Now are you safeguarded? - Chambers, Oswald
Hold thou me up, and i shall be safe. Psalm 119:117
Kept by the power of god therefore you are all right now. There is no other time than now with god, no past and no future. Is your life safeguarded? If it is not, you will go under no matter what your experience is. In the bible the men who fell, fell on their strong points, not on their weak ones, because on their strong points they were unguarded.
1. Can you see the highest?
He sent from on high, he took me; he drew me out of many waters. (psalm 18:16 RV ; see also Ephesians 2:6; colossi ans 3:2)
The lord Jesus christ is the highest. Is there any- one higher to you than he is? Your life is never safe- guarded until jesus is seen to be the highest. Past experience will not keep you, neither will deliverance from sin; the only safeguarding power is the highest. If there is a breath of confidence anywhere else, there will be disaster, and it is by the mercy of god that you are allowed to stumble, or be pain-smitten, until you learn that he does it all he keeps you from stumbling (RV ), he raises you up and keeps you up, he sends from above and delivers you. Whenever there is a complication in your circumstances, do nothing until you see the highest, not sometimes, but always (cf. Isaiah 1:10). Can you see the lord in your thinking? If not, suspend your judgement until you can. Can you see the face of Jesus in your affections? If not, restrain them until you can. Can you see god in your circumstances? If not, do nothing until you can. Our lord can trust anything to the man or woman who sees him. Set your affection on things above, i. E. , gather in your stray impulses and fix them. The spiritual life is not impulsive; we are impulsive when we are not spiritual. In every experience the safeguard is the lord himself, and he was not impulsive. The one thing Jesus always checked was impulse. Impulse has to be trained and turned into intuition by discipline. Is your mind set on Jesus Christ, or have you only a principle at stake? The great simplicity of the christian life is the relationship to the highest. Reckless confidence in god is of far more value than personal holiness, if personal holiness is looked upon as an end in itself.
When once you take any one of the great works of god as an end, or any one of the truths which depend on Jesus Christ, as the truth, you will go wrong, you are outside the guard of god. The safeguard is the highest i am . . . The truth. I, if i be lifted up . . . Allow nothing to take you away from jesus himself, and all other phases of truth will take their right place.
2. Are you strengthened from the highest?
Thou hast enlarged my steps under me, and my feet have not slipped. (psalm 18:36 RV ; see also Ephesians 6:15)
When first we experience the grace of god, we have the feeling that if ever we should become what Jesus Christ wants us to be, he would have to take us straight to heaven! But when by gods grace we get there, we find we are not on a perilous mountain peak, but on a broad plateau, with any amount of room to walk as safe and as eternal as the hills. Thou hast enlarged my steps under me. The great note of strength is to walk
And not faint; to mount up with wings is exceptional. Everywhere your foot treads; at home or abroad, should bring a preparation of the gospel of peace. Sometimes when you put down a prepared foot for god it is any- thing but peace! It is disturbance and upset, but that is the way god prepares for the coming of his peace. Jesus is the prince of peace, yet he said, i came not to send peace, but a sword. Are you strengthened from above mentally, physically, morally, spiritually, and circumstantially? Do you know how to draw on the resurrection life of Jesus? The guidance in work for god is to notice where you are exhausted without recuperation. We take on a tremendous amount of stuff which we call work for god, and god puts the sentence of death on it for we are exhausted by it without being recuperated, because our strength is drawn from somewhere other than the highest. The sign that what we are doing is gods work is that we know the supernatural recuperation. Are we strong enough to be abject failures in the eyes of the world, or are we set upon success? Our work for god is not of any value saving as it develops us; the one thing of value in gods sight is our relationship to Jesus christ. The branch knows nothing about its fruit, it only knows the pruning- knife (see john 15:2). Am i a blessing? No, certainly not, if you are looking at the outflow. Keep rightly related to the highest, and out of you will flow rivers of living water.
3. Are you succoured by the highest?
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your god. (Isaiah 40:1; see also Philippians 2:12)
The things that discourage and hurt us show from whence we get our succour. Jesus Christ was never discouraged because he was succoured by the high- est. Until a worker knows the succour of god he is in danger of becoming a stumbling-block to other souls. If we are not being succoured by the highest, of what use can we be to folks who are crushed by sorrows of which we know nothing? The sacrifices of god are a broken spirit, broken beyond any patching up, but he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted. The heart which has been bound up and succoured by the lord Jesus Christ will never be caught in the train of self-interest, there is no selfishness left in it. As one whom his mother comforteth, so will i com- fort you. That is the most powerful thing god can do for us. The great note of the life which is comforted by god is for my lord i live; by my lord i am strengthened, and in my lord i am succoured.
