in my mortal flesh. Sanctification is Christ in you. It is His wonderful life that is imparted to me in sanctification, and imparted by faith as a sovereign gift of Gods grace. Am I willing for God to make sanctification as real in me as it is in His word? Sanctification means the impartation of the holy qualities of Jesus Christ. It is His patience, His love, His holiness, His faith, His purity, His godliness, that is manifested in and through every sanctified soul. Sanctification is not drawing from Jesus the power to be holy; it is drawing from Jesus the holiness that was manifested in Him, and He manifests it in me. Sanctification is an importation, not an imitation. Imitation is on a different line. In Jesus Christ is the perfection of everything, and the mystery of sanctification is that all the perfections of Jesus are at my disposal, and slowly and surely I begin to live a life of ineffable order and sanity and holiness Kept by the power of God.

July 24    Disposition and deeds

Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:20

The characteristic of a disciple is not that he does good things, but that he is good in motive because he has been made good by the supernatural grace of God. The only thing that exceeds right doing is right being. Jesus Christ came to put into any man who would let Him a new heredity which would exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. Jesus says If you are My disciple you must be right not only in your living, but in your motives, in your dreams, in the recesses of your mind. You must be so pure in your motives that God Almighty can see nothing to censure. Who can stand in the Eternal Light of God and have nothing for God to censure? Only the Son of God, and Jesus Christ claims that by His Redemption He can put into any man His own disposition, and make him as unsullied and as simple as a child. The purity which God demands is impossible unless I can be re-made within, and this is what Jesus has undertaken to do by His Redemption. No man can make himself pure by obeying laws. Jesus Christ does not give us rules and regulations; His teachings are truths that can only be interpreted by the disposition He puts in. The great marvel of Jesus Christs salvation is that He alters heredity. He does not alter human nature; He alters its mainspring.

July 25     Am I blessed like this?

Blessed are . . . Matthew 5:310

When we first read the statements of Jesus they seem wonderfully simple and startling, and they sink unobserved into our unconscious minds. For instance, the Beatitudes seem merely mild and beautiful precepts for all unworldly and useless people, but of very little practical use in the stern workaday world in which we live. We soon find, however, that the Beatitudes contain the dynamite of the Holy Ghost. They explode, as it were, when the circumstances of our lives cause them to do so. When the Holy Spirit brings to our remembrance one of these Beatitudes we say What a startling statement that is! and we have to decide whether we will accept the tremendous spiritual upheaval that will be produced in our circumstances if we obey His words. That is the way the Spirit of God works. We do not need to be born again to apply the Sermon on the Mount liter- ally. The literal interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount is childs play; the interpretation by the Spirit of God as He applies Our Lords statements to our circumstances is the stern work of a saint. The teaching of Jesus is out of all proportion to our natural way of looking at things, and it comes with astonishing discomfort to begin with. We have slowly to form our walk and conversation on the line of the precepts of Jesus Christ as the Holy Spirit applies them to our circumstances. The Sermon on the Mount is not a set of rules and regulations: it is a statement of the life we will live when the Holy Spirit is getting His way with us.

July 26    The account with purity

Out of the heart proceed . . . Matthew 15:1820

We begin by trusting our ignorance and calling it innocence, by trusting our innocence and calling it purity; and when we hear these rugged statements of Our Lords, we shrink and say But I never felt any of those awful things in my heart. We resent what Jesus Christ reveals. Either Jesus Christ is the supreme Authority on the human heart, or He is not worth paying any attention to. Am I prepared to trust His penetration, or do I prefer to trust my innocent ignorance? If I make conscious innocence the test, I am likely to come to a place where I find with a shuddering awakening that what Jesus Christ said is true, and I shall be appalled at the possibility of evil and wrong in me. As long as I remain under the refuge of innocence, I am living in a fools paradise. If I have never been a blackguard, the reason is a mixture of cowardice and the protection of civilised life; but when I am undressed before God, I find that Jesus Christ is right in His diagnosis. The only thing that safeguards is the Redemption of Jesus Christ. If I will hand myself over to Him, I need never experience the terrible possibilities that are in my heart. Purity is too deep down for me to get to naturally: but when the Holy Spirit comes in, He brings into the centre of my personal life the very Spirit that was manifested in the life of Jesus Christ, viz. , Holy Spirit, which is unsullied purity.

July 27      The way to know

If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine. . . . John 7:17

The golden rule for understanding spiritually is not intellect, but obedience. If a man wants scientific knowledge, intellectual curiosity is his guide; but if he wants insight into what Jesus Christ teaches, he can only get it by obedience. If things are dark to me, then I may be sure there is something I will not do. Intellectual darkness comes through ignorance; spiritual darkness comes because of something I do not intend to obey. No man ever receives a word from God without instantly being put to the test over it. We disobey and then wonder why we dont go on spiritually. If when you come to the altar, said Jesus, there you remember your brother hath ought against you . . . dont say another word to Me, but first go and put that thing right. The teaching of Jesus hits us where we live. We cannot stand as humbugs before Him for one second. He educates us down to the scruple. The Spirit of God unearths the spirit of self-vindication; He makes us sensitive to things we never thought of before. When Jesus brings a thing home by His word, dont shirk it. If you do, you will become a religious humbug. Watch the things you shrug your shoulders over, and you will know why you do not go on spiritually. First goat the risk of being thought fanatical you must obey what God tells you.

July 28    After obedience what?

And straightway He constrained His disciples to get into the ship, and to go to the other side. . . . Mark 6:45; see verses 4552

We are apt to imagine that if Jesus Christ constrains us, and we obey Him, He will lead us to great success. We must never put our dreams of success as Gods purpose for us; His purpose may be exactly the opposite. We have an idea that God is leading us to a particular end, a desired goal; He is not. The question of getting to a particular end is a mere incident. What we call the process, God calls the end. What is my dream of Gods purpose? His purpose is that I depend on Him and on His power now. If I can stay in the middle of the turmoil calm and unperplexed, that is the end of the purpose of God. God is not working towards a particular finish; His end is the process that I see Him walking on the waves, no shore in sight, no success, no goal, just the absolute certainty that it is all right because I see Him walking on the sea. It is the process, not the end, which is glorifying to God. Gods training is for now, not presently. His purpose is for this minute, not for something in the future. We have nothing to do with the afterwards of obedience; we get wrong when we think of the afterwards. What men call training and preparation, God calls the end. Gods end is to enable me to see that He can walk on the chaos of my life just now. If we have a further end in view, we do not pay sufficient attention to the immediate present; but if we realise that obedience is the end, then each moment as it comes is precious.

July 29   What do you see In your clouds?

Behold, He cometh with clouds. Revelation 1:7

In the Bible clouds are always connected with God. Clouds are those sorrows or sufferings or providences, within or without our personal lives, which seem to dispute the rule of God. It is by those very clouds that the Spirit of God is teaching us how to walk by faith. If there were no clouds, we should have no faith. The clouds are but the dust of our Fathers feet. The clouds are a sign that He is there. What a revelation it is to know that sorrow and bereavement and suffering are the clouds that come along with God! God cannot come near without clouds, He does not come in clear shining. It is not true to say that God wants to teach us something in our trials; through every cloud He brings, He wants us to unlearn something. Gods purpose in the cloud is to simplify our belief until our relationship to Him is exactly that of a child God and my own soul, other people are shadows. Until other people become shadows, clouds and darkness will be mine every now and again. Is the relationship between myself and God getting simpler than ever it has been? There is a connection between the strange Providences of God and what we know of Him, and we have to learn to interpret the mysteries of life in the light of our knowledge of God. Unless we can look the darkest, blackest fact full in the face without damaging Gods character, we do not yet know Him. They feared as they entered the cloud. . . . Is there anyone save Jesus only in your cloud? If so, it will get darker; you must get to the place where there is no one any more save Jesus only.

July 30   The discipline of disillusionment

Jesus did not commit Himself unto them . . . for He knew what was in man. John 2:2425

Disillusionment means that there are no more false judgements in life. To be undeceived by disillusionment may leave us cynical and unkindly severe in our judgement of others, but the disillusionment which comes from God brings us to the place where we see men and women as they really are, and yet there is no cynicism, we have no stinging, bitter things to say. Many of the cruel things in life spring from the fact that we suffer from illusions. We are not true to one another as facts; we are true only to our ideas of one another. Everything is either delightful and fine, or mean and dastardly, according to our idea. The refusal to be disillusioned is the cause of much of the suffering in human life. It works in this way if we love a human being and do not love God, we demand of him every perfection and every rectitude, and when we do not get it we become cruel and vindictive; we are demanding of a human being what he or she cannot give. There is only one Being Who can satisfy the last aching abyss of the human heart, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Why Our Lord is apparently so severe regarding every human relation- ship is because He knows that every relationship not based on loyalty to Himself will end in disaster. Our Lord trusted no man, yet He was never suspicious, never bitter. Our Lords confidence in God and in what His grace could do for any man was so perfect that He despaired of no one. If our trust is placed in human beings, we shall end in despairing of everyone.

July 31   Till you are entirely his

Let your endurance be a finished product, so that you may be finished and complete, with never a defect. James 1:4 (Moffatt )

Many of us are all right in the main, but there are some domains in which we are slovenly. It is not a question of sin, but of the remnants of the carnal life which are apt to make us slovenly. Slovenliness is an insult to the Holy Ghost. There should be nothing slovenly, whether it be in the way we eat and drink, or in the way we worship God. Not only must our relationship to God be right, but the external expression of that relationship must be right. Ultimately God will let nothing escape, every detail is under His scrutiny. In numberless ways God will bring us back to the same point over and over again. He never tires of bringing us to the one point until we learn the lesson, because He is producing the finished product. It may be a question of impulse, and again and again, with the most persistent patience, God has brought us back to the one particular point; or it may be mental wool-gathering, or independent individuality. God is trying to impress upon us the one thing that is not entirely right. We have been having a wonderful time this Session19 over the revelation of Gods Redemption, our hearts are perfect towards Him; His wonderful work in us makes us know that in the main we are right with Him; now, says the Spirit, through St. James, Let your endurance be a finished product. Watch the slipshod bits Oh, that will have to do for now. Whatever it is, God will point it out with persistence until we are entirely His.

August 1   something more about his ways

He Comes Where He Commands Us to Leave

When Jesus had made an end of commanding His twelve disciples, He departed thence to teach and to preach in their cities. (Matthew 11:1)

If when God said Go, you stayed, because you were so concerned about your people at home, you robbed them of the teaching and preaching of Jesus Christ Himself. When you obeyed and left all consequences to God, the Lord went into your city to teach; as long as you would not obey, you were in the way. Watch where you begin to debate and to put what you call duty in competition with your Lords commands. I know God told me to go, but then my duty was here; that means you do not believe that Jesus means what He says. He Teaches Where He Instructs Us Not To Master, . . . let us make three tabernacles. Are we playing the spiritual amateur providence in other lives? Are we so noisy in our instruction of others that God cannot get anywhere near them? We have to keep our mouths shut and our spirits alert. God wants to instruct us in regard to His Son, He wants to turn our times of prayer into mounts of transfiguration, and we will not let Him. When we are certain of the way God is going to work, He will never work in that way any more. He Works Where He Sends Us to Wait Tarry ye . . . until . . . Wait on God and He will work, but dont wait in spiritual sulks because you cannot see an inch in front of you! Are we detached enough from our own spiritual hysterics to wait on God? To wait is not to sit with folded hands, but to learn to do what we are told. These are phases of His ways we rarely recognise.

August 2     The discipline of difficulty

In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. John 16:33

An average view of the Christian life is that it means deliverance from trouble. It is deliverance in trouble, which is very different. He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High . . . there shall no evil befall thee no plague can come nigh the place where you are at one with God. If you are a child of God, there certainly will be troubles to meet, but Jesus says do not be surprised when they come. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world, there is nothing for you to fear. Men who before they were saved would scorn to talk about troubles, often become fushionless 20 after being born again because they have a wrong idea of a saint. God does not give us overcoming life: He gives us life as we overcome. The strain is the strength. If there is no strain, there is no strength. Are you asking God to give you life and liberty and joy? He cannot, unless you will accept the strain. Immediately you face the strain, you will get the strength.

