My Utmost for His Highest
by Oswald Chambers 

January 1st.

LET US KEEP TO THE POINT

"My eager desire and hope being that I may never feel ashamed, but that now as ever I may do honour to Christ in my own person by fearless courage." Philippians 1:20 (MOFFATT)

My Utmost for His Highest. "My eager desire and hope being that I may never feel ashamed." We shal al feel very much ashamed if we do not yield to Jesus on the point He has asked us to yield to Him. Paul says - "My determination is to be my utmost for His Highest." To get there is a question of wil , not of debate nor of reasoning, but a surrender of wil , an absolute and irrevocable surrender on that point. An overweening consideration for ourselves is the thing that keeps us from that decision, though we put it that we are considering others. When we consider what it wil cost others if we obey the cal of Jesus, we tel God He does not know what our obedience wil mean. Keep to the point; He does know. Shut out every other consideration and keep yourself before God for this one thing only - My Utmost for His Highest. I am determined to be absolutely and entirely for Him and for Him alone.

My Undeterredness for His Holiness. "Whether that means life or death, no matter!" (v.21.) Paul is determined that nothing shal deter him from doing exactly what God wants. God's order has to work up to a crisis in our lives because we wil not heed the gentler way. He brings us to the place where He asks us to be our utmost for Him, and we begin to debate; then He produces a providential crisis where we have to decide - for or against, and from that point the "Great Divide" begins.

If the crisis has come to you on any line, surrender your wil to Him absolutely and irrevocably.

January 2nd.

WILL YOU GO OUT WITHOUT KNOWING?

"He went out, not knowing whither he went." Hebrews 11:8

Have you been "out" in this way? If so, there is no logical statement possible when anyone asks you what you are doing. One of the difficulties in Christian work is this question - "What do you expect to do?" You do not know what you are going to do; the only thing you know is that God knows what He is doing. Continual y revise your attitude towards God and see if it is a going out of everything, trusting in God entirely. It is this attitude that keeps you in perpetual wonder - you do not know what God is going to do next. Each morning you wake it is to be a "going out," building in confidence on God. "Take no thought for your life, . . . nor yet for your body" - take no thought for the things for which you did take thought before you "went out."

Have you been asking God what He is going to do? He wil never tel you. God does not tel you what He is going to do; He reveals to you Who He is. Do you believe in a miracle-working God, and wil you go out in surrender to Him until you are not surprised an atom at anything He does?

Suppose God is the God you know Him to be when you are nearest to Him -what an impertinence worry is! Let the attitude of the life be a continual

"going out" in dependence upon God, and your life wil have an ineffable charm about it which is a satisfaction to Jesus. You have to learn to go out of convictions, out of creeds, out of experiences, until so far as your faith is concerned, there is nothing between yourself and God.

January 3rd.

CLOUDS AND DARKNESS

"Clouds and darkness are round about Him." Psalm 97:2

A man who has not been born of the Spirit of God Wil tel you that the teachings of Jesus are simple. But when you are baptized with the Holy Ghost, you find "clouds and darkness are round about Him." When we come into close contact with the teachings of Jesus Christ we have our first insight into this aspect of things. The only possibility of understanding the teaching of Jesus is by the light of the Spirit of God on the inside. If we have never had the experience of taking our commonplace religious shoes off our commonplace religious feet, and getting rid of al the undue familiarity with which we approach God, it is questionable whether we have ever stood in His presence. The people who are flippant and familiar are those who have never yet been introduced to Jesus Christ. After the amazing delight and liberty of realizing what Jesus Christ does, comes the impenetrable darkness of realizing Who He is.

Jesus said: "The words that I speak unto you," not the words I have spoken, "they are spirit, and they are life." The Bible has been so many words to us -

clouds and darkness - then al of a sudden the words become spirit and life because Jesus re-speaks them to us in a particular condition. That is the way God speaks to us, not by visions and dreams, but by words. When a man gets to God it is by the most simple way of words.

January 4th.

WHY CANNOT I FOLLOW THEE NOW?

"Peter said unto Him, Lord, why cannot I follow Thee now?" John 13:37

There are times when you cannot understand why you cannot do what you want to do. When God brings the blank space, see that you do not fil it in, but wait. The blank space may come in order to teach you what sanctification means, or it may come after sanctification to teach you what service means.

Never run before God's guidance. If there is the slightest doubt, then He is not guiding. Whenever there is doubt - don't.

In the beginning you may see clearly what God's wil is - the severance of a friendship, the breaking off of a business relationship, something you feel distinctly before God is His wil for you to do, never do it on the impulse of that feeling. If you do, you wil end in making difficulties that wil take years of time to put right. Wait for God's time to bring it round and He wil do it without any heartbreak or disappointment. When it is a question of the providential wil of God, wait for God to move.

Peter did not wait on God, he forecast in his mind where the test would come, and the test came where he did not expect it. "I wil lay down my life for Thy sake." Peter's declaration was honest but ignorant. "Jesus answered him ...The cock shal not crow, til thou hast denied Me thrice." This was said with a deeper knowledge of Peter than Peter had of himself. He could not fol ow Jesus because he did not know himself, of what he was capable. Natural devotion may be al very wel to attract us to Jesus, to make us feel His fascination, but it wil never make us disciples. Natural devotion wil always deny Jesus somewhere or other.

January 5th.

THE AFTERWARDS OF THE LIFE OF POWER

"Whither I go, thou canst not follow Me now; but thou shalt follow Me afterwards." John 13:36

"And when He had spoken this, He saith unto him, Fol ow Me." Three years before, Jesus had said - "Fol ow Me," and Peter had fol owed easily, the fascination of Jesus was upon him, he did not need the Holy Spirit to help him to do it. Then he came to the place where he denied Jesus, and his heart broke. Then he received the Holy Spirit, and now Jesus says again - "Fol ow Me." There is no figure in front now saving the Lord Jesus Christ. The first

"Fol ow Me" had nothing mystical in it, it was an external fol owing; now it is a fol owing in internal martyrdom (cf. John 21:18).

Between these times Peter had denied Jesus with oaths and curses, he had come to the end of himself and al his self-sufficiency, there was not one strand of himself he would ever rely upon again, and in his destitution he was in a fit condition to receive an impartation from the risen Lord. "He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost." No matter what changes God has wrought in you, never rely upon them, build only on a Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, and on the Spirit He gives.

Al our vows and resolutions end in denial because we have no power to carry them out. When we have come to the end of ourselves, not in imagination but real y, we are able to receive the Holy Spirit. "Receive ye the Holy Ghost" - the idea is that of invasion. There is only one lodestar in the life now, the Lord Jesus Christ.

January 6th.

WORSHIP

"And he pitched his tent having Bethel on the west and Ai on the east: and there he builded an altar." Genesis 12:8

Worship is giving God the best that He has given you. Be careful what you do with the best you have. Whenever you get a blessing from God, give it back to Him as a love gift. Take time to meditate before God and offer the blessing back to Him in a deliberate act of worship. If you hoard a thing for yourself, it wil turn into spiritual dry rot, as the manna did when it was hoarded. God wil never let you hold a spiritual thing for yourself, it has to be given back to Him that He may make it a blessing to others.

Bethel is the symbol of communion with God; Ai is the symbol of the world. Abraham pitched his tent between the two. The measure of the worth of our public activity for God is the private profound communion we have with Him. Rush is wrong every time, there is always plenty of time to worship God.

Quiet days with God may be a snare. We have to pitch our tents where we shal always have quiet times with God, however noisy our times with the world may be. There are not three stages in spiritual life - worship, waiting and work. Some of us go in jumps like spiritual frogs, we jump from worship to waiting, and from waiting to work. God's idea is that the three should go together. They were always together in the life of Our Lord. He was unhasting and unresting. It is a discipline, we cannot get into it al at once.

January 7th.

INTIMATE WITH JESUS

"Have I been so long with you, and yet hast thou not known Me?" John 14:9

These words are not spoken as a rebuke, nor even with surprise; Jesus is leading Philip on. The last One with whom we get intimate is Jesus. Before Pentecost the disciples knew Jesus as the One Who gave them power to conquer demons and to bring about a revival (see Luke 10:18-20). It was a wonderful intimacy, but there was a much closer intimacy to come - "I have cal ed you friends." Friendship is rare on earth. It means identity in thought and heart and spirit. The whole discipline of life is to enable us to enter into this closest relationship with Jesus Christ. We receive His blessings and know His word, but do we know Him?

Jesus said, "It is expedient for you that I go away" - in that relationship, so that He might lead them on. It is a joy to Jesus when a disciple takes time to step more intimately with Him. Fruit bearing is always mentioned as the manifestation of an intimate union with Jesus Christ (John 15:1-4).

When once we get intimate with Jesus we are never lonely, we never need sympathy, we can pour out al the time without being pathetic. The saint who is intimate with Jesus wil never leave impressions of himself, but only the impression that Jesus is having unhindered way, because the last abyss of his nature has been satisfied by Jesus. The only impression left by such a life is that of the strong calm sanity that Our Lord gives to those who are intimate with Him.

January 8th.

DOES MY SACRIFICE LIVE?

