Days of Heaven Upon Earth Part 2

The other day we asked a Hebrew friend how it was that his countrymen were so successful in acquiring wealth. "Ah," said he, "we do not make more money than other people, but we keep more." Beloved, let us look out this day for spiritual pickpockets and spiritual leakage. Let us "lose nothing of what we have wrought, but receive a full reward"; and, as each day comes and goes, let us put away in the savings bank of eternity its treasures of grace and victory, and so be conscious from day to day that something real and everlasting is being added to our eternal fortune.

It may be but a little, but if we only economize all that G.o.d gives us, and pa.s.s it on to His keeping, when the close shall come we shall be amazed to see how much the acc.u.mulated treasures of a well spent life have laid up on high, and how much more He has added to them by His glorious investment of the life committed to His keeping.

Oh, how the days are telling! Oh, how precious these golden hours will seem sometime! G.o.d help us to make the most of them now.

JANUARY 12.

"Ask and it shall be given you" (Matt. vii. 7).

We must receive, as well as ask. We must take the place of believing, and recognize ourselves as in it. A friend was saying, "I want to get into the will of G.o.d," and this was the answer: "Will you step into the will of G.o.d? And now, are you in the will of G.o.d?" The question aroused a thought that had not come before.

The gentleman saw that he had been straining after, but not receiving the blessing he sought.

Jesus has said, "Ask and ye shall receive." The very strain keeps back the blessing. The intense tension of all your spiritual nature so binds you that you are not open to the blessing which G.o.d is waiting to give you.

"Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely."

He tells me there is cleansing From every secret sin, And a great and full salvation To keep the heart within.

And I take Him in His fulness, With all His glorious grace, For He says it is mine by taking, And I take just what He says.

JANUARY 13.

"Thou shalt be to him instead of G.o.d" (Ex. iv. 16).

Such was G.o.d's promise to Moses, and such the high character that Moses was to a.s.sume toward Aaron, his brother. May it not suggest a high and glorious place that each of us may occupy toward all whom we meet, instead of G.o.d?

What a dignity and glory it would give our lives, could we uniformly realize this high calling! How it would lead us to act toward our fellow-men! G.o.d can always be depended upon. G.o.d is without variableness or shadow of turning. G.o.d's word is unchangeable, and we can trust Him without reserve or question. Oh, that we might so live that men can trust us, even as G.o.d!

Again, G.o.d has no needs or wants to be supplied. He is always giving.

"Rich unto all that call upon Him." The glory of His nature is love, unselfish love, and beneficence toward all His creatures. The Divine life is a self-forgetting life, a life that has nothing to do but love and bless.

Let us so live, representing our Master here, while He represents us before the Throne on high.

JANUARY 14.

"Unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ" (Eph. iv. 13).

G.o.d loves us so well that He will not suffer us to take less than His highest will. Some day we shall bless our faithful teacher, who kept the standard inflexibly rigid, and then gave us the strength and grace to reach it, and would not excuse us until we had accomplished all His glorious will.

Let us be inexorable with ourselves. Let us mean exactly what G.o.d means, and have no discounts upon His promises or commandments. Let us keep the standard up, and never rest until we reach it. "Let G.o.d be true and every man a liar." If we fail a hundred times don't let us accommodate G.o.d's ideal to our realization, but like the brave ensign who stood in front of his company waving the banner, and when the soldiers called him back he only waved it higher, and cried, "Don't bring the standard back to the regiment, but bring the regiment up to the colors."

Forward, forward, leave the past behind thee, Reaching forth unto the things before; All the Land of Promise lies before thee, G.o.d has greater blessings yet in store.

JANUARY 15.

"As ye have received Christ Jesus so walk in Him" (Col. ii. 6).

It is much easier to keep the fire burning than to rekindle it after it has gone out. Let us abide in Him. Let us not have to remove the cinders and ashes from our hearthstones every day and kindle a new flame; but let us keep it burning and never let it expire. Among the ancient Greeks the sacred fire was never allowed to go out; so, in a higher sense, let us keep the heavenly flame aglow upon the altar of the heart.

It takes very much less effort to maintain a good habit than to form it. A true spiritual habit once formed becomes a spontaneous tendency of our being, and we grow into delightful freedom in following it. "Let us not be ever laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, but let us go on unto perfection; and whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same things."

Every spiritual habit begins with difficulty and effort and watchfulness, but if we will only let it get thoroughly established, it will become a channel along which currents of life will flow with divine spontaneousness and freedom.

JANUARY 16.

"Prove what is that good, and acceptable and perfect will of G.o.d" (Rom.

xii. 2).

There are three conditions in which the water in that engine may be.

First, the boiler may be full and the water clean and clear; or, secondly, the boiler may not only be full but the water may be hot, very hot, hot enough to scald you, almost boiling; thirdly, it may be just one degree hotter and at the boiling point, giving forth its vapor in clouds of steam, pressing through the valves and driving the mighty piston which turns the wheels and propels the train of cars across the country.

So there are three kinds of Christians. The first we will call cold water Christians, or, perhaps better, clean water Christians.

Secondly, there are hot water Christians. They are almost at the boiling point.

One degree more, we come to the third cla.s.s of Christians, the boiling water Christians. The difference is a very slight one; it simply takes one reservation out, drops one "if," eliminates a single touch, and yet it is all the difference in the world. That one degree changes that engine into a motive power, not now a thing to be looked at, but a thing to go.

JANUARY 17.