Overcome your own timidity and take the step, and God will give you to eat of the tree of life and you will get nourishment. If you spend yourself out physically, you become exhausted; but spend yourself spiritually, and you get more strength. God never gives strength for tomorrow, or for the next hour, but only for the strain of the minute. The temptation is to face difficulties from a commonsense stand- point. The saint is hilarious when he is crushed with difficulties because the thing is so ludicrously impossible to anyone but God.

August 3 the big compelling of God

Behold, we go up to Jerusalem. Luke 18:31

Jerusalem stands in the life of Our Lord as the place where He reached the climax of His Fathers will. I seek not Mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent Me. That was the one dominating interest all through Our Lords life, and the things He met with on the way, joy or sorrow, success or failure, never deterred Him from His purpose. He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem. The great thing to remember is that we go up to Jerusalem to fulfill Gods purpose, not our own. Naturally, our ambitions are our own; in the Christian life we have no aim of our own. There is so much said to-day about our decisions for Christ, our determination to be Christians, our decisions for this and that, but in the New Testament it is the aspect of Gods compelling that is brought out. Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you. We are not taken up into conscious agreement with Gods purpose, we are taken up into Gods purpose without any consciousness at all. We have no conception of what God is aiming at, and as we go on it gets more and more vague. Gods aim looks like missing the mark because we are too short-sighted to see what He is aiming at. At the beginning of the Christian life we have our own ideas as to what Gods purpose is I am meant to go here or there; God has called me to do this special work; and we go and do the thing, and still the big compelling of God remains. The work we do is of no account, it is so much scaffolding compared with the big compelling of God. He took unto Him the twelve, He takes us all the time. There is more than we have got at as yet.

August 4   The brave comradeship of God

Then He took unto Him the twelve. Luke 18:31

The bravery of God in trusting us! You say But He has been unwise to choose me, because there is nothing in me; I am not of any value. That is why He chose you. As long as you think there is something in you, God cannot choose you because you have ends of your own to serve; but if you have let Him bring you to the end of your self-sufficiency, then He can choose you to go with Him to Jerusalem, and that will mean the fulfillment of purposes which He does not discuss with you. We are apt to say that because a man has natural ability, therefore he will make a good Christian. It is not a question of our equipment but of our poverty; not of what we bring with us, but of what God puts into us; not a question of natural virtues, of strength of character, knowledge, and experience all that is of no avail in this matter. The only thing that avails is that we are taken up into the big compelling of God and made His comrades (cf. 1 Corinthians 1:2630). The comradeship of God is made up out of men who know their poverty. He can do nothing with the man who thinks that he is of use to God. As Christians we are not out for our own cause at all, we are out for the cause of God, which can never be our cause. We do not know what God is after, but we have to maintain our relationship with Him whatever happens. We must never allow anything to injure our relationship with God; if it does get injured, we must take time and get it put right. The main thing about Christianity is not the work we do, but the relationship we maintain and the atmosphere produced by that relationship. That is all God asks us to look after, and it is the one thing that is being continually assailed.

August 5   The baffling call of God

And all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished. . . . And they understood none of these things. Luke 18:31, 34

God called Jesus Christ to what seemed unmitigated disaster. Jesus Christ called His disciples to see Him put to death; He led every one of them to the place where their hearts were broken. Jesus Christs life was an absolute failure from every standpoint but Gods. But what seemed failure from mans standpoint was a tremendous triumph from Gods, because Gods purpose is never mans purpose. There comes the baffling call of God in our lives also. The call of God can never be stated explicitly; it is implicit. The call of God is like the call of the sea, no one hears it but the one who has the nature of the sea in him. It cannot be stated definitely what the call of God is to, because His call is to be in comradeship with Himself for His own purpose, and the test is to believe that God knows what He is after. The things that hap- pen do not happen by chance, they happen entirely in the decree of God. God is working out His purposes. If we are in communion with God and recognise that He is taking us into His purposes, we shall no longer try to find out what His purposes are. As we go on in the Christian life it gets simpler, because we are less inclined to say Now why did God allow this and that? Behind the whole thing lies the compelling of God. There s a divinity that shapes our ends. A Christian is one who trusts the wits and the wisdom of God, and not his own wits. If we have a purpose of our own, it destroys the simplicity and the leisureliness which ought to characterise the children of God.

August 6   The cross In prayer

At that day ye shall ask in My name. John 16:26

We are too much given to thinking of the Cross as something we have to get through; we get through it only in order to get into it. The Cross stands for one thing only for us a complete and entire and absolute identification with the Lord Jesus Christ, and there is nothing in which this identification is realised more than in prayer. Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him. Then why ask? The idea of prayer is not in order to get answers from God; prayer is perfect and complete oneness with God. If we pray because we want answers, we will get huffed with God. The answers come every time, but not always in the way we expect, and our spiritual huff shows a refusal to identify ourselves with Our Lord in prayer. We are not here to prove God answers prayer; we are here to be living monuments of Gods grace. I say not that I will pray the Father for you: for the Father Himself loveth you. Have you reached such an intimacy with God that the Lord Jesus Christs life of prayer is the only explanation of your life of prayer? Has Our Lords vicarious life become your vital life? At that day you will be so identified with Jesus that there will be no distinction. When prayer seems to be unanswered, beware of trying to fix the blame on someone else. That is always a snare of Satan. You will find there is a reason which is a deep instruction to you, not to anyone else.

August 7    Prayer In the Fathers house

Wist ye not that I must be in My Fathers house? Luke 2:49 (rv)

Our Lords childhood was not immature manhood: our Lords childhood is an eternal fact. Am I a holy innocent child of God by identification with my Lord and Saviour? Do I look upon life as being in my Fathers house? Is the Son of God living in His Fathers house in me? The abiding Reality is God, and His order comes through the moments. Am I always in contact with Reality, or do I only pray when things have gone wrong, when there is a disturbance in the moments of my life? I have to learn to identify myself with my Lord in holy communion in ways some of us have not begun to learn as yet. I must be about My Fathers business (kjv)live the moments in My Fathers house. Narrow it down to your individual circumstancesare you so identified with the Lords life that you are simply a child of God, continually talking to Him and realising that all things come from His hands? Is the Eternal Child in you living in the Fathers house? Are the graces of His ministering life working out through you in your home, in your business, in your domestic circle? Have you been wondering why you are going through the things you are? It is not that you have to go through them, it is because of the relation into which the Son of God has come in His Fathers providence in your particular saint- hood. Let Him have His way, keep in perfect union with Him. The vicarious life of your Lord is to become your vital simple life; the way He worked and lived among men must be the way He lives in you.

August 8   Prayer In the Fathers honour

That holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. Luke 1:35

If the Son of God is born into my mortal flesh, is His holy innocence and simplicity and oneness with the Father getting a chance to manifest itself in me? What was true of the Virgin Mary in the historic introduction of Gods Son into this earth is true in every saint. The Son of God is born into me by the direct act of God; then I as a child of God have to exercise the right of a child, the right of being always face to face with my Father. Am I continually saying with amazement to my commonsense life Why do you want to turn me off here? Dont you know that I must be about my Fathers business? Whatever the circumstances may be, that Holy, Innocent, Eternal Child must be in contact with His Father. Am I simple enough to identify myself with my Lord in this way? Is He getting His wonderful way in me? Is God realising that His Son is formed in me, or have I carefully put Him on one side? Oh the clamour of these days! Everyone is clamouring for what? For the Son of God to be put to death. There is no room here for the Son of God just now, no room for quiet holy communion with the Father. Is the Son of God praying in me or am I dictating to Him? Is He ministering in me as He did in the days of His flesh? Is the Son of God in me going through His passion for His own purposes? The more one knows of the inner life of Gods ripest saints, the more one sees what Gods purpose is filling up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ. There is always something to be done in the sense of filling up.

August 9   Prayer In the Fathers hearing

Father, I thank Thee that thou hast heard Me. John 11:41

When the Son of God prays, He has only one consciousness, and that consciousness is of His Father. God always hears the prayers of His Son, and if the Son of God is formed in me the Father will always hear my prayers. I have to see that the Son of God is manifested in my mortal flesh. Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, the Bethlehem of the Son of God. Is the Son of God getting His chance in me? Is the direct simplicity of the life of Gods Son being worked out exactly as it was worked out in His historic life? When I come in contact with the occurrences of life as an ordinary human being, is the prayer of Gods Eternal Son to His Father being prayed in me? In that day ye shall ask in My name . . . (rv). What day? The day when the Holy Ghost has come to me and made me effectually one with my Lord. Is the Lord Jesus Christ being abundantly satisfied in your life or have you got a spiritual strut on? Never let common sense obtrude and push the Son of God on one side. Common sense is a gift which God gave to human nature; but common sense is not the gift of His Son. Supernatural sense is the gift of His Son; never enthrone common sense. The Son detects the Father; common sense never yet detected the Father and never will. Our ordinary wits never worship God unless they are transfigured by the indwelling Son of God. We have to see that this mortal flesh is kept in perfect subjection to Him and that He works through it moment by moment. Are we living in such human dependence upon Jesus Christ that His life is being manifested in our mortal flesh (rv)?

August 10    the sacrament of the saint

Let them that suffer according to the will of God com- mit the keeping of their souls to Him in well-doing. 1 Peter 4:19

To choose to suffer means that there is something wrong; to choose Gods will even if it means suffering is a very different thing. No healthy saint ever chooses suffering; he chooses Gods will, as Jesus did, whether it means suffering or not. No saint dare interfere with the discipline of suffering in another saint. The saint who satisfies the heart of Jesus will make other saints strong and mature for God. The people who do us good are never those who sympathise with us, they always hinder, because sympathy enervates. No one understands a saint but the saint who is nearest to the Saviour. If we accept the sympathy of a saint, the reflex feeling is Well, God is dealing hardly with me. That is why Jesus said self-pity was of the devil (see Matthew 16:23). Be merciful to Gods reputation. It is easy to blacken Gods character because God never answers back, He never vindicates Himself. Beware of the thought that Jesus needed sympathy in His earthly life; He refused sympathy from man because He knew far too wisely that no one on earth understood what He was after. He took sympathy from His Father only, and from the angels in heaven. (Cf. Luke 15:10. ) Notice Gods unutterable waste of saints. Accord- ing to the judgement of the world, God plants His saints in the most useless places. We say God intends me to be here because I am so useful. God puts His saints where they will glorify Him, and we are no judges at all of where that is.

August 11   This experience must come

And he saw him no more. 2 Kings 2:12

It is not wrong to depend upon Elijah as long as God gives him to you, but remember the time will come when he will have to go; when he stands no more to you as your guide and leader, because God does not intend he should. You say I cannot go on without Elijah. God says you must.

Alone at your Jordan (2 Kings 2:14). Jordan is the type of separation where there is no fellowship with anyone else, and where no one can take the responsibility for you. You have to put to the test now what you learned when you were with your Elijah. You have been to Jordan over and over again with Elijah, but now you are up against it alone. It is no use saying you cannot go; this experience has come, and you must go. If you want to know whether God is the God you have faith to believe Him to be, then go through your Jordan alone.

Alone at your Jericho (v. 15). Jericho is the place where you have seen your Elijah do great things. When you come to your Jericho you have a strong disinclination to take the initiative and trust in God, you want someone else to take it for you. If you remain true to what you learned with Elijah, you will get the sign that God is with you.

Alone at your Bethel (v. 23). At your Bethel you will find yourself at your wits end and at the beginning of Gods wisdom. When you get to your wits end and feel inclined to succumb to panic, dont; stand true to God and He will bring His truth out in a way that will make your life a sacrament. Put into practice what you learned with your Elijah, use his cloak and pray. Determine to trust in God and do not look for Elijah any more.

August 12     The theology of rest

Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Matthew 8:26

When we are in fear we can do nothing less than pray to God, but Our Lord has a right to expect that those who name His Name should have an understanding confidence in Him. God expects His children to be so confident in Him that in any crisis they are the reliable ones. Our trust is in God up to a certain point, then we go back to the elementary panic prayers of those who do not know God. We get to our wits end, showing that we have not the slightest confidence in Him and His government of the world; He seems to be asleep, and we see nothing but breakers ahead. O ye of little faith! What a pang must have shot through the disciples Missed it again! And what a pang will go through us when we suddenly realise that we might have produced downright joy in the heart of Jesus by remaining absolutely confident in Him, no matter what was ahead. There are stages in life when there is no storm, no crisis, when we do our human best; it is when a crisis arises that we instantly reveal upon whom we rely. If we have been learning to worship God and to trust Him, the crisis will reveal that we will go to the breaking point and not break in our confidence in Him. We have been talking a great deal about sanctification what is it all going to amount to? It should work out into rest in God which means oneness with God, a oneness which will make us not only blame- less in His sight but a deep joy to Him.