"And Abraham built an altar. . and bound Isaac his son." Genesis 22:9

This incident is a picture of the blunder we make in thinking that the final thing God wants of us is the sacrifice of death. What God wants is the sacrifice through death which enables us to do what Jesus did, viz., sacrifice our lives. Not - I am wil ing to go to death with Thee, but - I am wil ing to be identified with Thy death so that I may sacrifice my life to God. We seem to think that God wants us to give up things! God purified Abraham from this blunder, and the same discipline goes on in our lives. God nowhere tel s us to give up things for the sake of giving them up. He tel s us to give them up for the sake of the only thing worth having - viz., life with Himself. It is a question of loosening the bands that hinder the life, and immediately those bands are loosened by identification with the death of Jesus, we enter into a relationship with God whereby we can sacrifice our lives to Him.

It is of no value to God to give Him your life for death. He wants you to be a "living sacrifice," to let Him have al your powers that have been saved and sanctified through Jesus. This is the thing that is acceptable to God.

January 9th.

INTERCESSORY INTROSPECTION

"And I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless." 1 Thessalonians 5:23 "Your whole spirit. . The great mystical work of the Holy Spirit is in the dim regions of our personality which we cannot get at. Read the 139th Psalm; the Psalmist implies - "Thou art the God of the early mornings, the God of the late at nights, the God of the mountain peaks, and the God of the sea; but, my God, my soul has further horizons than the early mornings, deeper darkness than the nights of earth, higher peaks than any mountain peaks, greater depths than any sea in nature - Thou Who art the God of al these, be my God. I cannot reach to the heights or to the depths; there are motives I cannot trace, dreams I cannot get at - my God, search me out."

Do we believe that God can garrison the imagination far beyond where we can go? "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin" - if that means in conscious experience only, may God have mercy on us. The man who has been made obtuse by sin wil say he is not conscious of sin. Cleansing from sin is to the very heights and depths of our spirit if we wil keep in the light as God is in the light, and the very Spirit that fed the life of Jesus Christ wil feed the life of our spirits. It is only when we are garrisoned by God with the stupendous sanctity of the Holy Spirit, that spirit, soul and body are preserved in unspotted integrity, undeserving of censure in God's sight, until Jesus comes.

We do not al ow our minds to dwel as they should on these great massive truths of God.

January 10th.

THE OPENED SIGHT

"To open their eyes . . . that they may receive . . ." Acts 26:18

This verse is the grandest condensation of the propaganda of a disciple of Jesus Christ in the whole of the New Testament.

The first sovereign work of grace is summed up in the word - "that they may receive remission of sins." When a man fails in personal Christian experience, it is nearly always because he has never received anything. The only sign that a man is saved is that he has received something from Jesus Christ. Our part as workers for God is to open men's eyes that they may turn themselves from darkness to light; but that is not salvation, that is conversion

- the effort of a roused human being. I do not think it is too sweeping to say that the majority of nominal Christians are of this order; their eyes are opened, but they have received nothing. Conversion is not regeneration. This is one of the neglected factors in our preaching today. When a man is born again, he knows that it is because he has received something as a gift from Almighty God and not because of his own decision. People register their vows, and sign their pledges, and determine to go through, but none of this is salvation. Salvation means that we are brought to the place where we are able to receive something from God on the authority of Jesus Christ, viz., remission of sins.

Then there fol ows the second mighty work of grace - "an inheritance among them which are sanctified." In sanctification the regenerated soul deliberately gives up his right to himself to Jesus Christ, and identifies himself entirely with God's interest in other men.

January 11th.

WHAT MY OBEDIENCE TO GOD COSTS OTHER PEOPLE

"They laid hold upon one Simon . . . and on him they laid the cross." Luke 23:2

If we obey God it is going to cost other people more than it costs us, and that is where the sting comes in. If we are in love with our Lord, obedience does not cost us anything, it is a delight, but it costs those who do not love Him a good deal. If we obey God it wil mean that other people's plans are upset, and they wil gibe us with it - "You cal this Christianity?" We can prevent the suffering; but if we are going to obey God, we must not prevent it, we must let the cost be paid.

Our human pride entrenches itself on this point, and we say - I wil never accept anything from anyone. We shal have to, or disobey God. We have no right to expect to be in any other relation than our Lord Himself was in (see Luke 8:23).

Stagnation in spiritual life comes when we say we wil bear the whole thing ourselves. We cannot. We are so involved in the universal purposes of God that immediately we obey God, others are affected. Are we going to remain loyal in our obedience to God and go through the humiliation of refusing to be independent, or are we going to take the other line and say - I wil not cost other people suffering? We can disobey God if we choose, and it wil bring immediate relief to the situation, but we shal be a grief to our Lord. Whereas if we obey God, He wil look after those who have been pressed into the consequences of our obedience. We have simply to obey and to leave al consequences with Him.

Beware of the inclination to dictate to God as to what you wil al ow to happen if you obey Him.

January 12th.

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN ALONE WITH GOD?

"When they were alone, He expounded all things to His disciples." Mark 4:34

Our Solitude with Him. Jesus does not take us alone and expound things to us al the time; He expounds things to us as we can understand them. Other lives are parables. God is making us spel out our own souls. It is slow work, so slow that it takes God al time and eternity to make a man and woman after His own purpose. The only way we can be of use to God is to let Him take us through the crooks and crannies of our own characters. It is astounding how ignorant we are about ourselves! We do not know envy when we see it, or laziness, or pride. Jesus reveals to us al that this body has been harbouring before His grace began to work. How many of us have learned to look in with courage?

We have to get rid of the idea that we understand ourselves, it is the last conceit to go. The only One Who understands us is God. The greatest curse in spiritual life is conceit. If we have ever had a glimpse of what we are like in the sight of God, we shal never say - "Oh, I am so unworthy," because we shal know we are, beyond the possibility of stating it. As long as we are not quite sure that we are unworthy, God wil keep narrowing us in until He gets us alone. Wherever

there is any element of pride or of conceit, Jesus cannot expound a thing. He wil take us through the disappointment of a wounded pride of intel ect, through disappointment of heart. He wil reveal inordinate affection - things over which we never thought He would have to get us alone. We listen to many things in classes, but they are not an exposition to us yet. They wil be when God gets us alone over them.

January 13th.

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN ALONE WITH GOD?

"When He was alone the twelve . . . asked of Him . .    Mark 4:10

His Solitude with Us. When God gets us alone by affliction, heartbreak, or temptation, by disappointment, sickness, or by thwarted affection, by a broken friendship, or by a new fnendship - when He gets us absolutely alone, and we are dumbfounded, and cannot ask one question, then He begins to expound. Watch Jesus Christ's training of the twelve. It was the disciples, not the crowd outside, who were perplexed. They constantly asked Him questions, and He constantly expounded things to them; but they only understood after they had received the Holy Spirit (see John 14:26).

If you are going on with God, the only thing that is clear to you, and the only thing God intends to be clear, is the way He deals with your own soul. Your brother's sorrows and perplexities are an absolute confusion to you. We imagine we understand where the other person is, until God gives us a dose of the plague of our own hearts. There are whole tracts of stubbornness and ignorance to be revealed by the Holy Spirit in each one of us, and it can only be done when Jesus gets us alone. Are we alone with Him now, or are we taken up with little fussy notions, fussy comradeships in God's service, fussy ideas about our bodies? Jesus can expound nothing until we get through al the noisy questions of the head and are alone with Him.

CALLED OF GOD "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me." Isaiah 6:8

God did not address the cal to Isaiah; Isaiah overheard God saying, "Who wil go for us?" The cal of God is not for the special few, it is for everyone.

Whether or not I hear God's cal depends upon the state of my ears; and what I hear depends upon my disposition. "Many are cal ed but few are chosen,"

that is, few prove themselves the chosen ones. The chosen ones are those who have come into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ whereby their disposition has been altered and their ears unstopped, and they hear the stil smal voice questioning al the time, "Who wil go for us?" It is not a question of God singling out a man and saying, "Now, you go." God did not lay a strong compulsion on Isaiah; Isaiah was in the presence of God and he overheard the cal , and realized that there was nothing else for him but to say, in conscious freedom, "Here am I, send me." Get out of your mind the idea of expecting God to come with compulsions and pleadings. When our Lord cal ed His disciples there was no irresistible compulsion from outside. The quiet passionate insistence of His "Fol ow Me" was spoken to men with every power wide awake. If we let the Spirit of God bring us face to face with God, we too shal hear something akin to what Isaiah heard, the stil smal voice of God; and in perfect freedom wil say, "Here am I; send me."

January 15th.

DO YOU WALK IN WHITE?

"Buried with Him . . . that. . . even so we also should walk in newness of life." Romans 6:4

No one enters into the experience of entire sanctification without going through a "white funeral" - the burial of the old life. If there has never been this crisis of death, sanctification is nothing more than a vision. There must be a "white funeral," - a death that has only one resurrection - a resurrection into the life of Jesus Christ. Nothing can upset such a life, it is one with God for one purpose, to be a witness to Him.

Have you come to your last days real y? You have come to them often in sentiment, but have you come to them really? You cannot go to your funeral in excitement, or die in excitement. Death means you stop being. Do you agree with God that you stop being the striving, earnest kind of Christian you have been? We skirt the cemetery and al the time refuse to go to death. It is not striving to go to death, it is dying - "baptized into His death."

