Days of Heaven Upon Earth Part 12

They live in their ideas, their conceptions of truth, their tastes, and esthetic nature. Some people, again, live in their animal nature, in the l.u.s.ts of the flesh and eye, the coa.r.s.e, low atmosphere of a sensuous life, or something worse. Some, again, live in a world of duty. The predominating feature of their life is conscience, and it carries with it a certain shadowy fear that takes away the simple freedom and gladness of life, but there is a rect.i.tude, and uprightness, a strictness of purpose, and of conduct which cannot be gainsaid or questioned.

But Christ bids us live in an atmosphere of love. "As My Father has loved Me, so have I loved you; continue ye in My love." In the original it is, "Live in My love." Love is the atmosphere that He would have us ever live in, that is, believing that He ever loves us, and claiming His sweet approval and tender regard. This is a life of love.

MARCH 16.

"The Lord will give grace and glory" (Ps. lx.x.xiv. 11).

The Lord will give grace and glory. This word _glory_ is very difficult to translate, define and explain; but there is something in the spiritual consciousness of the quickened Christian that interprets it. It is the overflow of grace; it is the wine of life; it is the foretaste of heaven; it is a flash from the Throne and an inspiration from the heart of G.o.d which we may have and in which we may live. "The glory which Thou hast given Me I have given them," the Master prayed for us. Let us take it and live in it. David used to say, "Wake up my glory." Ask G.o.d to wake up your glory and enable you to mount up with wings as eagles, to dwell on high and sit with Christ in the heavenly places.

Mounting up with wings as eagles, Waiting on the Lord we rise, Strength exchanging, life renewing, How our spirit heavenward flies.

Then our springing feet returning, Tread the pathway of the saint, We shall run and not be weary, We shall walk and never faint.

MARCH 17.

"He hath remembered His covenant forever" (Ps. cv. 8).

So long as you struggle under law, that is by your own effort, sin shall have dominion over you: but the moment you step from under the shadow of Sinai, throw yourself upon the simple grace of Christ and His free and absolute gift of righteousness, and take Him to be to you what He has pledged Himself to be, your righteousness of thought and feeling, and to keep you in spite of everything, that ever can be against you, in His perfect will and peace, the struggle is practically over. Beloved, do you really know and believe that this is the very promise of the Gospel, the very essence of the new covenant, that Christ pledges Himself to put His law in your heart, and to cause you to walk in His statutes, and to keep His judgments and do them? Do you know that this is the oath which He sware unto Abraham, that He would grant unto us. "That we being delivered from the hands of our enemies, and from all that hate us, might serve Him without fear, in righteousness and holiness before Him all the days of our life." He has sworn to do this for you, and He is faithful, that promised.

Trust Him ever.

MARCH 18.

"Neither shall any plague come near thy dwelling" (Ps. xci. 10).

We know what it is to be fireproof, to be waterproof: but it is a greater thing to be proof against sin. It is possible to be so filled with the Spirit and presence of Jesus that all the shafts of the enemy glance off our heavenly armor; that all the burrs and thistles which grow on the wayside fail to stick to our heavenly robes; that all the noxious vapors of the pit disappear before the warm breath of the Holy Ghost, and we walk with a charmed life even through the valley of the shadow of death. The red hot iron repels the water that touches it, and the fingers that would trifle with it: and, if we are on fire with the Holy Ghost, Satan will keep his fingers off us, and the cold water that he pours over us will roll off and leave us unharmed: "for He that was begotten of G.o.d keepeth us, and that wicked one toucheth us not."

It is said that before going into a malarious region, it is well to fortify the system with nouris.h.i.+ng food. So we should be fed and filled by the life of Christ in such a way that the evil does not really touch our life.

MARCH 19.

"Launch out into the deep" (Luke v. 4).

Many difficulties and perplexities in connection with our Christian life might be best settled by a simple and bold decision of our will to go forward with the light we have and leave the speculations and theories that we cannot decide for further settlement. What we need is to act, and to act with the best light we have, and as we step out into the present duty and full obedience, many things will be made plain which it is no use waiting to decide.

Beloved, cut the Gordian knot, like Alexander, with the sword of decision.

Launch out into the deep with a bold plunge, and Christ will settle for you all the questions that you are now debating, and more probably show you their insignificance, and let you see that the only way to settle them is to overleap them. They are Satan's petty snares to waste your time and keep you halting when you should be marching on.

The mercy of G.o.d is an ocean divine, A boundless and fathomless flood; Launch out in the deep, cut away the sh.o.r.e line, And be lost in the fulness of G.o.d.

MARCH 20.

"They which receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness shall reign in life" (Rom. v. 17).

Precious souls sometimes fight tremendous battles in order to attain to righteousness in trying places. Perhaps the heart has become wrong in some matter where temptation has been allowed to overcome, or at least to turn it aside from its singleness unto G.o.d; and the conflict is a terrible one as it seeks to adjust itself and be right with G.o.d, and finds itself baffled by its own spiritual foes, and its own helplessness, perplexity and perversity. How dark and dreary the struggle, and how helpless and ineffectual it often seems at such times! It is almost sure to strive in the spirit of the law, and the result always is, and must ever be, condemnation and failure. Every disobedience is met by a blow of wrath, and discouragement, and it well nigh sinks to despair. Oh, if the tempted and struggling one could only understand or remember what perhaps he has learned before, that Christ is our righteousness, and that it is not by law but by grace alone, "For sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law, but under grace." That is the secret of the whole battle.

MARCH 21.

"Casting all your care upon Him" (I. Peter v. 7).

Some things there are that G.o.d will not tolerate in us. We must leave them. Nehemiah would not talk with Sanballat about his charges and fears, but simply refused to have anything to do with the matter-even to go into the temple and pray about it. How very few things we really have to do with in life. If we would only drop all the needless things and simply do the things that absolutely touch and require our attention from morning till night, we would find what a small slender thread life was; but we string upon it a thousand imaginary beads that never come, and burden ourselves with cares and flurries that if we had trusted more, would never have needed to preoccupy our attention. Wise indeed was the testimony of the dear old saint who said, in review of her past life, "I have had a great many troubles in my life, especially those that never came."

Trust and rest with heart abiding, Like a birdling in its nest, Underneath His feathers hiding, Fold thy wings and trust and rest.

Trust and rest, trust and rest, G.o.d is working for the best.

MARCH 22.

"Hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end"

(Heb. iii. 6).

The att.i.tude of faith is simple trust. It is Elijah saying to Ahab, "There is a sound of abundance of rain." But then there comes usually a deeper experience in which the prayer is inwrought; it is Elijah on the mount, with his face between his knees, travailing, as it were, in birth for the promised blessing. He has believed for it-and now he must take. The first is Joash shooting the arrow out of the windows, but the second is Joash smiting on the ground and following up his faith by perseverance and victorious testing.

It is in this latter place that many of us come short. We ask much from G.o.d, and when G.o.d proceeds to give it to us we are not found equal to His expectation. We are made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, and trust Him through it all.

Fainting soldier of the Lord, Hear His sweet inspiring word, "I have conquered all thy foes.

I have suffered all thy woes; Struggling soldier, trust in Me, I have overcome for thee."