August 13   Quench not the spirit 

Quench not the spirit. 1 Thessalonians 5:19

The voice of the Spirit is as gentle as a zephyr, so gentle that unless you are living in perfect communion with God, you never hear it. The checks of the Spirit come in the most extraordinarily gentle ways, and if you are not sensitive enough to detect His voice you will quench it, and your personal spiritual life will be impaired. His checks always come as a still small voice, so small that no one but the saint notices them. Beware if in personal testimony you have to hark back and say Once, so many years ago, I was saved. If you are walking in the light, there is no harking back, the past is transfused into the present wonder of communion with God. If you get out of the light you become a sentimental Christian and live on memories, your testimony has a hard, metallic note. Beware of trying to patch up a present refusal to walk in the light by recalling past experiences when you did walk in the light. Whenever the Spirit checks, call a halt and get the thing right, or you will go on grieving Him without knowing it. Suppose God has brought you up to a crisis and you nearly go through but not quite, He will engineer the crisis again, but it will not be so keen as it was before. There will be less discernment of God and more humiliation at not having obeyed; and if you go on grieving the Spirit, there will come a time when that crisis cannot be repeated, you have grieved Him away. But if you go through the crisis, there will be the psalm of praise to God. Never sympathies with the thing that is stabbing God all the time. God has to hurt the thing that must go.

August 14   Chastening

Despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him. Hebrews 12:5

It is very easy to quench the Spirit; we do it by despising the chastening of the Lord, by fainting when we are rebuked by Him. If we have only a shallow experience of sanctification, we mistake the shadow for the reality, and when the Spirit of God begins to check, we say Oh, that must be the devil. Never quench the Spirit, and do not despise Him when He says to you Dont be blind on this point any more; you are not where you thought you were. Up to the present, I have not been able to reveal it to you, but I reveal it now. When the Lord chastens you like that, let Him have His way. Let Him relate you rightly to God. Nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him. We get into sulks with God and say Oh well, I cant help it; I did pray and things did not turn out right, and I am going to give it all up. Think what would hap- pen if we talked like this in any other domain of life! Am I prepared to let God grip me by His power and do a work in me that is worthy of Himself ? Sanctification is not my idea of what I want God to do for me; sanctification is Gods idea of what He wants to do for me, and He has to get me into the attitude of mind and spirit where at any cost I will let Him sanctify me wholly.

August 15   Signs of the new birth

Ye must be born again. John 3:7

The answer to the question How can a man be born when he is old? is When he is old enough to die to die right out to his rag rights,21 to his virtues, to his religion, to everything, and to receive into himself the life which never was there before. The new life manifests itself in conscious repentance and unconscious holiness. As many as received Him ( John 1:12). Is my knowledge of Jesus born of internal spiritual perception, or is it only what I have learned by listening to others? Have I something in my life that connects me with the Lord Jesus as my personal Saviour? All spiritual history must have a personal knowledge for its bedrock. To be born again means that I see Jesus. Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God ( John 3:3). Do I seek for signs of the Kingdom, or do I perceive Gods rule? The new birth gives a new power of vision whereby I begin to discern Gods rule. His rule was there all the time, but true to His nature; now that I have received His nature, I can see His rule. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin (1 John 3:9). Do I seek to stop sinning or have I stopped sinning? To be born of God means that I have the supernatural power of God to stop sinning. In the Bible it is never Should a Christian sin? The Bible puts it emphatically A Christian must not sin. The effective working of the new birth life in us is that we do not commit sin, not merely that we have the power not to sin, but that we have stopped sinning. First John 3:9 does not mean that we cannot sin; it means that if we obey the life of God in us, we need not sin.

August 16    Does he know me?

He calleth . . . by name. John 10:3

When I have sadly misunderstood Him? ( John 20:17). It is possible to know all about doctrine and yet not know Jesus. The soul is in danger when knowledge of doctrine out steps intimate touch with Jesus. Why was Mary weeping? Doctrine was no more to Mary than the grass under her feet. Any Pharisee could have made a fool of Mary doctrinal, but one thing they could not ridicule out of her was the fact that Jesus had cast seven demons out of her; yet His blessings were nothing in comparison to Himself. Mary saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus; immediately she heard the voice, she knew she had a past history with the One who spoke. Master! When I have stubbornly doubted? ( John 20:27). Have I been doubting something about Jesus an experience to which others testify but which I have not had? The other disciples told Thomas that they had seen Jesus, but Thomas doubted Except I shall see . . . , I will not believe. Thomas needed the personal touch of Jesus. When His touches come, or how they come, we do not know; but when they do come they are indescribably precious. My Lord and my God! When I have selfishly denied Him? ( John 21:1517). Peter had denied Jesus Christ with oaths and curses, and yet after the Resurrection Jesus appeared to Peter alone. He restored him in private, then He restored him before the others. Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee. Have I a personal history with Jesus Christ? The one sign of discipleship is intimate connection with Him, a knowledge of Jesus Christ which nothing can shake.

August 17   Are you discouraged In devotion?

Yet lackest thou one thing; sell all that thou hast . . . and come, follow Me. Luke 18:22

And when he heard this . . . Have you ever heard the Master say a hard word? If you have not, I question whether you have heard Him say anything. Jesus Christ says a great deal that we listen to, but do not hear; when we do hear, His words are amazingly hard. Jesus did not seem in the least solicitous that this man should do what He told him, He made no attempt to keep him with Him. He simply said Sell all you have, and come, follow Me. Our Lord never pleaded, He never cajoled, He never entrapped; He simply spoke the sternest words mortal ears ever listened to, and then left it alone. Have I ever heard Jesus say a hard word? Has He said something personally to me to which I have deliberately listened? Not something I can expound or say this and that about, but something I have heard Him say to me? This man did understand what Jesus said, he heard it and he sized up what it meant, and it broke his heart. He did not go away defiant; he went away sorrowful, thoroughly discouraged. He had come to Jesus full of the fire of earnest desire, and the word of Jesus simply froze him; instead of producing an enthusiastic devotion, it produced a heart-breaking discouragement. And Jesus did not go after him, He let him go. Our Lord knows perfectly that when once His word is heard, it will bear fruit sooner or later. The terrible thing is that some of us prevent it bearing fruit in actual life. I wonder what we will say when we do make up our minds to be devoted to Him on that particular point? One thing is certain, He will never cast anything up at us.

August 18    have you ever been expressionless with sorrow?

And when he heard this, he was very sorrowful: for he was very rich. Luke 18:23

The rich young ruler went away expressionless with sorrow; he had not a word to say. He had no doubt as to what Jesus said, no debate as to what it meant, and it produced in him a sorrow that had not any words. Have you ever been there? Has Gods word come to you about something you are very rich in temperament, personal affinity, relationships of heart and mind? Then you have often been expressionless with sorrow. The Lord will not go after you, He will not plead, but every time He meets you on that point He will simply repeat If you mean what you say, those are the conditions. Sell all that thou hast undress yourself morally before God of everything that might be a possession until you are a mere conscious human being, and then give God that. That is where the battle is fought in the domain of the will before God. Are you more devoted to your idea of what Jesus wants than to Himself ? If so, you are likely to hear one of His hard sayings that will produce sorrow in you. What Jesus says is hard, it is only easy when it is heard by those who have His disposition. Beware of allowing any- thing to soften a hard word of Jesus Christs. I can be so rich in poverty, so rich in the consciousness that I am nobody, that I shall never be a disciple of Jesus; and I can be so rich in the consciousness that I am somebody that I shall never be a disciple. Am I willing to be destitute of the sense that I am destitute? This is where discouragement comes in. Discouragement is disenchanted self-love, and self-love may be love of my devotion to Jesus.

August 19   Self- consciousness

Come unto Me. Matthew 11:28

God means us to live a fully- orbed life in Christ Jesus, but there are times when that life is attacked from the outside, and we tumble into a way of introspection which we thought had gone. Self-consciousness is the first thing that will upset the completeness of the life in God, and self-consciousness continually produces wrestling. Self-consciousness is not sin; it may be produced by a nervous temperament or by a sudden dumping down into new circumstances. It is never Gods will that we should be anything less than absolutely complete in Him. Anything that disturbs rest in Him must be cured at once, and it is not cured by being ignored, but by coming to Jesus Christ. If we come to Him and ask Him to produce Christ- consciousness, He will always do it until we learn to abide in Him. Never allow the dividing up of your life in Christ to remain without facing it. Beware of leakage, of the dividing up of your life by the influence of friends or of circumstances; beware of anything that is going to split up your oneness with Him and make you see yourself separately. Nothing is so important as to keep right spiritually. The great solution is the simple one Come unto Me. The depth of our reality, intellectually, morally and spiritually, is tested by these words. In every degree in which we are not real, we will dispute rather than come.

August 20     Completeness

And I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28

Whenever anything begins to disintegrate your life with Jesus Christ, turn to Him at once and ask Him to establish rest. Never allow anything to remain which is making the dis-peace. Take every element of disintegration as something to wrestle against, and not to suffer. Say Lord, prove Thy consciousness in me, and self-consciousness will go and He will be all in all. Beware of allowing self-consciousness to continue because by slow degrees it will awaken self-pity, and self-pity is Satanic. Well, I am not under- stood; this is a thing they ought to apologise for; that is a point I really must have cleared up. Leave others alone and ask the Lord to give you Christ- consciousness, and He will poise you until the completeness is absolute. The complete life is the life of a child. When I am consciously conscious, there is something wrong. It is the sick man who knows what health is. The child of God is not conscious of the will of God because he is the will of God. When there has been the slightest deviation from the will of God, we begin to ask What is Thy will? A child of God never prays to be conscious that God answers prayer, he is so restfully certain that God always does answer prayer. If we try to overcome self-consciousness by any commonsense method, we develop it tremendously. Jesus says Come unto Me . . . and I will give you rest, i. e. , Christ-consciousness will take the place of self-consciousness. Wherever Jesus comes He establishes rest, the rest of the perfection of activity that is never conscious of itself.

August 21   The ministry of the unnoticed

Blessed are the poor in spirit. Matthew 5:3

The New Testament notices things which from our standards do not seem to count. Blessed are the poor in spirit, literally Blessed are the paupers an exceedingly commonplace thing! The preaching of to-day is apt to emphasise strength of will, beauty of character the things that are easily noticed. The phrase we hear so often, Decide for Christ, is an emphasis on something Our Lord never trusted. He never asks us to decide for Him, but to yield to Him, a very different thing. At the basis of Jesus Christs Kingdom is the unaffected loveliness of the common place. The thing I am blessed in is my poverty. If I know I have no strength of will, no nobility of dis- position, then Jesus says Blessed are you, because it is through this poverty that I enter His Kingdom. I cannot enter His Kingdom as a good man or woman, I can only enter it as a complete pauper. The true character of the loveliness that tells for God is always unconscious. Conscious influence is priggish and un -Christian. If I say, I wonder if I am of any use, I instantly lose the bloom of the touch of the Lord. He that believeth on Me, out of [him] shall flow rivers of living water. If I examine the out- flow, I lose the touch of the Lord. Which are the people who have influenced us most? Not the ones who thought they did, but those who had not the remotest notion that they were influencing us. In the Christian life the implicit is never conscious; if it is conscious, it ceases to have this unaffected loveliness which is the characteristic of the touch of Jesus. We always know when Jesus is at work because He produces in the commonplace something that is inspiring.

August 22    I Indeed . . . but he

I indeed baptize you with water . . . but He . . . shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. Matthew 3:11

Have I ever come to a place in my experience where I can say I indeed . . . but He? Until that moment does come, I will never know what the baptism of the Holy Ghost means. I indeed am at an end, I cannot do a thing: but He begins just there He does the things no one else can ever do. Am I prepared for His coming? Jesus cannot come as long as there is anything in the way either of goodness or badness. When He comes am I prepared for Him to drag into the light every wrong thing I have done? It is just there that He comes. Wherever I know I am unclean, He will put His feet; wherever I think I am clean, He will withdraw them. Repentance does not bring a sense of sin, but a sense of unutterable unworthiness. When I repent, I realise that I am utterly helpless; I know all through me that I am not worthy even to bear His shoes. Have I repented like that? Or is there a lingering suggestion of standing up for myself ? The reason God cannot come into my life is because I am not through into repentance. He . . . shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. John does not speak of the baptism of the Holy Ghost as an experience, but as a work performed by Jesus Christ, He shall baptize you. The only conscious experience those who are baptized with the Holy Ghost ever have is a sense of absolute unworthiness. I indeed was this and that; but He came, and a marvellous thing happened. Get to the margin where He does everything.