Have you had your "white funeral," or are you sacredly playing the fool with your soul? Is there a place in your life marked as the last day, a place to which the memory goes back with a chastened and extraordinarily grateful remembrance - "Yes, it was then, at that 'white funeral,' that I made an agreement with God."

"This is the wil of God, even your sanctification." When you realize what the will of God is, you wil enter into sanctification as natural y as can be. Are you wil ing to go through that "white funeral" now? Do you agree with Him that this is your last day on earth? The moment of agreement depends upon you.

January 16th.

THE VOICE OF THE NATURE OF GOD

"I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send?" Isaiah 6:8

When we speak of the cal of God, we are apt to forget the most important feature, viz., the nature of the One Who cal s. There is the cal of the sea, the cal of the mountains, the cal of the great ice barriers, but these cal s are only heard by the few. The cal is the expression of the nature from which it comes, and we can only record the cal if the same nature is in us. The cal of God is the expression of God's nature, not of our nature. There are strands of the cal of God providential y at work for us which we recognize and no one else does. It is the threading of God's voice to us in some particular matter, and it is no use

consulting anyone else about it. We have to keep that profound relationship between our souls and God.

The cal of God is not the echo of my nature; my affinities and personal temperament are not considered. As long as I consider my personal temperament and think about what I am fitted for, I shal never hear the cal of God. But when I am brought into relationship with God, I am in the condition Isaiah was in.

Isaiah's soul was so attuned to God by the tremendous crisis he had gone through that he recorded the cal of God to his amazed soul. The majority of us have no ear for anything but ourselves, we cannot hear a thing God says. To be brought into the zone of the cal of God is to be profoundly altered.

January 18th.

IT IS THE LORD!

"Thomas answered and said unto Him, My Lord and my God." John 20:2

"Give Me to drink." How many of us are set upon Jesus Christ slaking our thirst when we ought to be satisfying Him? We should be pouring out now, spending to the last limit, not drawing on Him to satisfy us. "Ye shal be witnesses unto Me" - that means a life of unsul ied, uncompromising and unbribed devotion to the Lord Jesus, a satisfaction to Him wherever He places us.

Beware of anything that competes with loyalty to Jesus Christ. The greatest competitor of devotion to Jesus is service for Him. It is easier to serve than to be drunk to the dregs. The one aim of the cal of God is the satisfaction of God, not a cal to do something for Him. We are not sent to battle for God, but to be used by God in His battlings. Are we being more devoted to service than to Jesus Christ?

VISION AND DARKNESS "An horror of great darkness fell upon him." Genesis 15:1

Whenever God gives a vision to a saint, He puts him, as it were, in the shadow of His hand, and the saint's duty is to be stil and listen. There is a darkness which comes from excess of light, and then is the time to listen. Genesis 16 is an il ustration of listening to good advice when it is dark instead of waiting for God to send the light. When God gives a vision and darkness fol ows, wait. God wil make you in accordance with the vision He has given if you wil wait His time. Never try and help God fulfil His word. Abraham went through thirteen years of silence, but in those years al self-sufficiency was destroyed; there was no possibility left of relying on common-sense ways. Those years of silence were a time of discipline, not of displeasure. Never pump up joy and confidence, but stay upon God (cf. Isaiah 1:10,11).

Have I any confidence in the flesh? Or have I got beyond al confidence in myself and in men and women of God; in books and prayers and ecstasies; and is my confidence placed now in God Himself, not in His blessings? "I am the Almighty God" - El-Shaddai, the Father-Mother God. The one thing for which we are al being disciplined is to know that God is real. As soon as God becomes real, other people become shadows. Nothing that other saints do or say can ever perturb the one who is built on God.

January 20th.

ARE YOU FRESH FOR EVERYTHING?

"Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." John 3:3

Sometimes we are fresh for a prayer meeting but not fresh for cleaning boots!

Being born again of the Spirit is an unmistakable work of God, as mysterious as the wind, as surprising as God Himself. We do not know where it begins, it is hidden away in the depths of our personal life. Being born again from above is a perennial, perpetual and eternal beginning; a freshness al the time in thinking and in talking and in living, the continual surprise of the life of God. Staleness is an indication of something out of joint with God - "I must do this thing or it wil never be done." That is the first sign of staleness. Are we freshly born this minute or are we stale, raking in our minds for something to do?

Freshness does not come from obedience but from the Holy Spirit; obedience keeps us in the light as God is in the light.

Guard jealously your relationship to God. Jesus prayed "that they may be one, even as we are one" - nothing between. Keep al the life perennial y open to Jesus Christ, don't pretend with Him. Are you drawing your life from any other source than God Himself? If you are depending upon anything but Him, you wil never know when He is gone.

Being born of the Spirit means much more than we general y take it to mean. It gives us a new vision and keeps us absolutely fresh for everything by the perennial supply of the life of God.

January 21st.

RECALL WHAT GOD REMEMBERS

"I remember. . . the kindness of thy youth." Jeremiah 2:2

Am I as spontaneously kind to God as I used to be, or am I only expecting God to be kind to me? Am I ful of the little things that cheer His heart over me, or am I whimpering because things are going hardly with me? There is no joy in the soul that has forgotten what God prizes. It is a great thing to think that Jesus Christ has need of me - "Give Me to drink." How much kindness have I shown Him this past week? Have I been kind to His reputation in my life?

God is saying to His people - You are not in love with Me now, but I remember the time when you were - "I remember . . . the love of thine espousals." Am I as ful of the extravagance of love to Jesus Christ as I was in the beginning, when I went out of my way to prove my devotion to Him? Does He find me recal ing the time when I did not care for anything but Himself? Am I there now, or have

I become wise over loving Him? Am I so in love with Him that I take no account of where I go? or am I watching for the respect due to me; weighing how much service I ought to give?

If, as I recal what God remembers about me, I find He is not what He used to be to me, let it produce shame and humiliation, because that shame wil bring the godly sorrow that works repentance.

January 22nd.

WHAT AM I LOOKING AT?

"Look unto Me, and be ye saved." Isaiah 14:22

Do we expect God to come to us with His blessings and save us? He says -Look unto Me, and be saved. The great difficulty spiritual y is to concentrate on God, and it is His blessings that make it difficult. Troubles nearly always make us look to God; His blessings are apt to make us look elsewhere. The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is, in effect - Narrow al your interests until the attitude of mind and heart and body is concentration on Jesus Christ.

"Look unto Me."

Many of us have a mental conception of what a Christian should be, and the lives of the saints become a hindrance to our concentration on God. There is no salvation in this way, it is not simple enough. "Look unto Me" and - not "you wil be saved," but "you are saved." The very thing we look for, we shal find if we wil concentrate on Him. We get preoccupied and sulky with God, while al the time He is saying - "Look up and be saved." The difficulties and trials -

the casting about in our minds as to what we shal do this summer, or tomorrow, al vanish when we look to God.

Rouse yourself up and look to God. Build your hope on Him. No matter if there are a hundred and one things that press, resolutely exclude them al and look to Him. "Look unto Me," and salvation is, the moment you look.

January 23rd.

TRANSFORMED BY INSIGHT

"We all, with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image." 2 Corinthians 3:18

The outstanding characteristic of a Christian is this unveiled frankness before God so that the life becomes a mirror for other lives. By being fil ed with the Spirit we are transformed, and by beholding we become mirrors. You always know when a man has been beholding the glory of the Lord, you feel in your inner spirit that he is the mirror of the Lord's own character. Beware of anything which would sul y that mirror in you; it is nearly always a good thing, the good that is not the best.

The golden rule for your life and mine is this concentrated keeping of the life open towards God. Let everything else - work, clothes, food, everything on earth - go by the board, saving that one thing. The rush of other things always tends to obscure this concentration on God. We have to maintain ourselves in the place of beholding, keeping the life absolutely spiritual al through. Let other things come and go as they may, let other people criticize as they wil , but never al ow anything to obscure the life that is hid with Christ in God. Never be hurried out of the relationship of abiding in Him. It is the one thing that is apt to fluctuate but it ought not to. The severest discipline of a Christian's life is to learn how to keep "beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord."

January 24th.

THE OVERMASTERING DIRECTION

"I have appeared unto thee for this purpose." Acts 26:16

The vision Paul had on the road to Damascus was no passing emotion, but a vision that had very clear and emphatic directions for him, and he says, "I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision." Our Lord said, in effect, to Paul - Your whole life is to be overmastered by Me; you are to have no end, no aim, and no

When we are born again we al have visions, if we are spiritual at al , of what Jesus wants us to be, and the great thing is to learn not to be disobedient to the vision, not to say that it cannot be attained. It is not sufficient to know that God has redeemed the world, and to know that the Holy Spirit can make al that Jesus did effectual in me; I must have the basis of a personal relationship to Him. Paul was not given a message or a doctrine to proclaim, he was brought into a vivid, personal, overmastering relationship to Jesus Christ. Verse 16 is immensely commanding - "to make thee a minister and a witness."

