The Blessed Life # 3

The Blessed Life # 3

6. Expect the Holy Spirit to work in, with, and for you. When a man is right with God, God will freely use him. There will rise up within him impulses, inspirations, strong strivings, strange resolves. These must be tested by Scripture and prayer; and if evidently of God, they must be obeyed. But there is this perennial source of comfort: God's commands are His enablings. He will never give us a work to do without showing exactly how and when to do it, or without giving us the precise strength and wisdom we need. Do not dread to enter this life because you fear that God will ask you to do something you cannot do. He will never do that. If He lays anything on your heart, He will do so irresistibly; and as you pray about it, the impression will continue to grow, so that presently, as you look up to know what He wills you to say or do, the way will suddenly open, and you will probably have said the word or done the deed almost unconsciously. Rely on the Holy Spirit to go before you, to make the crooked places straight and the rough places smooth. Do not bring the legal spirit of "must" into God's free service. "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow." Let your life be as effortless as theirs, because your faith shall constantly hand over all difficulties and responsibilities to your ever-present Lord. There is no effort to the branch in putting forth the swelling clusters of grapes; the effort would be to keep them back.

Someone says, "I have tried to live a consistent Christian life,and yet I am not what I wish." Perhaps you live too much in your feelings, too little in your will. We have no direct control over our feelings, but we have over our will. God does not hold us responsible for what we feel, but for what we will. Let us, therefore, not live in the summer house of emotion, but in the central citadel of the will, wholly yielded and devoted to the will of God.

Perhaps you have disobeyed some clear command. Sometimes a soul comes to its spiritual adviser, and says, "i have no conscious joy, and have had but little for years." "Did you once have it?" "Yes, for some time after my conversion to God." "Are you conscious of having refused obedience to some distinct command which came into your life, but which you shrank?" Then the face is cast down, and the eyes fill with tears, and the answer comes with difficulty. "Yes, years ago I used to think that God required a certain thing of me; but I felt I could not do what He wished. I was uneasy for some time about it, but after a while it seemed to fade from my mind and now it does not often trouble me." "Ah, soul, that is where you have gone wrong, and you will never get right until you go right back through the weary years to the point where you dropped the thread of obedience, and perform that one thing which God demanded of you so long ago, but on account of which you did leave the narrow track of implicit obedience.

Is not this the cause of depression to thousands of Christian people? They are God's children, but they are disobedient children. The Bible rings with one long demand for obedience. The keyword of the book of Deuteronomy is observe and do. We must not question or reply or excuse ourselves. We must not pick and choose our way. We must not take some commands and reject others. God gives one command at a time. By this He tests us. If we obey in this, He will flood our souls with blessing and lead us forward into new paths and pastures. But if we refuse in this, we shall remain stagnant, we shall make no progress in Christian experience, and we shall lack both power and joy.

SELF SCRUTINY 

Perhaps you look too much inwards on "self", instead of outwards on the Lord Jesus. The healthiest people do not think about their health; the weak induce disease by morbid introspection. If you begin to count your heartbeats, you will disturb the rhythmic action of the heart. If you continually imagine a pain anywhere, you will produce it. And there are some true children of God who induce their own darkness by morbid self-scrutiny. They are always going back on themselves, analyzing their motives with themselves. In one form or another self is the pivot of their life, albeit that is undoubtedly a religious life. There are certainly times in our lives when we must look within and judge ourselves. But this is only done that we may turn with fuller purpose of heart to the Lord. The question is, not whether we did as well as we might, but whether we did as well as we could at the time.

We must not spend all our lives in cleaning our windows or in considering whether they are clean, but in sunning ourselves in God's blessed light. That light will soon show us what still needs to be cleansed away, and will enable us to cleanse it with unerring accuracy. Our Lord Jesus is a perfect reservoir of everything the soul of man requires for a blessed and holy life. To make much of Him, to abide in Him, to draw from Him, to receive each moment from His fullness is therefore the only condition of soul health. But to be more concerned with self than with Him is like spending much time and thought over the senses of the body and never using them for the purpose of receiving impressions from the world outside. Look off unto Jesus. "Delight yourself also in the Lord." "My soul, wait only upon God."

LACK OF COMMUNION

Perhaps you spend too little time in communion with God through His Word. It is not necessary to make long prayers, but it is essential to be much alone with God, waiting at His door, hearkening for His voice, lingering in the garden of Scripture for the coming of the Lord God in the dawn or cool of the day. No number of meetings, no fellowship with Christian friends, no amount of Christian activity can compensate for the neglect of "the still hour."

When you cannot pray for yourself, begin to pray for others. When you desires wane, take the Bible in hand and begin to turn each text into petition; or take up the tale of your mercies and begin to translate each of them into praise. More Christians than we can count are suffering from a lack of prayer and Bible study, and no revival is more to be desired than that of systematic private Bible study. There is no short and easy method of godliness which can dispense with this.

LACK OF VIELDEDNESS

Perhaps you have never given yourself over entirely to the Lord Jesus. We are His by many ties and rights. But too few of us recognize His Lordship. We are willing enough to take Him as Saviour; we hesitate to make Him King. We forget that God has exalted Him to be Prince as well as Saviour. And the divine order is irreversible. Those who ignore the Lordship of Jesus cannot build up a strong or happy life. Put Jesus on the throne of life, and all things fall into harmony and peace. Seek first the kingdom of God, and all things are yours. Consecration is the indispensable condition of blessedness.

~F. B. Meyer~

(continued with # 4)