August 23    Prayer choice and prayer conflict

When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret. Matthew 6:6

Jesus did not say Dream about thy Father in secret, but pray to thy Father in secret. Prayer is an effort of will. After we have entered our secret place and have shut the door, the most difficult thing to do is to pray. We cannot get our minds into working order, and the first thing that conflicts is wandering thoughts. The great battle in private prayer is the overcoming of mental wool-gathering. We have to discipline our minds and concentrate on wilful prayer. We must have a selected place for prayer and when we get there the plague of flies beginsThis must be done, and that. Shut thy door. A secret silence means to shut the door deliberately on emotions and remember God. God is in secret, and He sees us from the secret place; He does not see us as other people see us, or as we see ourselves. When we live in the secret place it becomes impossible for us to doubt God, we become more sure of Him than of anything else. Your Father, Jesus says, is in secret and nowhere else. Enter the secret place, and right in the centre of the common round you find God there all the time. Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything. Unless in the first waking moment of the day you learn to fling the door wide back and let God in, you will work on a wrong level all day; but swing the door wide open and pray to your Father in secret, and every public thing will be stamped with the presence of God.

August 24     The spIrItual Index

Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Matthew 7:9

The illustration of prayer that Our Lord uses here is that of a good child asking for a good thing. We talk about prayer as if God heard us irrespective of the fact of our relationship to Him (cf. Matthew 5:45). Never say it is not Gods will to give you what you ask, don’t sit down and faint, but find out the reason, turn up the index. Are you rightly related to your wife, to your husband, to your children, to your fellow-students are you a good child there? Oh, Lord, I have been irritable and cross, but I do want spiritual blessing. You cannot have it, you will have to do without until you come into the attitude of a good child. We mistake defiance for devotion; arguing with God for abandonment. We will not look at the index. Have I been asking God to give me money for some- thing I want when there is something I have not paid for? Have I been asking God for liberty while I am withholding it from someone who belongs to me? I have not forgiven someone his trespasses; I have not been kind to him; I have not been living as Gods child among my relatives and friends. I am a child of God only by regeneration, and as a child of God I am good only as I walk in the light. Prayer with most of us is turned into pious platitude, it is a matter of emotion, mystical communion with God. Spiritually we are all good at producing fogs. If we turn up the index, we will see very clearly what is wrong that friendship, that debt, that temper of mind. It is no use praying unless we are living as children of God. Then, Jesus says Every one that asketh receiveth.

August 25  The Fruitfulness of Friendship

I have called you friends. John 15:15

We never know the joy of self-sacrifice until we abandon in every particular. Self-surrender is the most difficult thing I will if . . . ! Oh well, I sup- pose I must devote my life to God. There is none of the joy of self-sacrifice in that. As soon as we do abandon, the Holy Ghost gives us an intimation of the joy of Jesus. The final aim of self-sacrifice is laying down our lives for our Friend. When the Holy Ghost comes in, the great desire is to lay down the life for Jesus; the thought of sacrifice never touches us because sacrifice is the love passion of the Holy Ghost. Our Lord is our example in the life of selfsacrificeI delight to do Thy will, O My God. He went on with His sacrifice with exuberant joy. Have I ever yielded in absolute submission to Jesus Christ? If Jesus Christ is not the lodestar, there is no benefit in the sacrifice; but when the sacrifice is made with the eyes on Him, slowly and surely the molding influence begins to tell. Beware of letting natural affinities hinder your walk in love. One of the most cruel ways of killing natural love is by disdain built on natural affinities. The affinity of the saint is the Lord Jesus. Love for God is not sentimental; to love as God loves is the most practical thing for the saint. I have called you friends. It is a friendship based on the new life created in us, which has no affinity with our old life, but only with the life of God. It is unutterably humble, unsullied pure, and absolutely devoted to God.

August 26      Are you ever disturbed?

Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you. John 14:27

There are times when our peace is based upon ignorance, but when we awaken to the facts of life, inner peace is impossible unless it is received from Jesus. When Our Lord speaks peace, He makes peace, His words are ever spirit and life. Have I ever received what Jesus speaks? My peace I give unto youit is a peace which comes from looking into His face and realising His nu-disturbedness. Are you painfully disturbed just now, distracted by the waves and billows of Gods providential per- mission, and having, as it were, turned over the boulders of your belief, are you still finding no well of peace or joy or comfort; is all barren? Then look up and receive the un-disturbedness of the Lord Jesus. Reflected peace is the proof that you are right with God because you are at liberty to turn your mind to Him. If you are not right with God, you can never turn your mind anywhere but on yourself. If you allow anything to hide the face of Jesus Christ from you, you are either disturbed or you have a false security. Are you looking unto Jesus now, in the immediate matter that is pressing, and receiving from Him peace? If so, He will be a gracious benediction of peace in and through you: But if you try to worry it out, you obliterate Him and deserve all you get. We get disturbed because we have not been considering Him. When one confers with Jesus Christ the perplexity goes, because He has no perplexity, and our only concern is to abide in Him. Lay it all out before Him and in the face of difficulty, bereavement and sorrow, hear Him sayLet not your heart be troubled.

August 27    Theology alive

Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you. John 12:35

Beware of not acting upon what you see in your moments on the mount with God. If you do not obey the light, it will turn into darkness. If there- fore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! The second you waive the question of sanctification or any other thing upon which God gave you light, you begin to get dry rot in your spiritual life. Continually bring the truth out into actuality; work it out in every domain, or the very light you have will prove a curse. The most difficult person to deal with is the one who has the smug satisfaction of an experience to which he can refer back, but who is not working it out in practical life. If you say you are sanctified, show it. The experience must be so genuine that it is shown in the life. Beware of any belief that makes you self- indulgent; it came from the pit, no matter how beautiful it sounds. Theology must work itself out in the most prac- tical relationships. Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, . . . said Our Lord, i. e. , you must be more moral than the most moral being you know. You may know all about the doctrine of sanctification, but are you running it out into the practical issues of your life? Every bit of our life, physical, moral and spiritual, is to be judged by the standard of the Atonement.

August 28   Whats the Good of prayer?

Lord, teach us to pray. Luke 11:1

It is not part of the life of a natural man to pray. We hear it said that a man will suffer in his life if he does not pray; I question it. What will suffer is the life of the Son of God in him, which is nourished, not by food, but by prayer. When a man is born from above (RV mg), the life of the Son of God is born in him, and he can either starve that life or nourish it. Prayer is the way the life of God is nourished. Our ordinary views of prayer are not found in the New Testament. We look upon prayer as a means of getting things for ourselves; the Bible idea of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself. Ask, and ye shall receive. We grouse before God, we are apologetic or apathetic, but we ask very few things. Yet what a splendid audacity a childlike child has! Our Lord saysExcept ye . . . become as little children. Ask, and God will do. Give Jesus Christ a chance, give Him elbow room, and no man will ever do this unless he is at his wits end. When a man is at his wits end it is not a cowardly thing to pray, it is the only way he can get into touch with Reality. Be yourself before God and present your problems, the things you know you have come to your wits end over. As long as you are self-sufficient, you do not need to ask God for anything. It is not so true that prayer changes things as that prayer changes me and I change things. God has so constituted things that prayer on the basis of Redemption alters the way in which a man looks at things. Prayer is not a question of altering things externally, but of working wonders in a mans disposition.

August 29      Sub Lime Intimacy

Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God? John 11:40

Every time you venture out in the life of faith, you will find something in your commonsense circumstances that flatly contradicts your faith. Common sense is not faith, and faith is not common sense; they stand in the relation of the natural and the spiritual. Can you trust Jesus Christ where your common sense can- not trust Him? Can you venture heroically on Jesus Christs statements when the facts of your common- sense life shout Its a lie? On the mount it is easy to sayOh yes, I believe God can do it; but you have to come down into the demon-possessed valley and meet with facts that laugh ironically at the whole of your mount-of-transfiguration belief. Every time my programme of belief is clear to my own mind, I come across something that contradicts it. Let me say I believe God will supply all my need, and then let me run dry, with no outlook, and see whether I will go through the trial of faith, or whether I will sink back to something lower. Faith must be tested, because it can be turned into a personal possession only through conflict. What is your faith up against just now? The test will either prove that your faith is right, or it will kill it. Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in Me. The final thing is confidence in Jesus. Believe steadfastly on Him and all you come up against will develop your faith. There is continual testing in the life of faith, and the last great test is death. May God keep us in fighting trim! Faith is unutterable trust in God which never dreams that He will not stand by us.

August 30    Am I convinced by Christ?

Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, . . . but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven. Luke 10:20

Jesus Christ says, in effect, Dont rejoice in success- ful service, but rejoice because you are rightly related to Me. The snare in Christian work is to rejoice in successful service, to rejoice in the fact that God has used you. You never can measure what God will do through you if you are rightly related to Jesus Christ. Keep your relationship right with Him, then what- ever circumstances you are in, and whoever you meet day by day, He is pouring rivers of living water through you, and it is of His mercy that He does not let you know it. When once you are rightly related to God by salvation and sanctification, remember that wherever you are, you are put there by God; and by the reaction of your life on the circumstances around you, you will fulfill Gods purpose, as long as you keep in the light as God is in the light. The tendency to-day is to put the emphasis on service. Beware of the people who make usefulness their ground of appeal. If you make usefulness the test, then Jesus Christ was the greatest failure that ever lived. The lodestar of the saint is God Himself, not estimated usefulness. It is the work that God does through us that counts, not what we do for Him. All that Our Lord heeds in a mans life is the relationship of worth to His Father. Jesus is bringing many sons to glory.

August 31   My Joy . . . your Joy

That My joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. John 15:11

What was the joy that Jesus had? It is an insult to use the word happiness in connection with Jesus Christ. The joy of Jesus was the absolute self-surrender and self-sacrifice of Himself to His Father, the joy of doing that which the Father sent Him to do. I delight to do Thy will. Jesus prayed that our joy might go on fulfilling itself until it was the same joy as His. Have I allowed Jesus Christ to introduce His joy to me? The full flood of my life is not in bodily health, not in external happenings, not in seeing Gods work succeed, but in the perfect understanding of God, and in the communion with Him that Jesus Himself had. The first thing that will hinder this joy is the captious irritation of thinking out circumstances. The cares of this world, said Jesus, will choke Gods word. Before we know where we are, we are caught up in the shows of things. All that God has done for us is the mere threshold; He wants to get us to the place where we will be His witnesses and proclaim Who Jesus is. Be rightly related to God, find your joy there, and out of you will flow rivers of living water. Be a centre for Jesus Christ to pour living water through. Stop being self-conscious, stop being a sanctified prig, and live the life hid with Christ. The life that is rightly related to God is as natural as breathing wherever it goes. The lives that have been of most blessing to you are those who were unconscious of it.

September 1   Destiny of holiness

Ye shall be holy; for I am holy. 1 Peter 1:16 (RV )

Continually restate to yourself what the purpose of your life is. The destined end of man is not happiness, nor health, but holiness. Nowadays we have far too many affinities, we are dissipated with them; right, good, noble affinities which will yet have their fulfillment, but in the meantime God has to atrophy them. The one thing that matters is whether a man will accept the God Who will make him holy. At all costs a man must be rightly related to God. Do I believe I need to be holy? Do I believe God can come into me and make me holy? If by your preaching you convince me that I am unholy, I resent your preaching. The preaching of the gospel awakens an intense resentment because it must reveal that I am unholy; but it also awakens an intense craving. God has one destined end for mankind, viz. , holiness. His one aim is the production of saints. God is not an eternal blessing-machine for men; He did not come to save men out of pity: He came to save men because He had created them to be holy. The Atone- ment means that God can put me back into perfect union with Himself, without a shadow between, through the Death of Jesus Christ. Never tolerate through sympathy with yourself or with others any practice that is not in keeping with a holy God. Holiness means unsullied walking with the feet, unsullied talking with the tongue, unsullied thinking with the mind every detail of the life under the scrutiny of God. Holiness is not only what God gives me, but what I manifest that God has given me.