There is nothing there apart from the personal relationship. Paul was devoted to a Person not to a cause. He was absolutely Jesus Christ's, he saw nothing else, he lived for nothing else. "For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified."

January 25th.

LEAVE ROOM FOR GOD

"But when it pleased God. . ." Galatians 1:15

As workers for God we have to learn to make room for God - to give God "elbow room." We calculate and estimate, and say that this and that wil happen, and we forget to make room for God to come in as He chooses. Would we be surprised if God came into our meeting or into our preaching in a way we had never looked for Him to come? Do not look for God to come in any particular way, but look for Him. That is the way to make room for Him. Expect Him to come, but do not expect Him only in a certain way. However much we may know God, the great lesson to learn is that at any minute He may break in. We are apt to over look this element of surprise, yet God never works in any other way. Al of a sudden God meets the life - "When it was the good pleasure of God. . ."

Keep your life so constant in its contact with God that His surprising power may break out on the right hand and on the left. Always be in a state of

expectancy, and see that you leave room for God to come in as He likes. January 26th.

LOOK AGAIN AND CONSECRATE

"If God so clothe the grass of the field. . . shall He not much more clothe you?" Matthew 6:30

A simple statement of Jesus is always a puzzle to us if we are not simple. How are we going to be simple with the simplicity of Jesus? By receiving His Spirit, recognizing and relying on Him, obeying Him as He brings the word of God, and life wil become amazingly simple. "Consider," says Jesus, "how much more your Father Who clothes the grass of the field wil clothe you, if you keep your relationship right with Him." Every time we have gone back in spiritual communion it has been because we have impertinently known better than Jesus Christ. We have al owed the cares of the world to come in, and have forgotten the "much more" of our Heavenly Father.

"Behold the fowls of the air" - their main aim is to obey the principle of life that is in them and God looks after them. Jesus says that if you are rightly related to Him and obey His Spirit that is in you, God wil look after your 'feathers.'

"Consider the lilies of the field" - they grow where they are put. Many of us refuse to grow where we are put, consequently we take root nowhere. Jesus says that if we obey the life God has given us, He wil look after al the other things. Has Jesus Christ told us a lie? If we are not experiencing the "much more," it is because we are not obeying the life God has given us, we are taken up with confusing considerations. How much time have we taken up worrying God with questions when we should have been absolutely free to concentrate on His work? Consecration means the continual separating of myself to one particular thing. We cannot consecrate once and for al . Am I continual y separating myself to consider God every day of my life?

January 27th.

LOOK AGAIN AND THINK "Take no thought for your life." Matthew 6:25

A warning which needs to be reiterated is that the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the lust of other things entering in, wil choke al that God puts in. We are never free from the recurring tides of this encroachment. If it does not come on the line of clothes and food, it wil come on the line of money or lack of money; of friends or lack of friends; or on the line of difficult circumstances. It is one steady encroachment al the time, and unless we al ow the Spirit of God to raise up the standard against it, these things wil come in like a flood.

"Take no thought for your life." "Be careful about one thing only," says our Lord - "your relationship to Me." Common sense shouts loud and says - "That is absurd, I must consider how I am going to live, I must consider what I am going to eat and drink." Jesus says you must not. Beware of al owing the thought that this statement is made by One Who does not understand our particular circumstances. Jesus Christ knows our circumstances better than we do, and He says we must not think about these things so as to make them the one concern of our life. Whenever there is competition, be sure that you put your relationship to God first.

"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." How much evil has begun to threaten you to-day? What kind of mean little imps have been looking in and saying - Now what are you going to do next month - this summer? "Be anxious for nothing," Jesus says. Look again and think. Keep your mind on the

"much more" of your heavenly Father.

January 28th.

BUT IT IS HARDLY CREDIBLE THAT ONE COULD SO PERSECUTE JESUS!

'Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?" Acts 26:14

Am I set on my own way for God? We are never free from this snare until we are brought into the experience of the baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire.

Obstinacy and self-wil wil always stab Jesus Christ. It may hurt no one else, but it wounds His Spirit. Whenever we are obstinate and self-wil ed and set upon our own ambitions, we are hurting Jesus. Every time we stand on our rights and insist that this is what we intend to do, we are persecuting Jesus.

Whenever we stand on our dignity we systematical y vex and grieve His Spirit; and when the knowledge comes home that it is Jesus Whom we have been persecuting al the time, it is the most crushing revelation there could be.

Is the word of God tremendously keen to me as I hand it on to you, or does my life give the lie to the things I profess to teach? I may teach sanctification and yet exhibit the spirit of Satan, the spirit that persecutes Jesus Christ. The Spirit of Jesus is conscious of one thing only - a perfect oneness with the Father, and He says, "Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart." Al I do ought to be founded on a perfect oneness with Him, not on a self-wil ed determination to be godly. This wil mean that I can be easily put upon, easily over-reached, easily ignored; but if I submit to it for His sake, I prevent Jesus Christ being persecuted.

January 29th.

BUT IT IS HARDLY CREDIBLE THAT ONE COULD BE SO POSITIVELY IGNORANT!

"Who art Thou, Lord?" Acts 26:15

"The Lord spake thus to me with a strong hand." There is no escape when Our Lord speaks, He always comes with an arrestment of the understanding.

Has the voice of God come to you directly? If it has, you cannot mistake the intimate insistence with which it has spoken to you in the language you know best, not through your ears, but through your circumstances.

God has to destroy our determined confidence in our own convictions. "I know this is what I should do" - and suddenly the voice of God speaks in a way that overwhelms us by revealing the depths of our ignorance. We have shown our ignorance of Him in the very way we determined to serve Him. We serve Jesus in a spirit that is not His, we hurt Him by our advocacy for Him, we push His claims in the spirit of the devil. Our words sound al right, but our spirit is that of an enemy. "He rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of." The spirit of our Lord in an advocate of His is described in 1

Corinthians 13.

Have I been persecuting Jesus by a zealous determination to serve Him in my own way? If I feel I have done my duty and yet have hurt Him in doing it, I may be sure it was not my duty, because it has not fostered the meek and quiet spirit, but the spirit of self-satisfaction. We imagine that whatever is unpleasant is our duty! Is that anything like the spirit of our Lord - "I delight to do Thy wil , O My God."

January 30th.

THE DILEMMA OF OBEDIENCE

"And Samuel feared to shew Eli the vision." 1 Samuel 3:15

God never speaks to us in startling ways, but in ways that are easy to misunderstand, and we say, "I wonder if that is God's voice?" Isaiah said that the Lord spake to him "with a strong hand," that is, by the pressure of circumstances. Nothing touches our lives but it is God Himself speaking. Do we discern His hand or only mere occurrence?

Get into the habit of saying, "Speak, Lord," and life wil become a romance. Every time circumstances press, say, "Speak, Lord"; make time to listen.

Chastening is more than a means of discipline, it is meant to get me to the place of saying, "Speak, Lord." Recal the time when God did speak to you.

Have you forgotten what He said? Was it Luke 11:13, or was it 1 Thess. 5:23? As we listen, our ear gets acute, and, like Jesus, we shal hear God al the time.

Shal I tel my "Eli" what God has shown to me? That is where the dilemma of obedience comes in. We disobey God by becoming amateur providences -

I must shield "Eli," the best people we know. God did not tel Samuel to tel Eli; he had to decide that for himself. God's cal to you may hurt your "Eli;" but if you try to prevent the suffering in another life, it wil prove an obstruction between your soul and God. It is at your own peril that you prevent the cutting off of the right hand or the plucking out of the eye.

Never ask the advice of another about anything God makes you decide before Him. If you ask advice, you wil nearly always side with Satan. "Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood."

January 31st.

DO YOU SEE YOUR CALLING?

"Separated unto the Gospel." Romans 1: 1

Our cal ing is not primarily to be holy men and women, but to be proclaimers of the Gospel of God. The one thing that is al important is that the Gospel of God should be realized as the abiding Reality. Reality is not human goodness, nor holiness, nor heaven, nor hel ; but Redemption; and the need to perceive this is the most vital need of the Christian worker to-day. As workers we have to get used to the revelation that Redemption is the only Reality.

Personal holiness is an effect, not a cause, and if we place our faith in human goodness, in the effect of Redemption, we shal go under when the test comes.

Paul did not say he separated himself, but - "when it pleased God who separated me. . ." Paul had not a hypersensitive interest in his own character. As long as our eyes are upon our own personal whiteness we shal never get near the reality of Redemption. Workers break down because their desire is for their own whiteness, and not for God. "Don't ask me to come into contact with the rugged reality of Redemption on behalf of the filth of human life as it is; what I want is anything God can do for me to make me more desirable in my own eyes." To talk in that way is a sign that the reality of the Gospel of God has not begun to touch me; there is no reckless abandon to God. God cannot deliver me while my interest is merely in my own character. Paul is unconscious of himself, he is recklessly abandoned, separated by God for one purpose - to proclaim the Gospel of God (cf. Rom. 9:3.) February 1st.

