The Blessed Life # 1

The Blessed Life # 1

There is a Christian life which, on comparison with that experienced by the majority of Christians, is as summer to winter; or, as the mature fruitfulness of a golden autumn to the struggling promise of a cold and late spring. And the blessedness of this blessed life lies in this: that we trust the Lord to do in us and for us what we could not do. And we find that He does not belie His Word, but that, according to our faith, so it is done to us. The weary spirit, which has vainly sought to realize its ideal by its own strivings and efforts, now gives itself over to the strong and tender hands of the Lord Jesus, and He accepts the task, and at once begins to  work in it to will and to do of His own good pleasure, delivering it from the tyranny of besetting sin, and fulfilling in it His own perfect ideal. The Blessed Life should be the normal life of every Christian - in work and rest, in the building up of the inner life, and in the working out of the life-plan. It is God's thought not for a few, but for all His children. The youngest and weakest may lay claim to it equally with the strongest and oldest. We should step into it the moment of conversion without wandering with blistered feet for forty years in the desert, or lying for thirty-eight years, with disappointed hopes, in the porch of the house of mercy.

THE NEW BIRTH

The first chamber in the King's holy palace is the Chamber of the New Birth. By nature we are destitute of life - dead in trespasses and sins. We need, therefore, not a new creed, but a new life. The prophet's staff is well enough where there is life, but it is useless on the dead. The first requisite is LIFE. This is what the Holy Spirit gives us at the moment of conversion.

Angels, looking at it from the heaven side, call it being born again. Man, looking at it from the earth side, calls it Trusting Jesus. Those that believe in His name are born again; those that receive Him have the right to become the sons of God (John 1:12, 13). If you are born again, you will trust. And if you are trusting Jesus, however many doubts and fears, you are certainly born again and have entered the palace. If you go no further, you will be saved, but you will miss untold blessedness.

Jesus Christ has bought us with His blood, but, alas, He has not had His money's worth! He paid for ALL, and He has had but a fragment of our energy, time and earnings. By an act of consecration, let us ask Him to forgive the robbery of the past, and let us profess our desire to be henceforth utterly and only for Him.

As soon as we say this He will test our sincerity, as He did the young ruler's by asking something of us. He will lay His finger on something within us which He needs us to alter, obeying some command, or abstaining from some indulgence. If we instantly give up our will and way to Him, we pass the narrow doorway into the chamber of surrender, which has a southern aspect and is ever warm and radiant with His presence because obedience is the condition of manifested love (John 14:23).

This doorway is very narrow, and entrance is only possible for those who will lay aside weights as well as sins. A weight is anything which, without being essentially wrong or hurtful to others, is yet a hindrance to ourselves. We may always know a weight by three signs: first, we are uneasy about it; second, we argue for it against our conscience; third, we go about asking people's advice whether we may not keep it without harm. All these things must be laid aside in the strength which Jesus waits to give. Ask Him to deal with them for you, that you may be set in every good work to do His will (Heb. 13:21).

That consecration is the stepping stone to blessedness is clearly established in the experience of God's children. For instance, Frances Havergal has left us this record: "It was on Sunday that I first saw clearly the blessedness of true consecration. I saw it as a flash of electric light, and what you see you can never unsee. There must be full surrender before there can be full blessedness. God admits you by the one into the other. First, I was shown that the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses from all sin; and then it was made plain to me that He who had thus cleansed me had power to keep me clean; so I utterly yielded myself to Him and utterly trusted Him to keep me."  

CONSECRATION

The act of consecration is recognizing Christ's ownership and accepting it, saying to Him, with the whole heart, "Lord, I am Yours by right, and I wish to be Yours by choice." Of old the mighty men of Israel were willing to swim the flooder rivers to come to David, their uncrowned, but God-appointed king. And when they met him, they cried, "We are yours, and on your side, David, son of Jesse." They were his because God had given them to him, but they could not rest content until they were his also by their glad choice. Why then should we not say the same to Jesus Christ? "Lord Jesus, I am Yours by right; forgive me that I have lived so long as if I were on my own. And now I gladly recognize that You have a rightful claim on all I have and am. I want to live as Yours from henceforth, and I do solemnly at this hour give myself to You to be Yours in life and death, Yours absolutely and forever."

Do not try to make a covenant with God, lest you should break it and be discouraged. But quietly fall into your right attitude as one who belongs to Christ. Take as your motto the noble confession, "Whose I am and Whom I serve." Breathe the grand old simple lines:
Just as I am, Your love unknown
Has broken every barrier down,
Not to be Yours, yes, Yours alone,
O Lamb of God, I come.

AN ACT OF THE WILL

Consecration is not the act of our feelings but of our WILL. Do not try to feel anything; do not try to make yourself fit or good or earnest enough for Christ. God is working in you to will, whether you feel it or not. He is giving you power, at this moment, to will and do His good pleasure. Believe this, act upon it at once, and say, "Lord Jesus, I am willing to be Yours"; or, if you cannot say as much as that, say, "Lord Jesus, I am willing to be made willing to be Yours forevermore."

Consecration is only possible when we give up our will about EVERYTHING. As soon as we come to the point of giving ourselves to God, we are almost certain to become aware of the presence of one thing, if not of more, out of harmony with His will. And while we feel able to surrender ourselves in all other points, here we exercise reserve. Every room and cupboard in the house, with the exception of this, is thrown open to the new Occupant; every limb in the body, but one, submitted to the practiced hand of the Good Physician. But that small reserve spoils the whole. To give ninety-nine parts and to withhold the hundredth undoes the whole transaction. Jesus will have all or none. And He is wise. Who would live in a fever-stricken house, so long as one room was not exposed in disinfectants, air and sun? Who would undertake a case so long as the patient refused to submit one part of his body to examination? The reason that so many fail to attain the Blessed Life is that there is some one point in which they hold back from God, and concerning which they prefer to have their own way and will rather than His. In this one thing they will not yield their will and accept God's; and this one little thing mars the whole, robs them of peace, and compels them to wander in the desert.

~F. B. Meyer~

(continued with # 2)