September 2   The sacrament of sacrifice

He that believeth on Me, . . . from within him shall flow. . . . John 7:38 (rv mg)

Jesus did not say he that believeth in Me shall realise the blessing of the fullness of God, but he that believeth in Me, out of him shall escape every- thing he receives. Our Lords teaching is always antiself-realisation. His purpose is not the development of a man; His purpose is to make a man exactly like Himself, and the characteristic of the Son of God is self-expenditure. If we believe in Jesus, it is not what we gain, but what He pours through us that counts. It is not that God makes us beautifully rounded grapes, but that He squeezes the sweetness out of us. Spiritually, we cannot measure our life by success, but only by what God pours through us, and we cannot measure that at all. When Mary of Bethany broke the box of precious ointment and poured it on Jesus head, it was an act for which no one else saw any occasion; the disciples said it was a waste. But Jesus commended Mary for her extravagant act of devotion, and said that wherever His gospel was preached this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her. Our Lord is carried beyond Himself with joy when He sees any of us doing what Mary did, not being set on this or that economy, but being abandoned to Him. God split the life of His Son that the world might be saved; are we prepared to spill out our lives for Him? He that believeth on Me, out of him, shall flow rivers of living water, that is, hundreds of other lives will be continually refreshed. It is time now to break the life, to cease craving for satisfaction, and to spill.the thing out. Our Lord is asking who of us will do it for Him?

September 3     The waters of satisfaction scattered

. . . nevertheless he would not drink thereof, but poured it out unto the Lord. 2 Samuel 23:16

What has been like water from the well of Bethlehem to you recently love, friendship, spiritual blessing? Then at the peril of your soul, you take it to satisfy yourself. If you do, you cannot pour it out before the Lord. You can never sanctify to God that with which you long to satisfy yourself. If you satisfy yourself with a blessing from God, it will corrupt you; you must sacrifice it, pour it out, do with it what common sense says is an absurd waste. How am I to pour out unto the Lord natural love or spiritual blessing? In one way only in the determination of my mind. There are certain acts of other people which one could never accept if one did not know God, because it is not within human power to repay them. But immediately I say This is too great and worthy for me, it is not meant for a human being at all, I must pour it out unto the Lord; then these things pour out in rivers of living water all around. Until I do pour these things out before the Lord, they endanger those I love as well as myself because they will turn to lust. We can be lustful in things which are not sordid and vile. Love has to get to its transfiguration point of being poured out unto the Lord. If you have become bitter and sour, it is because when God gave you a blessing you clutched it for yourself; whereas if you had poured it out unto the Lord, you would have been the sweetest person out of heaven. If you are always taking blessings to your- self and never learn to pour out anything unto the Lord, other people do not get their horizon enlarged through you.

September 4   His!

Thine they were, and Thou gavest them Me. John 17:6

The missionary is one in whom the Holy Ghost has wrought this realisation Ye are not your own. To say I am not my own, is to have reached a great point in spiritual nobility. The true nature of the life in the actual whirl is the deliberate giving up of myself to another in sovereign preference, and that other is Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit expounds the nature of Jesus to me in order to make me one with my Lord, not that I might go off as a showroom exhibit. Our Lord never sent any of the disciples out on the ground of what He had done for them. It was not until after the Resurrection, when the disciples had perceived by the power of the Holy Spirit Whom He was, that Jesus said Go. If any man come to Me, and hate not . . . , he cannot be My disciple, no the cannot be good and upright, but he cannot be one over whom Jesus writes the word Mine. Any one of the relationships Our Lord mentions may be a competitive relation- ship. I may prefer to belong to my mother, or to my wife, or to myself; then says Jesus, you cannot be My disciple. This does not mean I will not be saved, but it does mean that I cannot be His. Our Lord makes a disciple His own possession, He becomes responsible for him. Ye shall be witnesses unto Me. The spirit that comes in is not that of doing anything for Jesus, but of being a perfect delight to Him. The secret of the missionary is I am His, and He is carrying out His enterprises through me. Be entirely His.

September 5      The missionary watching

Watch with Me. Matthew 26:40

Watch with Me with no private point of view of your own at all, but watch entirely with Me. In the early stages we do not watch with Jesus, we watch for Him. We do not watch with Him through the revelation of the Bible; in the circumstances of our lives. Our Lord is trying to introduce us to identification with Himself in a particular Gethsemane, and we will not go; we say No, Lord, I cannot see the meaning of this, it is bitter. How can we possibly watch with Someone Who is inscrutable? How are we going to understand Jesus sufficiently to watch with Him in His Gethsemane, when we do not know even what His suffering is for? We do not know how to watch with Him; we are only used to the idea of Jesus watching with us. The disciples loved Jesus Christ to the limit of their natural capacity, but they did not understand what He was after. In the Garden of Gethsemane they slept for their own sorrow, and at the end of three years of the closest intimacy they all forsook Him, and fled. They were all filled with the Holy Ghost the same they, but something wonderful has happened in between, viz. , Our Lords Death and Resurrection and Ascension, and the disciples have been invaded by the Holy Spirit. Our Lord had said Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and this meant that they learned to watch with Him all the rest of their lives.

September 6     Diffuseness of life

Rivers of living water. John 7:38

A river touches places of which its source knows nothing, and Jesus says if we have received of His fullness, however small the visible measure of our lives, out of us will flow the rivers that will bless to the uttermost parts of the earth. We have nothing to do with the outflow This is the work of God, that ye believe. . . . God rarely allows a soul to see how great a blessing he is. A river is victoriously persistent, it overcomes all barriers. For a while it goes steadily on its course, then it comes to an obstacle and for a while it is balked, but it soon makes a pathway round the obstacle. Or a river will drop out of sight for miles, and presently emerge again broader and grander than ever. You can see God using some lives, but into your life an obstacle has come and you do not seem to be of any use. Keep paying attention to the Source, and God will either take you round the obstacle or remove it. The river of the Spirit of God overcomes all obstacles. Never get your eyes on the obstacle or on the difficulty. The obstacle is a matter of indifference to the river which will flow steadily through you if you remember to keep right at the Source. Never allow anything to come between yourself and Jesus Christ, no emotion, or experience; nothing must keep you from the one great sovereign Source. Think of the healing and far-flung rivers nursing themselves in our souls! God has been opening up marvelous truths to our minds, and every point He has opened up is an indication of the wider power of the river He will flow through us. If you believe in Jesus, you will find that God has nourished in you mighty torrents of blessing for others.

September 7    Springs of benignity

The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water. John 4:14

The picture Our Lord gives is not that of a channel but a fountain. Be being filled, and the sweetness of vital relationship to Jesus will flow out of the saint as lavishly as it is imparted to him. If you find your life is not flowing out as it should, you are to blame; something has obstructed the flow. Keep right at the Source, and you will be blessed personally? No, out of you will flow rivers of living water, irrepressible life. We are to be centers through which Jesus can flow as rivers of living water in blessing to every- one. Some of us are like the Dead Sea, always taking in but never giving out, because we are not rightly related to the Lord Jesus. As surely as we receive from Him, He will pour out through us, and in the measure He is not pouring out, there is a defect in our relationship to Him. Is there anything between you and Jesus Christ? Is there anything that hinders your belief in Him? If not, Jesus says, out of you will flow rivers of living water. It is not a blessing passed on, not an experience stated, but a river continually flowing. Keep at the Source, guard well your belief in Jesus Christ and your relationship to Him, and there will be a steady flow for other lives, no dryness and no deadness. Is it not too extravagant to say that out of an individual believer, rivers are going to flow? I do not see the rivers, you say. Never look at yourself from the standpoint of Who am I? In the history of Gods work you will nearly always find that it has started from the obscure, the unknown, the ignored, but the steadfastly true to Jesus Christ.

September 8   Do It yourself

Determinedly Demolish Some Things Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalt itself against the knowledge of God. 2 Corinthians 10:5

Deliverance from sin is not deliverance from human nature. There are things in human nature, such as prejudices, which the saint has to destroy by neglect; and other things which have to be destroyed by violence, i. e. , by the Divine strength imparted by Gods Spirit. There are some things over which we are not to fight, but to stand still in and see the salvation of God; but every theory or conception which erects itself as a rampart against the knowledge of God is to be determinedly demolished by drawing on Gods power, not by fleshly endeavour or compromise (2 Corinthians 10:4). It is only when God has altered our disposition and we have entered into the experience of sanctification that the fight begins. The warfare is not against sin; we can never fight against sin: Jesus Christ deals with sin in Redemption. The conflict is along the line of turning our natural life into a spiritual life, and this is never done easily, nor does God intend it to be done easily. It is done only by a series of moral choices. God does not make us holy in the sense of character; He makes us holy in the sense of innocence, and we have to turn that innocence into holy character by a series of moral choices. These choices are continually in antagonism to the entrenchments of our natural life, the things which erect themselves as ramparts against the knowledge of God. We can either go back and make ourselves of no account in the Kingdom of God, or we can determinedly demolish these things and let Jesus bring another son to glory. 

September 9 do It yourself

Determinedly Discipline Other Things Bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:5

This is another aspect of the strenuous nature of sainthood. Paul says I take every project prisoner to make it obey Christ (moffatt ). How much Christian work there is to-day which has never been disciplined, but has simply sprung into being by impulse! In Our Lords life every project was disciplined to the will of His Father. There was not a movement of an impulse of His own will as distinct from His Fathers The Son can do nothing of Himself. Then take ourselves a vivid religious experience, and every project born of impulse put into action immediately, instead of being imprisoned and disciplined to obey Christ. This is a day when practical work is over emphasised, and the saints who are bringing every project into captivity are criticised and told that they are not in earnest for God or for souls. True earnestness is found in obeying God, not in the inclination to serve Him that is born of undisciplined human nature. It is inconceivable, but true nevertheless, that saints are not bringing every project into captivity, but are doing work for God at the instigation of their own human nature which has not been spiritualised by determined discipline. We are apt to forget that a man is not only committed to Jesus Christ for salvation; he is committed to Jesus Christs view of God, of the world, of sin and of the devil, and this will mean that he must recognise the responsibility of being transformed by the renewing of his mind.

September 10   Missionary munitions

Worshiping as Occasion Serves When thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee. John 1:48

We imagine we would be all right if a big crisis arose; but the big crisis will only reveal the stuff we are made of, it will not put anything into us. If God gives the call, of course I will rise to the occasion. You will not unless you have risen to the occasion in the workshop, unless you have been the real thing before God there. If you are not doing the thing that lies nearest, because God has engineered it, when the crisis comes instead of being revealed as fit, you will be revealed as unfit. Crises always reveal character. The private relationship of worshiping God is the great essential of fitness. The time comes when there is no more fig-tree life possible, when it is out into the open, out into the glare and into the work, and you will find yourself of no value there if you have not been worshiping as occasion serves you in your home. Worship aright in your private relation- ships, then when God sets you free you will be ready, because in the unseen life which no one saw but God you have become perfectly fit, and when the strain comes you can be relied upon by God. I cant be expected to live the sanctified life in the circumstances I am in; I have no time for praying just now, no time for Bible reading, my opportunity hasnt come yet; when it does, of course I shall be all right. No, you will not. If you have not been worshiping as occasion serves, when you get into work you will not only be useless yourself, but a tremendous hindrance to those who are associated with you. The workshop of missionary munitions is the hidden, personal, worshiping life of the saint.

September 11   Missionary munitions

Ministering as Opportunity Surrounds Us If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another s feet. John 13:14

Ministering as opportunity surrounds us does not mean selecting our surroundings, it means being very selectively Gods in any haphazard surroundings which He engineers for us. The characteristics we manifest in our immediate surroundings are indications of what we will be like in other surroundings. The things that Jesus did were of the most menial and commonplace order, and this is an indication that it takes all Gods power in me to do the most common- place things in His way. Can I use a towel as He did? Towels and dishes and sandals, all the ordinary sordid things of our lives, reveal more quickly than anything what we are made of. It takes God Almighty Incarnate in us to do the meanest duty as it ought to be done. I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. Watch the kind of people God brings around you, and you will be humiliated to find that this is His way of revealing to you the kind of person you have been to Him. Now, He says, exhibit to that one exactly what I have shown to you. Oh, you say, I will do all that when I get out into the foreign field. To talk in this way is like trying to produce the munitions of war in the trenches you will be killed while you are doing it. We have to go the second mile with God. Some of us get played out in the first ten yards, because God compels us to go where we cannot see the way, and we say I will wait till I get nearer the big crisis. If we do not do the running steadily in the little ways, we shall do nothing in the crisis.