THE CALL OF GOD

"For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel." 1 Corinthians 1:17

Paul states here that the cal of God is to preach the gospel; but remember what Paul means by "the gospel," viz., the reality of Redemption in our Lord Jesus Christ. We are apt to make sanctification the end-al of our preaching. Paul al udes to personal experience by way of il ustration, never as the end of the matter. We are nowhere commissioned to preach salvation or sanctification; we are commissioned to lift up Jesus Christ (John 12:32). It is a travesty to say that Jesus Christ travailed in Redemption to make me a saint. Jesus Christ travailed in Redemption to redeem the whole world, and place it unimpaired and rehabilitated before the throne of God. The fact that Redemption can be experienced by us is an il ustration of the power of the reality of Redemption, but that is not the end of Redemption. If God were human, how sick to the heart and weary He would be of the constant requests we make for our salvation, for our sanctification. We tax His energies from morning til night for things for ourselves - some thing for me to be delivered from! When we touch the bedrock of the reality of the Gospel of God, we shal never bother God any further with little personal plaints.

The one passion of Paul's life was to proclaim the Gospel of God. He welcomed heart-breaks, disil usionments, tribulation, for one reason only, because these things kept him in unmoved devotion to the Gospel of God.

February 2nd.

THE CONSTRAINT OF THE CALL

"Woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!" 1 Corinthians 9:16

Beware of stopping your ears to the cal of God. Everyone who is saved is cal ed to testify to the fact; but that is not the cal to preach, it is merely an il ustration in preaching. Paul is referring to the pangs produced in him by the constraint to preach the Gospel. Never apply what Paul says in this connection to souls coming in contact with God for salvation. There is nothing easier than getting saved because it is God's sovereign work - Come unto Me and I wil save you. Our Lord never lays down the conditions of discipleship as the conditions of salvation. We are condemned to salvation through the Cross of Jesus Christ. Discipleship has an option with it - "IF any man. . . ”

Paul's words have to do with being made a servant of Jesus Christ, and our permission is never asked as to what we wil do or where we wil go. God makes us broken bread and poured-out wine to please Himself. To be "separated unto the gospel" means to hear the cal of God; and when a man begins to overhear that cal , then begins agony that is worthy of the name. Every ambition is nipped in the bud, every desire of life quenched, every outlook completely extinguished and blotted out, saving one thing only - "separated unto the gospel." Woe be to the soul who tries to put his foot in any other direction when once that cal has come to him. This Col ege exists for you, and you - to see whether God has a man or woman here who cares about proclaiming His Gospel; to see whether God grips you. And beware of competitors when God does grip you.

February 3rd.

THE RECOGNIZED BAN OF RELATIONSHIP

"We are made as the filth of the world." 1 Corinthians 4:9-13

These words are not an exaggeration. The reason they are not true of us who cal ourselves ministers of the gospel is not that Paul forgot the exact truth in using them, but that we have too many discreet affinities to al ow ourselves to be made refuse. "Fil ing up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ" is not an evidence of sanctification, but of being "separated unto the gospel."

"Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you," says Peter. If we do think it strange concerning the things we meet with, it is because we are craven-hearted. We have discreet affinities that keep us out of the mire - I won't stoop, I won't bend. Y ou do not need to, you can be saved by the skin of your teeth if you like; you can refuse to let God count you as one separated unto the gospel. Or you may say - "I do not care if I am treated as the offscouring of the earth as long as the Gospel is proclaimed." A servant of Jesus Christ is one who is wil ing to go to martyrdom for the reality of the gospel of God. When a merely moral man or woman comes in contact with baseness and immorality and treachery, the recoil is so desperately offensive to human goodness that the heart shuts up in despair. The marvel of the Redemptive Reality of God is that the worst and the vilest can never get to the bottom of His love. Paul did not say that God separated him to show what a wonderful man He could make of him, but "to reveal His Son in me."

February 4th.

THE OVERMASTERING MAJESTY OF PERSONAL POWER

"For the love of Christ constraineth us." 2 Corinthians 5:14

Paul says he is overruled, overmastered, held as in a vice, by the love of Christ. Very few of us know what it means to be held in a grip by the love of God; we are held by the constraint of our experience only. The one thing that held Paul, until there was nothing else on his horizon, was the love of God. "The love of Christ constraineth us" - when you hear that note in a man or woman, you can never mistake it. You know that the Spirit of God is getting unhindered way in that life.

When we are born again of the Spirit of God, the note of testimony is on what

God has done for us, and rightly so. But the baptism of the Holy Ghost obliterates that for ever, and we begin to realize what Jesus meant when He said - "Ye shal be witnesses unto Me." Not witnesses to what Jesus can do -

that is an elementary witness - but "witnesses unto Me." We wil take everything that happens as happening to Him, whether it be praise or blame, persecution or commendation. No one can stand like that for Jesus Christ who is not constrained by the majesty of His personal power. It is the only thing that matters, and the strange thing is that it is the last thing realized by the Christian worker. Paul says he is gripped by the love of God, that is why he acts as he does. Men may cal him mad or sober, but he does not care; there is only one thing he is living for, and that is to persuade men of the judgment seat of God, and of the love of Christ. This abandon to the love of Christ is the one thing that bears fruit in the life, and it wil always leave the impression of the holiness and of the power of God, never of our personal holiness.

February 5th.

ARE YOU READY TO BE OFFERED?

"Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all." Philippians 2:17

Are you wil ing to be offered for the work of the faithful - to pour out your life blood as a libation on the sacrifice of the faith of others? Or do you say - "I am not going to be offered up just yet, I do not want God to choose my work. I want to choose the scenery of my own sacrifice; I want to have the right kind of people watching and saying, 'Wel done.'

It is one thing to go on the lonely way with dignified heroism, but quite another thing if the line mapped out for you by God means being a door-mat under other people's feet. Suppose God wants to teach you to say, "I know how to be abased" - are you ready to be offered up like that? Are you ready to be not so much as a drop in a bucket - to be so hopelessly insignificant that you are never thought of again in connection with the life you served? Are you wil ing to spend and be spent; not seeking to be ministered unto, but to minister? Some saints cannot do menial work and remain saints because it is beneath their dignity.

February 6th.

ARE YOU READY TO BE OFFERED?

"I am already being poured out as a drink offering." 2 Timothy 4:6 (R. V. Marg.)

"I am ready to be offered." It is a transaction of wil , not of sentiment. Tell God you are ready to be offered; then let the consequences be what they may, there is no strand of complaint now, no matter what God chooses. God puts you through the crisis in private, no one person can help an other. External y the life may be the same; the difference is in wil . Go through the crisis in wil , then when it comes external y there wil he no thought of the cost. If you do not transact in wil with God along this line, you wil end in awakening sympathy for yourself.

"Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar." The altar means fire - burning and purification and insulation for one purpose only, the destruction of every affinity that God has not started and of every attachment that is not an attachment in God. You do not destroy it, God does; you bind the sacrifice to the horns of the altar; and see that you do not give way to self-pity when the fire begins. After this way of fire, there is nothing that oppresses or depresses. When the crisis arises, you realize that things cannot touch you as they used to do. What is your way of fire?

Tel God you are ready to be offered, and God wil prove Himself to be al you ever dreamed He would be.

February 7th.

THE DISCIPLINE OF DEJECTION "But we trusted. . . and beside all this, to-day is the third day . . ." Luke 24:21

Every fact that the disciples stated was right; but the inferences they drew from those facts were wrong. Anything that savours of dejection spiritual y is always wrong. If depression and oppression visit me, I am to blame; God is not, nor is anyone else. Dejection springs from one of two sources - I have either satisfied a lust or I have not. Lust means - I must have it at once. Spiritual lust makes me demand an answer from God, instead of seeking God Who gives the answer. What have I been trusting God would do? And to-day - the immediate present -is the third day, and He has not done it; therefore I imagine I am justified in being dejected and in blaming God. Whenever the insistence is on the point that God answers prayer, we are off the track. The meaning of prayer is that we get hold of God, not of the answer. It is impossible to be wel physical y and to be dejected. Dejection is a sign of sickness, and the same thing is true spiritual y. Dejection spiritual y is wrong, and we are always to blame for it.

We look for visions from heaven, for earthquakes and thunders of God's power (the fact that we are dejected proves that we do), and we never dream that al the time God is in the commonplace things and people around us. If we wil do the duty that lies nearest, we shal see Him. One of the most amazing revelations of God comes when we learn that it is in the commonplace things that the Deity of Jesus Christ is realized.

February 8th.

INSTANTANEOUS AND INSISTENT SANCTIFICATION

"And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly." 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24

When we pray to be sanctified, are we prepared to face the standard of these verses? We take the term sanctification much too lightly. Are we prepared for what sanctification wil cost? It wil cost an intense narrowing of al our interests on earth, and an immense broadening of al our interests in God.

Sanctification means intense concentration on God's point of view. It means every power of body, soul and spirit chained and kept for God's purpose only.

Are we prepared for God to do in us al that He separated us for? And then after His work is done in us, are we prepared to separate ourselves to God even as Jesus did? "For their sakes I sanctify Myself." The reason some of us have not entered into the experience of sanctification is that we have not realized the meaning of sanctification from God's standpoint. Sanctification means being made one with Jesus so that the disposition that ruled Him wil rule us. Are we prepared for what that wil cost? It wil cost everything that is not of God in us.