September 12   By spiritual confusion

Ye know not what ye ask. Matthew 20:22

There are times in spiritual life when there is confusion, and it is no way out to say that there ought not to be confusion. It is not a question of right and wrong, but a question of God taking you by a way which in the meantime you do not understand, and it is only by going through the confusion that you will get at what God wants. The Shrouding of His Friendship (Luke 11:58). Jesus gave the illustration of the man who looked as if he did not care for his friend, and He said that that is how the Heavenly Father will appear to you at times. You will think He is an unkind friend, but remember He is not; the time will come when everything will be explained. There is a cloud on the friendship of the heart, and often even love itself has to wait in pain and tears for the blessing of fuller communion. When God looks completely shrouded, will you hang in in confidence in Him? The Shadow on His Fatherhood (Luke 11:1113). Jesus says there are times when your Father will appear as if He were an unnatural father, as if He were callous and indifferent, but remember He is not; I have told you Every one that asketh receiveth. If there is a shadow on the face of the Father just now, hang into it that He will ultimately give His clear revealing and justify Himself in all that He permitted. The Strangeness of His Faithfulness (Luke 18:18). When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth? Will He find the faith which banks on Him in spite of the confusion? Stand off in faith believing that what Jesus said is true, though in the meantime you do not understand what God is doing. He has bigger issues at stake than the particular things you ask.

September 13   After surrender what?

I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do. John 17:4

Surrender is not the surrender of the external life, but of the will; when that is done, all is done. There are very few crises in life; the great crisis is the surrender of the will. God never crushes a mans will into surrender, He never beseeches him, He waits until the man yields up his will to Him. That battle never needs to be re-fought.

Surrender for Deliverance. Come unto Me, . . . and I will give you rest. It is after we have begun to experience what salvation means that we surrender our wills to Jesus for rest. Whatever is perplexing heart or mind is a call to the willCome unto Me. It is a voluntary coming.

Surrender for Devotion. If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself. The surrender here is of my self to Jesus, my self with His rest at the heart of it. If you would be My disciple, give up your right to yourself to Me. Then the remainder of the life is nothing but the manifestation of this surrender. When once the surrender has taken place we never need suppose anything. We do not need to care what our circumstances are, Jesus is amply sufficient.

Surrender for Death ( John 21:1819). . . . another shall gird thee. Have you learned what it means to be bound for death? Beware of a surrender which you make to God in an ecstasy; you are apt to take it back again. It is a question of being united with Jesus in His death until nothing ever appeals to you that did not appeal to Him. After surrenderwhat? The whole of life after surrender is an aspiration for unbroken communion with God.

September 14 Imagination v. Inspiration The simplicity that is in Christ. 2 Corinthians 11:3 Simplicity is the secret of seeing things clearly. A saint does not think clearly for a long while, but a saint ought to see clearly without any difficulty. You cannot think a spiritual muddle clear, you have to obey it clear. In intellectual matters you can think things out, but in spiritual matters you will think yourself into cotton wool. If there is something upon which God has put His pressure, obey in that matter, bring your imagination into captivity to the obedience of Christ with regard to it and everything will become as clear as daylight. The reasoning capacity comes afterwards, but we never see along that line, we see like children; when we try to be wise we see nothing (Matthew 11:25). The tiniest thing we allow in our lives that is not under the control of the Holy Spirit is quite sufficient to account for spiritual muddle, and all the thinking we like to spend on it will never make it clear. Spiritual muddle is only made plain by obedience. Immediately we obey, we discern. This is humiliating, because when we are muddled we know the reason is in the temper of our mind. When the natural power of vision is devoted to the Holy Spirit, it becomes the power of perceiving Gods will and the whole life is kept in simplicity. September 15 what to renounce But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty. 2 Corinthians 4:2 Have you renounced the hidden things of dishonesty the things that your sense of honour will not allow to come to the light? You can easily hide them. Is there a thought in your heart about anyone which you would not like to be dragged into the light? Renounce it as soon as it springs up; renounce the whole thing until there is no hidden thing of dishonesty or craftiness about you. Envy, jealousy, strife these things arise not necessarily from the disposition of sin, but from the make-up of your body which was used for this kind of thing in days gone by (see Romans 6:19 and 1 Peter 4:12): Maintain a contin- ual watchfulness so that nothing of which you would be ashamed arises in your life. Not walking in craftiness, that is, resorting to what will carry your point. This is a great snare. You know that God will only let you work in one way, then be careful never to catch people the other way; Gods blight will be upon you if you do. Others are doing things which to you would be walking in craftiness, but it may not be so with them; God has given you another standpoint. Never blunt the sense of your Utmost for His Highest. For you to do a certain thing would mean the incoming of craftiness for an end other than the highest, and the blunting of the motive God has given you. Many have gone back because they are afraid of looking at things from Gods stand-point. The crisis comes spiritually when a man has to emerge a bit farther on than the creed he has accepted. September 16 the divine region of religion But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret. Matthew 6:6 The main idea in the region of religion is Your eyes upon God, not on men. Do not have as your motive the desire to be known as a praying man. Get an inner chamber in which to pray where no one knows you are praying, shut the door and talk to God in secret. Have no other motive than to know your Father in heaven. It is impossible to conduct your life as a disciple without definite times of secret prayer. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions. . . . (Matthew 6:7). God is never impressed by our earnestness. He does not hear us because we are in ear- nest, but only on the ground of Redemption. Prayer is not simply getting things from God, that is an initial form of prayer; prayer is getting into perfect communion with God. If the Son of God is formed in us by regeneration, He will press forward in front of our common sense and change our attitude to the things about which we pray. Every one that asketh receiveth. We pray pious blather, our will is not in it, and then we say God does not answer; we never asked for anything. Ye shall ask what ye will, said Jesus. Asking means our will is in it. Whenever Jesus talked about prayer, He put it with the grand simplicity of a child; we bring in our critical temper and say Yes, but . . . Jesus said Ask. But remember that we have to ask of God things that are in keeping with the God Whom Jesus Christ revealed .

September 17   Whats the Good of temptation?

There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man. 1 Corinthians 10:13

The word temptation has come down in the world; we are apt to us it wrongly: Temptation is not sin, it is the thing we are bound to meet if we are men. Not to be tempted would be to be beneath contempt. Many of us, however, suffer from temptations from which we have no business to suffer, simply because we have refused to let God lift us to a higher plane where we would face temptations of another order. A mans disposition on the inside, i. e. , what he possesses in his personality, determines what he is tempted by on the outside. The temptation fits the nature of the one tempted, and reveals the possibilities of the nature. Every man has the setting of his own temptation, and the temptation will come along the line of the ruling disposition. Temptation is a suggested short cut to the realisation of the highest at which I aim not towards what I understand as evil, but towards what I under- stand as good. Temptation is something that completely baffles me for a while, I do not know whether the thing is right or wrong. Temptation yielded to is lust deified, and is a proof that it was timidity that prevented the sin before. Temptation is not something we may escape, it is essential to the fullorbed life of a man. Beware lest you think you are tempted as no one else is tempted; what you go through is the common inheritance of the race, not something no one ever went through before. God does not save us from temptations; He succors us in the midst of them (Hebrews 2:18). September 18 his temptation and ours For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Hebrews 4:15 Until we are born again, the only kind of temptation we understand is that mentioned by St. JamesEvery man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. But by regeneration we are lifted into another realm where there are other temptations to face, viz. , the kind of temptations Our Lord faced. The temptations of Jesus do not appeal to us, they have no home at all in our human nature. Our Lords temptations and ours move in different spheres until we are born again and become His brethren. The temptations of Jesus are not those of a man, but the temptations of God as Man. By regeneration the Son of God is formed in us, and in our physical life He has the same setting that He had on earth. Satan does not tempt us to do wrong things; he tempts us in order to make us lose what God has put into us by regeneration, viz. , the possibility of being of value to God. He does not come on the line of tempting us to sin, but on the line of shifting the point of view, and only the Spirit of God can detect this as a temptation of the devil. Temptation means the test by an alien power of the possessions held by a personality. This makes the temptation of Our Lord explainable. After Jesus in His baptism had accepted the vocation of bearing away the sin of the world (RV mg), He was immediately put by Gods Spirit into the testing machine of the devil; but He did not tire. He went through the temptation without sin, and retained the possessions of His personality intact.

September 19  Do you continue to Go with Jesus?

Ye are they which have continued with Me in My temptations. Luke 22:28 It is true that Jesus Christ is with us in our temptations, but are we going with Him in His temptations? Many of us cease to go with Jesus from the moment we have an experience of what He can do. Watch when God shifts your circumstances, and see whether you are going with Jesus, or siding with the world, the flesh and the devil. We wear His badge, but are we going with Him? From that time many of His disciples went back, and walked no more with Him. The temptations of Jesus continued throughout His earthly life, and they will continue throughout the life of the Son of God in us. Are we going with Jesus in the life we are living now? We have the idea that we ought to shield our- selves from some of the things God brings round us. Never! God engineers circumstances, and whatever they may be like we have to see that we face them while abiding continually with Him in His temptations. They are His temptations, not temptations to us, but temptations to the life of the Son of God in us. The honour of Jesus Christ is at stake in your bodily life. Are you remaining loyal to the Son of God in the things which beset His life in you? Do you continue to go with Jesus? The way lies through Gethsemane, through the city gate, outside the camp; the way lies alone, and the way lies until there is no trace of a footstep left, only the voice, Follow Me.

September 20    The divine rule of life

Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. Matthew 5:48

Our Lords exhortation in these verses is to be generous in our behavior to all men. In the spiritual life beware of walking according to natural affinities. Everyone has natural affinities; some people we like and others we do not like. We must never let those likes and dislikes rule in our Christian life. If we walk in the light, as God is in the light, God will give us communion with people for whom we have no natural affinity. The Example Our Lord gives us is not that of a good man, or even of a good Christian, but of God Himself. Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect show to the other man what God has shown to you; and God will give us ample opportunities in actual life to prove whether we are perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. To be a disciple means that we deliberately identify ourselves with Gods interests in other people. That ye love one another; as I have loved you. . . . The expression of Christian character is not good doing, but God likeness: If the Spirit of God has transformed you within, you will exhibit Divine characteristics in your life, not good human characteristics. Gods life in us expresses itself as Gods life, not as human life trying to be godly. The secret of a Christian is that the supernatural is made natural in him by the grace of God, and the experience of this works out in the practical details of life, not in times of communion with God. When we come in contact with things that create a buzz, we find to our amazement that we have power to keep wonderfully poised in the centre of it all.

September 21    Missionary predestination

And now, saith the Lord that formed me from the womb to be His servant. Isaiah 49:5

The first thing that happens after we have realised our election to God in Christ Jesus is the destruction of our prejudices and our parochial notions and our patriotism; we are turned into servants of Gods own purpose. The whole human race was created to glorify God and enjoy Him for ever. Sin has switched the human race on to another tack, but it has not altered Gods purpose in the tiniest degree; and when we are born again we are brought into the realisation of Gods great purpose for the human race, viz. , I am created for God, He made me. This realisation of the election of God is the most joyful realisation on earth, and we have to learn to rely on the tremendous creative purpose of God. The first thing God will do with us is to force thro the channels of a single heart the interests of the whole world. The love of God, the very nature of God, is introduced into us, and the nature of Almighty God is focused in John 3:16God so loved the world. . . . We have to maintain our soul open to the fact of Gods creative purpose, and not muddle it with our own intentions. If we do, God will have to crush our intentions on one side however much it may hurt. The purpose for which the missionary is created is that he may be Gods servant, one in whom God is glorified. When once we realise that through the salvation of Jesus Christ we are made perfectly fit for God, we shall understand why Jesus Christ is so ruthless in His demands. He demands absolute rectitude from His servants, because He has put into them the very nature of God. Beware lest you forget Gods purpose for your life.

September 22    The missionary master

Ye call Me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. John 13:13

To have a master and to be mastered is not the same thing. To have a master means that there is one who knows me better than I know myself, one who is closer than a friend, one who fathoms the remotest abyss of my heart and satisfies it, one who has brought me into the secure sense that he has met and solved every perplexity and problem of my mind. To have a master is this and nothing less One is your Master, even Christ. Our Lord never enforces obedience; He does not take means to make me do what He wants. At certain times I wish God would master me and make me do the thing, but He will not; in other moods I wish He would leave me alone, but He does not. Ye call me Master and Lord but is He? Master and Lord have little place in our vocabulary, we prefer the words Saviour, Sanctifies, Healer. The only word to describe master-ship in experience is love, and we know very little about love as God reveals it. This is proved by the way we use the word obey. In the Bible obedience is based on the relationship of equals, that of a son with his father. Our Lord was not Gods servant, He was His son. Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience. . . . If our idea is that we are being mastered, it is a proof that we have no master; if that is our attitude to Jesus, we are far away from the relationship He wants. He wants us in the relationship in which He is easily Master without our conscious knowledge of it, all we know is that we are His to obey.

September 23     The missionary Goal Behold,

we go up to Jerusalem. Luke 18:31

In the natural life our ambitions alter as we develop; in the Christian life the goal is given at the beginning, the beginning and the end are the same, viz. , Our Lord Himself. We start with Christ and we end with Him until we all attain (rv) to the stature of the manhood of Christ Jesus, not to our idea of what the Christian life should be. The aim of the missionary is to do Gods will, not to be useful, not to win the heathen; he is useful and he does win the heathen, but that is not his aim. His aim is to do the will of his Lord. In Our Lords life Jerusalem was the place where He reached the climax of His Fathers will upon the Cross, and unless we go with Jesus there, we shall have no companionship with Him. Nothing ever discouraged Our Lord on His way to Jerusalem. He never hurried through certain villages where He was persecuted, or lingered in others where He was blessed. Neither gratitude nor ingratitude turned Our Lord one hairs breadth away from His purpose to go up to Jerusalem. The disciple is not above his Master. The same things will happen to us on our way to our Jerusalem. There will be the works of God manifested through us, people will get blessed, and one or two will show gratitude and the rest will show gross ingratitude, but nothing must deflect us from going up to our Jerusalem. There they crucified Him. That is what happened when Our Lord reached Jerusalem, and that happening is the gateway to our salvation. The saints do not end in crucifixion: by the Lords grace they end in glory. In the meantime our watchword isI, too, go up to Jerusalem.

September 24     The Go of preparation

Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there thou rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Matthew 5:2324

It is easy to imagine that we shall get to a place where we are complete and ready, but preparation is not suddenly accomplished, it is a process steadily maintained. It is dangerous to get into a settled state of experience. It is preparation and preparation. The sense of sacrifice appeals readily to a young Christian. Humanly speaking, the one thing that attracts to Jesus Christ is our sense of the heroic, and the scrutiny of Our Lords words suddenly brings this tide of enthusiasm to the test. First be reconciled to thy brother. The go of preparation is to let the word of God scrutinize. The sense of heroic sacrifice is not good enough. The thing the Holy Spirit is detecting in you is the disposition that will never work in His service. No one but God can detect that disposition in you. Have you anything to hide from God? If you have, then let God search you with His light. If there is sin, confess it, not admit it. Are you willing to obey your Lord and Master, whatever the humiliation to your right to yourself may be? Never discard a conviction. If it is important enough for the Spirit of God to have brought it to your mind, it is that thing He is detecting. You were looking for a great thing to give up. God is telling you of some tiny thing; but at the back of it there lies the central citadel of obstinacy: I will not give up my right to myself the thing God intends you to give up if ever you are going to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.

September 25    The Go of relationship

And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Matthew 5:41

The summing up of Our Lords teaching is that the relationship which He demands is an impossible one unless He has done a supernatural work in us. Jesus Christ demands that there be not the slightest trace of resentment even suppressed in the head of a disciple when he meets with tyranny and injustice. No enthusiasm will ever stand the strain that Jesus Christ will put upon His worker, only one thing will, and that is a personal relationship to Himself which has gone through the mill of His spring-cleaning until there is only one purpose left I am here for God to send me where He will. Every other thing may get fogged, but this relationship to Jesus Christ must never be. The Sermon on the Mount is not an ideal, it is a statement of what will happen in me when Jesus Christ has altered my disposition and put in a dis- position like His own. Jesus Christ is the only One Who can fulfill the Sermon on the Mount. If we are to be disciples of Jesus, we must be made disciples supernaturally; as long as we have the dead- set purpose of being disciples we may be sure we are not. I have chosen you. That is the way the grace of God begins. It is a constraint we cannot get away from; we can disobey it, but we cannot generate it. The drawing is done by the supernatural grace of God, and we never can trace where His work begins. Our Lords making of a disciple is supernatural. He does not build on any natural capacity at all. God does not ask us to do the things that are easy to us naturally; He only asks us to do the things we are perfectly fitted to do by His grace, and the cross will come along that line always.

September 26   The unblameable attitude

If thou . . . rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee . . . Matthew 5:23

If when you come to the altar, there you remember that your brother has anything against you, not If you rake up something by a morbid sensitiveness, but If thou . . . rememberest, that is, it is brought to your conscious mind by the Spirit of God: first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Never object to the intense sensitiveness of the Spirit of God in you when He is educating you down to the scruple. First be reconciled to thy brother. . . . Our Lords direction is simplefirst be reconciled. Go back the way you came, go the way indicated to you by the conviction given at the altar; have an attitude of mind and a temper of soul to the one who has something against you that makes reconciliation as natural as breathing. Jesus does not mention the other person, He saysyou go. There is no question of your rights. The stamp of the saint is that he can waive his own rights and obey the Lord Jesus. And then come and offer thy gift. The process is clearly marked. First, the heroic spirit of self-sacrifice, then the sudden checking by the sensitiveness of the Holy Spirit, and the stoppage at the point of conviction; then the way of obedience to the word of God, constructing an unblameable attitude of mind and temper to the one with whom you have been in the wrong; then the glad, simple, unhindered offering of your gift to God.

September 27   The Go of renunciation

Lord, I will follow Thee whither so ever Thou goest. Luke 9:57

Our Lords attitude to this man is one of severe discouragement because He knew what was in man. We would have said Fancy losing the opportunity of winning that man! Fancy bringing about a north wind that froze him and turned him away discouraged! Never apologise for your Lord. The words of the Lord hurt and offend until there is nothing left to hurt or offend. Jesus Christ has no tenderness what- ever toward anything that is ultimately going to ruin a man in the service of God. Our Lords answers are based not on caprice, but on a knowledge of what is in man. If the Spirit of God brings to your mind a word of the Lord that hurts you, you may be sure that there is something He wants to hurt to death. Verse 58. These words knock the heart out of serving Jesus Christ because it is pleasing to me. The rigour of rejection leaves nothing but my Lord, and myself, and a forlorn hope. Let the hundredfold come or go, your lodestar must be your relationship to Me, and I have nowhere to lay My head. Verse 59. This man did not want to disappoint Jesus, nor to hurt his father. We put sensitive loyalty to relatives in place of loyalty to Jesus Christ and Jesus has to take the last place. In a conflict of loyalty, obey Jesus Christ at all costs. Verse 61. The one who says Yes, Lord, but . . . is the one who is fiercely ready, but never goes. This man had one or two reservations. The exacting call of Jesus Christ has no margin of good-byes, because good-bye, as it is often used, is pagan, not Christian. When once the call of God comes, begin to go and never stop going.

September 28   The Go of unconditional Identification

One thing thou lackest: . . . come, take up the cross, and follow Me. Mark 10:21

The rich young ruler had the master passion to be perfect. When he saw Jesus Christ, he wanted to be like Him. Our Lord never puts personal holiness to the fore when He calls a disciple; He puts absolute annihilation of my right to myself and identification with Himself a relationship with Himself in which there is no other relationship. Luke 14:26 has nothing to do with salvation or sanctification, but with unconditional identification with Jesus Christ. Very few of us know the absolute go of abandonment to Jesus. Then Jesus beholding him loved him. The look of Jesus will mean a heart broken for ever from allegiance to any other person or thing. Has Jesus ever looked at you? The look of Jesus transforms and transfixes. Where you are soft with God is where the Lord has looked at you. If you are hard and vindictive, insistent on your own way, certain that the other person is more likely to be in the wrong than you are, it is an indication that there are whole tracts of your nature that have never been transformed by His gaze. One thing thou lackest. . . . The only good thing from Jesus Christs point of view is union with Himself and nothing in between. Sell whatsoever thou hast. . . . I must reduce myself until I am a mere conscious man, I must fundamentally renounce possessions of all kinds, not to save my soul, (only one thing saves a man absolute reliance upon Jesus Christ) but in order to follow Jesus. Come, and follow Me. And the road is the way He went.

September 29    The consciousness of the call

For necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel! 1 Corinthians 9:16

We are apt to forget the mystical, supernatural touch of God. If you can tell where you got the call of God and all about it, I question whether you have ever had a call. The call of God does not come like that, it is much more supernatural. The realisation of it in a mans life may come with a sudden thunder-clap or with a gradual dawning, but in whatever way it comes, it comes with the undercurrent of the super- natural, something that cannot be put into words, it is always accompanied with a glow. At any moment there may break the sudden consciousness of this incalculable, supernatural, surprising call that has taken hold of your lifeI have chosen you. The call of God has nothing to do with salvation and sanctification. It is not because you are sanctified that you are therefore called to preach the gospel; the call to preach the gospel is infinitely different. Paul describes it as a necessity laid upon him. If you have been obliterating the great supernatural call of God in your life, take a review of your circumstances and see where God has not been first, but your ideas of service, or your temperamental abilities. Paul said Woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel! He had realised the call of God, and there was no competitor for his strength. If a man or woman is called of God, it does not matter how untoward circumstances are, every force that has been at work will tell for Gods purpose in the end. If you agree with Gods purpose He will bring not only your conscious life, but all the deeper regions of your life which you cannot get at, into harmony.

September 30    The commission of the call

Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His bodys sake. Colossians 1:24

We make calls out of our own spiritual consecration, but when we get right with God He brushes all these aside, and rivets us with a pain that is terrific to one thing we never dreamed of, and for one radiant, flashing moment we see what He is after, and we say Here am I, send me. This call has nothing to do with personal sanctification, but with being made broken bread and poured-out wine. God can never make us wine if we object to the fingers He uses to crush us with. If God would only use His own fingers, and make me bro- ken bread and poured-out wine in a special way! But when He uses someone whom we dislike, or some set of circumstances to which we said we would never submit, and makes those the crushers, we object. We must never choose the scene of our own martyrdom. If ever we are going to be made into wine, we will have to be crushed; you cannot drink grapes. Grapes become wine only when they have been squeezed. I wonder what kind of finger and thumb God has been using to squeeze you, and you have been like a marble and escaped? You are not ripe yet, and if God had squeezed you, the wine would have been remarkably bitter. To be a sacramental personality means that the elements of the natural life are presenced by God as they are broken providentially in His service. We have to be adjusted to God before we can be bro- ken bread in His hands. Keep right with God and let Him do what He likes, and you will find that He is producing the kind of bread and wine that will benefit His other children.

October 1     The sphere of exaltation

Jesus . . . leadeth them up into a high mountain apart by themselves. Mark 9:2

We have all had times on the mount, when we have seen things from Gods standpoint and have wanted to stay there; but God will never allow us to stay there. The test of our spiritual life is the power to descend; if we have power to rise only, something is wrong. It is a great thing to be on the mount with God, but a man only gets there in order that after- wards he may get down among the devil-possessed and lift them up. We are not built for the mountains and the dawns and aesthetic affinities, those are for moments of inspiration, that is all. We are built for the valley, for the ordinary stuff we are in, and that is where we have to prove our mettle. Spiritual selfishness always wants repeated moments on the mount. We feel we could talk like angels and live like angels, if only we could stay on the mount. The times of exaltation are exceptional, they have their meaning in our life with God, but we must beware lest our spiri- tual selfishness wants to make them the only time. We are apt to think that everything that happens is to be turned into useful teaching, it is to be turned into something better than teaching, viz. , into character. The mount is not meant to teach us anything, it is meant to make us something. There is a great snare in asking What is the use of it? In spiritual mat- ters we can never calculate on that line. The moments on the mountain top are rare moments, and they are meant for something in Gods purpose.