Are we prepared to be caught up into the swing of this prayer of the apostle Paul's? Are we prepared to say - "Lord, make me as holy as You can make a sinner saved by grace"? Jesus has prayed that we might be one with Him as He is one with the Father. The one and only characteristic of the Holy Ghost in a man is a strong family likeness to Jesus Christ, and freedom from everything that is unlike Him. Are we prepared to set ourselves apart for the Holy Spirit's ministrations in us?

February 9th.

ARE YOU EXHAUSTED SPIRITUALLY?

"The everlasting God. . . fainteth not, neither is weary." Isaiah 40:28

Exhaustion means that the vital forces are worn right out. Spiritual exhaustion never comes through sin but only through service, and whether or not you are exhausted wil depend upon where you get your supplies. Jesus said to Peter -"Feed My sheep," but He gave him nothing to feed them with. The process of being made broken bread and poured out wine means that you have to be the nourishment for other souls until they learn to feed on God. They must drain you to the dregs. Be careful that you get your supply, or before long you wil be utterly exhausted. Before other souls learn to draw on the life of the Lord Jesus direct, they have to draw on it through you; you have to be literal y "sucked," until they learn to take their nourishment from God. We owe it to God to be our best for His lambs and His sheep as wel as for Himself.

Has the way in which you have been serving God betrayed you into exhaustion? If so, then ral y your affections. Where did you start the service from?

From your own sympathy or from the basis of the Redemption of Jesus Christ? Continual y go back to the foundation of your affections and recol ect where the source of power is. You have no right to say - "O Lord, I am so exhausted." He saved and sanctified you in order to exhaust you. Be exhausted for God, but remember that your supply comes from Him. "Al my fresh springs shal be in Thee."

February 10th.

IS YOUR IMAGINATION OF GOD STARVED?

"Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things." Isaiah 40:26

The people of God in Isaiah's day had starved their imagination by looking on the face of idols, and Isaiah made them look up at the heavens, that is, he made them begin to use their imagination aright. Nature to a saint is sacramental. If we are children of God, we have a tremendous treasure in Nature. In every wind that blows, in every night and day of the year, in every sign of the sky, in every blossoming and in every withering of the earth, there is a real coming of God to us if we wil simply use our starved imagination to realize it.

The test of spiritual concentration is bringing the imagination into captivity. Is your imagination looking on the face of an idol? Is the idol yourself? Your work? Your conception of what a worker should be? Your experience of salvation and sanctification? Then your imagination of God is starved, and when you are up against difficulties you have no power, you can only endure in darkness. If your imagination is starved, do not look back to your own experience; it is God Whom you need. Go right out of yourself, away from the face of your idols, away from everything that has been starving your imagination. Rouse yourself, take the gibe that Isaiah gave the people, and deliberately turn your imagination to God.

One of the reasons of stultification in prayer is that there is no imagination, no power of putting ourselves deliberately before God. We have to learn how to be broken bread and poured out wine on the line of intercession more than on the line of personal contact. Imagination is the power God gives a saint to posit himself out of himself into relationships he never was in.

February 11th.

IS YOUR HOPE IN GOD FAINT AND DYING?

"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose imagination is stayed on Thee." Isaiah 26:3 (R. V. marg.) Is your imagination stayed on God or is it starved? The starvation of the imagination is one of the most fruitful sources of exhaustion and sapping in a worker's life. If you have never used your imagination to put yourself before God, begin to do it now. It is no use waiting for God to come; you must put your imagination away from the face of idols and look unto Him and be saved. Imagination is the greatest gift God has given us and it ought to be devoted entirely to Him. If you have been bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, it wil be one of the greatest assets to faith when the time of trial comes, because your faith and the Spirit of God wil work together. Learn to associate ideas worthy of God with al that happens in Nature - the sunrises and the sunsets, the sun and the stars, the changing seasons, and your imagination wil never be at the mercy of your impulses, but wil always be at the service of God.

"We have sinned with our fathers; . . . and have forgotten" - then put a stiletto in the place where you have gone to sleep. "God is not talking to me just now," but He ought to be. Remember Whose you are and Whom you serve. Provoke yourself by recol ection, and your affection for God wil increase tenfold; your imagination wil not be starved any longer, but wil be quick and enthusiastic, and your hope wil be inexpressibly bright.

February 12th.

MUST I LISTEN?

"And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die." Exodus 20:19

We do not consciously disobey God, we simply do not heed Him. God has given us His commands; there they are, but we do not pay any attention to them, not because of wilful disobedience but because we do not love and respect Him. "If ye love Me, ye wil keep My commandments." When once we realize that we have been "disrespecting" God al the time, we are covered with shame and humiliation because we have not heeded Him.

"Speak thou with us . . . but let not God speak with us." We show how little we love God by preferring to listen to His servants only. We like to listen to personal testimonies, but we do not desire that God Himself should speak to us. Why are we so terrified lest God should speak to us? Because we know that if God does speak, either the thing must be done or we must tel God we wil not obey Him. If it is only the servant's voice we hear, we feel it is not imperative, we can say, "Wel , that is simply your own idea, though I don't deny it is probably God's truth."

Am I putting God in the humiliating position of having treated me as a child of His whilst al the time I have been ignoring Him? When I do hear Him, the humiliation I have put on Him comes back on me - "Lord, why was I so dul and so obstinate?" This is always the result when once we do hear God. The real delight of hearing Him is tempered with shame in having been so long in hearing Him.

February 13th.

THE DEVOTION OF HEARING

"Speak; for Thy servant heareth." 1 Samuel 3:10

Because I have listened definitely to one thing from God, it does not fol ow that I wil listen to everything He says. The way in which I show God that I neither love nor respect Him is by the obtuseness of my heart and mind towards what He says. If I love my friend, I intuitively detect what he wants, and Jesus says, "Ye are My friends." Have I disobeyed some command of my Lord's this week? If I had realized that it was a command of Jesus, I would not consciously have disobeyed it; but most of us show such disrespect to God that we do not even hear what He says, He might never have spoken.

The destiny of my spiritual life is such identification with Jesus Christ that I always hear God, and I know that God always hears me (John 11:41). If I am united with Jesus Christ, I hear God, by the devotion of hearing al the time. A lily, or a tree, or a servant of God, may convey God's message to me. What hinders me from hearing is that I am taken up with other things. It is not that I wil not hear God, but I am not devoted in the right place. I am devoted to things, to service, to convictions, and God may say what He likes but I do not hear Him. The child attitude is always, "Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth." If I have not cultivated this devotion of hearing, I can only hear God's voice at certain times; at other times I am taken up with things - things which I say I must do, and I become deaf to Him, I am not living the life of a child. Have I heard God's voice to-day?

February 14th.

THE DISCIPLINE OF HEEDING

"What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops." Matthew 10:27

At times God puts us through the discipline of darkness to teach us to heed Him. Song birds are taught to sing in the dark, and we are put into the shadow of God's hand until we learn to hear Him. "What I tel you in darkness" - watch where God puts you into darkness, and when you are there keep your mouth shut. Are you in the dark just now in your circumstances, or in your life with God? Then remain quiet. If you open your mouth in the dark, you wil talk in the wrong mood: darkness is the time to listen. Don't talk to other people about it; don't read books to find out the reason of the darkness, but listen and heed.

If you talk to other people, you cannot hear what God is saying. When you are in the dark, listen, and God wil give you a very precious message for someone else when you get into the light.

After every time of darkness there comes a mixture of delight and humiliation (if there is delight only, I question whether we have heard God at al ), delight in hearing God speak, but chiefly humiliation - What a long time I was in hearing that! How slow I have been in understanding that! And yet God has been saying it al these days and weeks. Now He gives you the gift of humiliation which brings the softness of heart that wil always listen to God now.

February 15th.

AM I MY BROTHER'S KEEPER?

"None of us liveth to himself." Romans 14:7.

Has it ever dawned on you that you are responsible for other souls spiritual y before God? For instance, if I al ow any private deflection from God in my life, everyone about me suffers. We "sit together in heavenly places." "Whether one member suffer, al the members suffer with it." When once you al ow physical selfishness, mental slovenliness, moral obtuseness, spiritual density, everyone belonging to your crowd wil suffer. "But," you say, "who is sufficient for these things if you erect a standard like that?" "Our sufficiency is of God," and of Him alone.

"Ye shal be My witnesses." How many of us are wil ing to spend every ounce of nervous energy, of mental, moral and spiritual energy we have for Jesus Christ? That is the meaning of a witness in God's sense of the word. It takes time, be patient with yourself. God has left us on the earth - what for? To be saved and sanctified? No, to be at it for Him. Am I wil ing to be broken bread and poured out wine for Him? To be spoilt for this age, for this life, to be spoilt from every standpoint but one - saving as I can disciple men and women to the Lord Jesus Christ. My life as a worker is the way I say "thank you" to God for His unspeakable salvation. Remember it is quite possible for any one of us to be flung out as reprobate silver - ". . . lest that by any means when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway."

February 16th.

THE INSPIRATION OF SPIRITUAL INITIATIVE

"Arise from the dead." Ephesians 5:14

Al initiative is not inspired. A man may say to you - "Buck up, take your disinclination by the throat, throw it overboard, and walk out into the thing!" That is ordinary human initiative. But when the Spirit of God comes in and says, in effect, "Buck up," we find that the initiative is inspired.

We al have any number of visions and ideals when we are young, but sooner or later we find that we have no power to make them real. We cannot do the things we long to do, and we are apt to settle down to the visions and ideals as dead, and God has to come and say - "Arise from the dead." When the inspiration of God does come, it comes with such miraculous power that we are able to arise from the dead and do the impossible thing. The remarkable thing about spiritual initiative is that the life comes after we do the "bucking up." God does not give us overcoming life; He gives us life as we overcome.

When the inspiration of God comes, and He says - "Arise from the dead," we have to get up; God does not lift us up. Our Lord said to the man with the withered hand - "Stretch forth thy hand," and as soon as the man did so, his hand was healed, but he had to take the initiative. If we wil do the overcoming, we shal find we are inspired of God because He gives life immediately.

February 17th.

THE INITIATIVE AGAINST DEPRESSION

"Arise and eat." 1 Kings 19:5

The angel did not give Elijah a vision, or explain the Scriptures to him, or do anything remarkable; he told Elijah to do the most ordinary thing, viz., to get up and eat. If we were never depressed we should not be alive; it is the nature of a crystal never to be depressed. A human being is capable of depression, otherwise there would be no capacity for exaltation. There are things that are calculated to depress, things that are of the nature of death; and in taking an estimate of yourself, always take into account the capacity for depression.

When the Spirit of God comes He does not give us visions, He tel s us to do the most ordinary things conceivable. Depression is apt to turn us away from the ordinary commonplace things of God's creation, but whenever God comes, the inspiration is to do the most natural simple thing - the things we would never have imagined God was in, and as we do them we find He is there. The inspiration which comes to us in this way is an initiative against depression; we have to do the next thing and do it in the inspiration of God. If we do a thing in order to overcome depression, we deepen the depression; but if the Spirit of God makes us feel intuitively that we must do the thing, and we do it, the depression is gone. Immediately we arise and obey, we enter on a higher plane of life.

February 18th.

THE INITIATIVE AGAINST DESPAIR

"Rise, let us be going." Matthew 26:46

The disciples went to sleep when they should have kept awake, and when they realized what they had done it produced despair. The sense of the irreparable is apt to make us despair, and we say - "It is al up now, it is no use trying any more." If we imagine that this kind of despair is exceptional, we are mistaken, it is a very ordinary human experience. Whenever we realize that we have not done that which we had a magnificent opportunity of doing, then we are apt to sink into despair; and Jesus Christ comes and says - "Sleep on now, that opportunity is lost for ever, you cannot alter it, but arise and go to the next thing." Let the past sleep, but let it sleep on the bosom of Christ, and go out into the irresistible future with Him.

There are experiences like this in each of our lives. We are in despair, the despair that comes from actualities, and we cannot lift ourselves out of it. The disciples in this instance had done a downright unforgivable thing; they had gone to sleep instead of watching with Jesus, but He came with a spiritual initiative against their despair and said - "Arise and do the next thing." If we are inspired of God, what is the next thing? To trust Him absolutely and to pray on the ground of His Redemption.

Never let the sense of failure corrupt your new action.

February 19th.

THE INITIATIVE AGAINST DRUDGERY

"Arise, shine." Isaiah 60:1

We have to take the first step as though there were no God. It is no use to wait for God to help us, He wil not; but immediately we arise we find He is there. Whenever God inspires, the initiative is a moral one. We must do the thing and not lie like a log. If we wil arise and shine, drudgery becomes divinely transfigured.

Drudgery is one of the finest touchstones of character there is. Drudgery is work that is very far removed from anything to do with the ideal - the utterly mean grubby things; and when we come in contact with them we know instantly whether or not we are spiritual y real. Read John 13. We see there the Incarnate God doing the most desperate piece of drudgery, washing fishermen's feet, and He says - "If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet." It requires the inspiration of God to go through drudgery with the light of God upon it. Some people do a certain thing and the way in which they do it hal ows that thing for ever afterwards. It may be the most commonplace thing, but after we have seen them do it, it becomes different. When the Lord does a thing through us, He always transfigures it. Our Lord took on Him our human flesh and transfigured it, and it has become for every saint the temple of the Holy Ghost.

February 20th.

THE INITIATIVE AGAINST DREAMING

"Arise, let us go hence." John 14:31

Dreaming about a thing in order to do it properly is right; but dreaming about it when we should be doing it is wrong. After Our Lord had said those wonderful things to His disciples, we might have expected that He would tel them to go away and meditate over them al ; but Our Lord never al owed

"mooning." When we are getting into contact with God in order to find out what He wants, dreaming is right; but when we are inclined to spend our time in dreaming over what we have been told to do, it is a bad thing and God's blessing is never on it. God's initiative is always in the nature of a stab against this kind of dreaming, the stab that bids us "neither sit nor stand but go."

If we are quietly waiting before God and He has said - "Come ye yourselves apart," then that is meditation before God in order to get at the line He wants; but always beware of giving over to mere dreaming when once God has spoken. Leave Him to be the source of al your dreams and joys and delights, and go out and obey what He has said. If you are in love, you do not sit down and dream about the one you love al the time, you go and do something for him; and that is what Jesus Christ expects us to do. Dreaming after God has spoken is an indication that we do not trust Him.

February 21st.

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN CARRIED AWAY FOR HIM?

"She hath wrought a good work on Me." Mark 14:6

If human love does not carry a man beyond himself, it is not love. If love is always discreet, always wise, always sensible and calculating, never carried beyond itself, it is not love at al . It may be affection, it may be warmth of feeling, but it has not the true nature of love in it.

Have I ever been carried away to do something for God not because it was my duty, nor because it was useful, nor because there was anything in it at al beyond the fact that I love Him? Have I ever realized that I can bring to God things which are of value to Him, or am I mooning round the magnitude of His Redemption whilst there are any number of things I might be doing? Not Divine, colossal things which could be recorded as marvel ous, but ordinary, simple human things which wil give evidence to God that I am abandoned to Him? Have I ever produced in the heart of the Lord Jesus what Mary of Bethany produced?

There are times when it seems as if God watches to see if we wil give Him the abandoned tokens of how genuinely we do love Him. Abandon to God is of more value than personal holiness. Personal holiness focuses the eye on our own whiteness; we are greatly concerned about the way we walk and talk and look, fearful lest we offend Him. Perfect love casts out al that when once we are abandoned to God. We have to get rid of this notion - "Am I of any use?" and make up our minds that we are not, and we may be near the truth. It is never a question of being of use, but of being of value to God Himself.

When we are abandoned to God, He works through us al the time.

February 22nd.

THE DISCIPLINE OF SPIRITUAL TENACITY

"Be still, and know that I am God." Psalm 46:10

Tenacity is more than endurance, it is endurance combined with the absolute certainty that what we are looking for is going to transpire. Tenacity is more than hanging on, which may be but the weakness of being too afraid to fal off. Tenacity is the supreme effort of a man refusing to believe that his hero is going to be conquered. The greatest fear a man has is not that he wil be damned, but that Jesus Christ wil be worsted, that the things He stood for - love and justice and forgiveness and kindness among men - wil not win out in the end; the things He stands for look like wil -o'-the-wisps. Then comes the cal to spiritual tenacity, not to hang on and do nothing, but to work deliberately on the certainty that God is not going to be worsted.

If our hopes are being disappointed just now, it means that they are being purified. There is nothing noble the human mind has ever hoped for or dreamed of that wil not be fulfil ed. One of the greatest strains in life is the strain of waiting for God. "Because thou hast kept the word of my patience."

Remain spiritual y tenacious.

February 23rd.

THE DETERMINATION TO SERVE

"The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister." Matthew 20:28

Paul's idea of service is the same as Our Lord's: "I am among you as He that serveth;" "ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake." We have the idea that a man cal ed to the ministry is cal ed to be a different kind of being from other men. According to Jesus Christ, he is cal ed to be the "door-mat" of other men; their spiritual leader, but never their superior. "I know how to be abased," says Paul. This is Paul's idea of service - "I wil spend myself to the last ebb for you; you may give me praise or give me blame, it wil make no difference." So long as there is a human being who does not know Jesus Christ, I am his debtor to serve him until he does. The mainspring of Paul's service is not love for men, but love for Jesus Christ. If we are devoted to the cause of humanity, we shal soon be crushed and broken-hearted, for we shal often meet with more ingratitude from men than we would from a dog; but if our motive is love to God, no ingratitude can hinder us from serving our fel ow men.

Paul's realization of how Jesus Christ had dealt with him is the secret of his determination to serve others. "I was before a perjurer, a blasphemer, an injurious person" - no matter how men may treat me, they wil never treat me with the spite and hatred with which I treated Jesus Christ. When we realize that Jesus Christ has served us to the end of our meanness, our selfishness, and sin, nothing that we meet with from others can exhaust our determination to serve men for His sake.

February 24th.