October 2     The sphere of humiliation

If Thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us. Mark 9:22

After every time of exaltation we are brought down with a sudden rush into things as they are, where it is neither beautiful nor poetic nor thrilling. The height of the mountain top is measured by the drab drudgery of the valley; but it is in the valley that we have to live for the glory of God. We see His glory on the mount, but we never live for His glory there. It is in the sphere of humiliation that we find our true worth to God, that is where our faithfulness is revealed. Most of us can do things if we are always at the heroic pitch because of the natural selfishness of our hearts, but God wants us at the drab commonplace pitch, where we live in the valley according to our personal relation- ship to Him. Peter thought it would be a fine thing for them to remain on the mount, but Jesus Christ took the disciples down from the mount into the valley the place where the meaning of the vision is explained. If Thou canst do any thing . . . It takes the valley of humiliation to root the scepticism out of us. Look back at your own experience, and you will find that until you learned Who Jesus was, you were a cunning septic about His power. When you were on the mount, you could believe anything, but what about the time when you were up against facts in the valley? You may be able to give a testimony to sanctification, but what about the thing that is a humili- ation to you just now? The last time you were on the mount with God, you saw that all power in heaven and in earth belonged to Jesus will you be sceptical now in the valley of humiliation?

October 3   The sphere of ministration

This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting. Mark 9:29

Why could not we cast him out? The answer lies in a personal relationship to Jesus Christ. This kind can come forth by nothing but by concentration and redoubled concentration on Him. We can ever remain powerless, as were the disciples, by trying to do Gods work not in concentration on His power, but by ideas drawn from our own temperament. We slander God by our very eagerness to work for Him without knowing Him. You are brought face to face with a difficult case and nothing happens externally, and yet you know that emancipation will be given because you are concentrated on Jesus Christ. This is your line of service to see that there is nothing between Jesus and yourself. Is there? If there is, you must get through it, not by ignoring it in irritation, or by mounting up,But by facing it and getting through it into the presence of jesus christ. Then that very thing, and all you have been through in connection with it, will glorify jesus christ in a way you will never know till you see him face to face. We must be able to mount up with wings as eagles; but we must also know how to come down. The power of the saint lies in the coming down and the living down. I can do all things through christ which strengtheneth me, said paul, and the things he referred to were mostly humiliating things. It is in our power to refuse to be humiliated and to say no, thank you, i much prefer to be on the mountain top with god. Can i face things as they actually are in the light of the reality of jesus christ, or do things as they are efface altogether my faith in him, and put me into a panic?

October 4   The vision and the verity

Called to be saints. 1 corinthians 1:2

Thank god for the sight of all you have never yet been. You have had the vision, but you are not there yet by any means. It is when we are in the valley, where we prove whether we will be the choice ones, that most of us turn back. We are not quite prepared for the blows which must come if we are going to be turned into the shape of the vision. We have seen what we are not, and what god wants us to be, but are we willing to have the vision batterd to shape and use by god? The batterings always come in commonplace ways and through commonplace people. There are times when we do know what gods purpose is; whether we will let the vision be turned into actual character depends upon us, not upon god. If we prefer to loll on the mount and live in the memory of the vision, we will be of no use actually in the ordinary stuff of which human life is made up. We have to learn to live in reliance on what we saw in the vision, not in ecstasies and conscious contempla- tion of god, but to live in actualities in the light of the vision until we get to the veritable reality. Every bit of our training is in that direction. Learn to thank god for making known his demands. The little i am always sulks when god says do. Let the little i am be shrivelled up in gods indignationi am that i am . . . Hath sent me. He must dominate. Is it not penetrating to realise that god knows where we live, and the kennels we crawl into! He will hunt us up like a lightning flash. No human being knows human beings as god does.

October 5   The bias of degeneration

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. Romans 5:12

The bible does not say that god punished the human race for one mans sin; but that the disposition of sin, viz. , my claim to my right to myself, entered into the human race by one man, and that another man took on him the sin of the human race and put it away (hebrews 9:26)an infinitely profounder revelation. The disposition of sin is not immorality and wrong- doing, but the disposition of self- realisationi am my own god. This disposition may work out in deco- rous morality or in indecorous immorality, but it has the one basis, my claim to my right to myself. When our lord faced men with all the forces of evil in them, and men who were clean living and moral and upright, he did not pay any attention to the moral degradation of the one or to the moral attainment of the other; he looked at something we do not see, viz. , the disposition. Sin is a thing i am born with and i cannot touch it; god touches sin in redemption. In the cross of jesus christ god redeemed the whole human race from the possibility of damnation through the heredity of sin. God nowhere holds a man responsible for having the heredity of sin. The condemna- tion is not that i am born with a heredity of sin, but if when i realise jesus christ came to deliver me from it, i refuse to let him do so, from that moment i begin to get the seal of damnation. And this is the judgement (the critical moment) that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light.

October 6   The bent of regeneration

When it pleased god . . . To reveal his son in me. Galatians 1:1516

if jesus christ is to regenerate me, what is the prob- lem he is up against? I have a heredity i had no say in; i am not holy, nor likely to be; and if all jesus christ can do is to tell me i must be holy, his teach- ing plants despair. But if jesus christ is a regenera- tor, one who can put into me his own heredity of holiness, then i begin to see what he is driving at when he says that i have to be holy. Redemption means that jesus christ can put into any man the hereditary disposition that was in himself, and all the standards He gives are based on that disposition: His teaching is for the life He puts in. The moral trans- action on my part is agreement with Gods verdict on sin in the Cross of Jesus Christ. The New Testament teaching about regeneration is that when a man is struck by a sense of need, God will put the Holy Spirit into his spirit, and his personal spirit will be energised by the Spirit of the Son of God until Christ be formed in you. The moral miracle of Redemption is that God can put into me a new disposition whereby I can live a totally new life. When I reach the frontier of need and know my limitations, Jesus says Blessed are you. But I have to get there. God cannot put into me, a responsible moral being, the disposition that was in Jesus Christ unless I am conscious I need it. Just as the disposition of sin entered into the human race by one man, so the Holy Spirit entered the human race by another Man; and Redemption means that I can be delivered from the heredity of sin and through Jesus Christ can receive an unsullied heredity, viz. , the Holy Spirit.

October 7     Reconciliation

For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. 2 Corinthians 5:21

Sin is a fundamental relationship; it is not wrong doing, it is wrong being, deliberate and emphatic independence of God. The Christian religion bases everything on the positive, 22 radical nature of sin. Other religions deal with sins; the Bible alone deals with sin. The first thing Jesus Christ faced in men was the heredity of sin, and it is because we have ignored this in our presentation of the Gospel that the message of the Gospel has lost its sting and its blasting power. The revelation of the Bible is not that Jesus Christ took upon Himself our fleshly sins, but that He took upon Himself the heredity of sin which no man can touch. God made His own Son to be sin that He might make the sinner a saint. All through the Bible it is revealed that Our Lord bore the sin of the world by identification, not by sympathy. He deliberately took upon His own shoulders, and bore in His own Person, the whole massed sin of the human race He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, and by so doing He put the whole human race on the basis of Redemption. Jesus Christ rehabilitated the human race; He put it back to where God designed it to be, and anyone can enter into union with God on the ground of what Our Lord has done on the Cross. A man cannot redeem himself; Redemption is Gods bit, it is absolutely finished and complete; its reference to individual men is a question of their individual action. A distinction must always be made between the revelation of Redemption and the conscious experience of salvation in a mans life.

October 8      The exclusiveness of Christ

Come unto Me. Matthew 11:28

Is it not humiliating to be told that we must come to Jesus! Think of the things we will not come to Jesus Christ about. If you want to know how real you are, test yourself by these words Come unto Me. In every degree in which you are not real, you will dispute rather than come, you will quibble rather than come, you will go through sorrow rather than come; you will do anything rather than come the last lap of unutterable foolishness Just as I am. As long as you have the tiniest bit of spiritual impertinence, it will always reveal itself in the fact that you are expecting God to tell you to do a big thing, and all He is telling you to do is to come. Come unto Me. When you hear those words you will know that something must happen in you before you can come. The Holy Spirit will show you what you have to do, anything at all that will put the axe at the root of the thing which is preventing you from getting through. You will never get further until you are willing to do that one thing. The Holy Spirit will locate the one impregnable thing in you, but He cannot budge it unless you are willing to let Him. How often have you come to God with your requests and gone away with the feeling Oh well, I have done it this time! And yet you go away with nothing, whilst all the time God has stood with out- stretched hands not only to take you, but for you to take Him. Think of the invincible, unconquerable, un-wearying patience of Jesus Come unto Me.

October 9   Pull yourself together

Yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. Romans 6:19

I cannot save and sanctify myself; I cannot atone for sin; I cannot redeem the world; I cannot make right what is wrong, pure what is impure, holy what is unholy. That is all the sovereign work of God. Have I faith in what Jesus Christ has done? He has made a perfect Atonement, am I in the habit of constantly realising it? The great need is not to do things, but to believe things. The Redemption of Christ is not an experience, it is the great act of God which He has performed through Christ, and I have to build my faith upon it. If I construct my faith on my experience, I produce that most un-scriptural type, an isolated life, my eyes fixed on my own whiteness. Beware of the piety that has no presupposition in the Atonement of the Lord. It is of no use for anything but a sequestered life; it is useless to God and a nuisance to man. Mea- sure every type of experience by our Lord Himself. We cannot do anything pleasing to God unless we deliberately build on the presupposition of the Atonement. The Atonement of Jesus has to work out in prac- tical, unobtrusive ways in my life. Every time I obey, absolute Deity is on my side, so that the grace of God and natural obedience coincide. Obedience means that I have banked everything on the Atonement, and my obedience is met immediately by the delight of the supernatural grace of God. Beware of the piety that denies the natural life, it is a fraud. Continually bring yourself to the bar of the Atonement where is the discernment of the Atonement in this thing, and in that?

October 10    Whereby shall I know?

I thank Thee, O Father, . . . because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Matthew 11:25.

In spiritual relationships we do not grow step by step, we are either there or we are not. God does not cleanse us more and more from sin, but when we are in the light, walking in the light, we are cleansed from all sin. It is a question of obedience, and instantly the relationship is perfected. Turn away for one second out of obedience, and darkness and death are at work at once. All Gods revelations are sealed until they are opened to us by obedience. You will never get them open by philosophy or thinking. Immediately you obey, a flash of light comes. Let Gods truth work in you by soaking in it, not by worrying into it. The only way you can get to know is to stop trying to find out and by being born again. Obey God in the thing He shows you, and instantly the next thing is opened up. We read tomes on the work of the Holy Spirit, when one five minutes of drastic obedience would make things as clear as a sunbeam. I suppose I shall understand these things some day! You can understand them now. It is not study that does it, but obedience. The tiniest fragment of obedience, and heaven opens and the profoundest truths of God are yours straight away. God will never reveal more truth about Himself until you have obeyed what you know already. Beware of becoming wise and prudent.

October 11    After Gods silence what?

When He had heard therefore that he was sick, He abode two days still in the same place where He was. John 11:6

Has God trusted you with a silence a silence that is big with meaning? Gods silences are His answers. Think of those days of absolute silence in the home at Bethany! Is there anything analogous to those days in your life? Can God trust you like that, or are you still asking for a visible answer? God will give you the blessings you ask if you will not go any further without them; but His silence is the sign that He is bringing you into a marvellous understanding of Himself. Are you mourning before God because you have not had an audible response? You will find that God has trusted you in the most intimate way possible, with an absolute silence, not of despair, but of pleasure, because He saw that you could stand a bigger revelation. If God has given you a silence, praise Him, He is bringing you into the great run of His purposes. The manifestation of the answer in time is a matter of Gods sovereignty. Time is nothing to God. For a while you say I asked God to give me bread, and He gave me a stone. He did not, and to-day you find He gave you the bread of life. A wonderful thing about Gods silence is that the contagion of His stillness gets into you and you become perfectly confident know God has heard me. His silence is the proof that He has. As long as you have the idea that God will bless you in answer to prayer, He will do it, but He will never give you the grace of silence. If Jesus Christ is bringing you into the understanding that prayer is for the glorifying of His Father, He will give you the first sign of His intimacy silence. 832 My Utmost for His Highest