THE DELIGHT OF SACRIFICE

"I will very gladly spend and be spent for you;" 2 Corinthians 12:15

When the Spirit of God has shed abroad the love of God in our hearts, we begin deliberately to identify ourselves with Jesus Christ's interests in other people, and Jesus Christ is interested in every kind of man there is. We have no right in Christian work to be guided by our affinities; this is one of the biggest tests of our relationship to Jesus Christ. The delight of sacrifice is that I lay down my life for my Friend, not fling it away, but deliberately lay my life out for Him and His interests in other people, not for a cause. Paul spent himself for one purpose only - that he might win men to Jesus Christ. Paul attracted to Jesus al the time, never to himself. "I am made al things to al men, that I might by al means save some." When a man says he must develop a holy life alone with God, he is of no more use to his fel ow men: he puts himself on a pedestal, away from the common run of men. Paul became a sacramental personality; wherever he went, Jesus Christ helped Himself to his life. Many of us are after our own ends, and Jesus Christ cannot help Himself to our lives. If we are abandoned to Jesus, we have no ends of our own to serve. Paul said he knew how to be a "door-mat" without resenting it, because the mainspring of his life was devotion to Jesus. We are apt to be devoted, not to Jesus Christ, but to the things which emancipate us spiritual y.

That was not Paul's motive. "I could wish my self were accursed from Christ for my brethren" - wild, extravagant - is it? When a man is in love it is not an exaggeration to talk in that way, and Paul is in love with Jesus Christ.

February 25th.

THE DESTITUTION OF SERVICE "Though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved." 2 Corinthians 12:15

Natural love expects some return, but Paul says - I do not care whether you love me or not, I am wil ing to destitute myself completely, not merely for your sakes, but that I may get you to God. "For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor."

Paul's idea of service is exactly along that line - I do not care with what extravagance I spend myself, and I wil do it gladly. It was a joyful thing to Paul.

The ecclesiastical idea of a servant of God is not Jesus Christ's idea. His idea is that we serve Him by being the servants of other men. Jesus Christ out-socialists the socialists. He says that in His Kingdom he that is greatest shal be the servant of al . The real test of the saint is not preaching the gospel, but washing disciples' feet, that is, doing the things that do not count in the actual estimate of men but count everything in the estimate of God. Paul delighted to spend himself out for God's interests in other people, and he did not care what it cost. We come in with our economical notions - "Suppose God wants me to go there - what about the salary? What about the climate? How shal I be looked after? A man must consider these things." Al that is an indication that we are serving God with a reserve. The apostle Paul had no reserve. Paul focuses Jesus Christ's idea of a New Testament saint in his life, viz.: not one who proclaims the Gospel merely, but one who becomes broken bread and poured out wine in the hands of Jesus Christ for other lives.

February 26th.

INFERIOR MISGIVINGS ABOUT JESUS

"Sir, Thou hast nothing to draw with." John 4:11

"I am impressed with the wonder of what God says, but He cannot expect me real y to live it out in the details of my life!" When it comes to facing Jesus Christ on His own merits, our attitude is one of pious superiority - Y our ideals are high and they impress us, but in touch with actual things, it cannot be done.

Each of us thinks about Jesus in this way in some particular. These misgivings about Jesus start from the amused questions put to us when we talk of our transactions with God - Where are you going to get your money from? How are you going to be looked after? Or they start from ourselves when we tel Jesus that our case is a bit too hard for Him. It is al very wel to say "Trust in the Lord," but a man must live, and Jesus has nothing to draw with -

nothing whereby to give us these things. Beware of the pious fraud in you which says - I have no misgivings about Jesus, only about myself. None of us ever had misgivings about ourselves; we know exactly what we cannot do, but we do have misgivings about Jesus. We are rather hurt at the idea that He can do what we cannot.

My misgivings arise from the fact that I ransack my own person to find out how He wil he able to do it. My questions spring from the depths of my own inferiority. If I detect these misgivings in myself, let me bring them to the light and confess them - "Lord, I have had misgivings about Thee, I have not believed in Thy wits apart from my own; I have not believed in Thine almighty power apart from my finite understanding of it."

February 27 th.

IMPOVERISHED MINISTRY OF JESUS

"From whence then hast Thou that living water?" John 4:11

"The wel is deep" - and a great deal deeper than the Samaritan woman knew! Think of the depths of human nature, of human life, think of the depths of the "wel s" in you. Have you been impoverishing the ministry of Jesus so that He can not do anything? Suppose there is a wel of fathomless trouble inside your heart, and Jesus comes and says - "Let not your heart be troubled"; and you shrug your shoulders and say, "But, Lord, the wel is deep; You cannot draw up quietness and comfort out of it." No, He wil bring them down from above. Jesus does not bring anything up from the wel s of human nature. We limit the Holy One of Israel by remembering what we have al owed Him to do for us in the past, and by saying, "Of course I cannot expect God to do this thing." The thing that taxes almightiness is the very thing which we as disciples of Jesus ought to believe He wil do. We impoverish His ministry the moment we forget He is Almighty; the impoverishment is in us, not in Him. We wil come to Jesus as Comforter or as Sympathizer, but we wil not come to Him as Almighty.

The reason some of us are such poor specimens of Christianity is because we have no Almighty Christ. We have Christian attributes and experiences, but there is no abandonment to Jesus Christ. When we get into difficult circumstances, we impoverish His ministry by saying - "Of course He cannot do any thing," and we struggle down to the deeps and try to get the water for ourselves. Beware of the satisfaction of sinking back and saying - "It can't be done"; you know it can be done if you look to Jesus. The wel of your incompleteness is deep, but make the effort and look away to Him.

February 28th.

DO YE NOW BELIEVE?

"By this we believe . . . Jesus answered, Do ye now believe?" John 16:30-31

Now we believe. Jesus says - Do you? The time is coming when you wil leave Me alone. Many a Christian worker has left Jesus Christ alone and gone into work from a sense of duty, or from a sense of need arising out of his own particular discernment. The reason for this is the absence of the resurrection life of Jesus. The soul has got out of intimate contact with God by leaning to its own religious understanding. There is no sin in it, and no punishment attached to it; but when the soul realizes how he has hindered his understanding of Jesus Christ, and produced for himself perplexities and sorrows and difficulties, it is with shame and contrition he has to come back.

We need to rely on the resurrection life of Jesus much deeper down than we do, to get into the habit of steadily referring everything back to Him; instead of this we make our common - sense decisions and ask God to bless them. He cannot, it is not in His domain, it is severed from reality. If we do a thing from a sense of duty, we are putting up a standard in competition with Jesus Christ. We become a "superior person," and say - "Now in this matter I must do this and that." We have put our sense of duty on the throne instead of the resurrection life of Jesus. We are not told to walk in the light of conscience or of a sense of duty, but to walk in the light as God is in the light. When we do anything from a sense of duty, we can back it up by argument; when we do anything in obedience to the Lord, there is no argument possible; that is why a saint can be easily ridiculed.

February 29th.

WHAT DO YOU WANT THE LORD TO DO FOR YOU?

Lord, that I may receive my sight." Luke 18:41

What is the thing that not only disturbs you but makes you a disturbance? It is always some thing you cannot deal with yourself. "They rebuked him that he should hold his peace . . . but he cried so much the more." Persist in the disturbance until you get face to face with the Lord Himself; do not deify common sense. When Jesus asks us what we want Him to do for us in regard to the incredible thing with which we are faced, remember that He does not work in common-sense ways, but in supernatural ways.

Watch how we limit the Lord by remembering what we have al owed Him to do for us in the past: I always failed there, and I always shal ; consequently we do not ask for what we want. "It is ridiculous to ask God to do this." If it is an impossibility, it is the thing we have to ask. If it is not an impossible thing, it is not a real disturbance. God wil do the absolutely impossible.

This man received his sight. The most impossible thing to you is that you should be so identified with the Lord that there is nothing of the old life left. He wil do it if you ask Him. But you have to come to the place where you believe Him to be Almighty. Faith is not in what Jesus says but in Himself; if we only look at what He says we shal never believe. When once we see Jesus, He does the impossible thing as natural y as breathing. Our agony comes through the wilful stupidity of our own heart. We won't believe, we won't cut the shore line, we prefer to worry on.

March 1st.

THE UNDEVIATING QUESTION

"Lovest thou Me?" John 21:17

Peter declares nothing now (cf. Matthew 26:33-35). Natural individuality professes and declares; the love of the personality is only discovered by the hurt of the question of Jesus Christ. Peter loved Jesus in the way in which any natural man loves a good man. That is temperamental love; it may go deep into the individuality, but it does not touch the centre of the person. True love never professes anything. Jesus said - "Whosoever shal confess Me before men," i.e., confess his love not merely by his words, but by everything he does.

Unless we get hurt right out of every deception about ourselves, the word of God is not having its way with us. The word of God hurts as no sin can ever hurt, because sin blunts feeling. The question of the Lord intensifies feeling, until to be hurt by Jesus is the most exquisite hurt conceivable. It hurts not only in the natural way but in the profound personal way. The word of the Lord pierces even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, there is no deception left.

There is no possibility of being sentimental with the Lord's question; you cannot say nice things when the Lord speaks directly to you, the hurt is too terrific. It is such a hurt that it stings every other concern out of account. There never can be any mistake about the hurt of the Lord's word when it comes to His child; but the point of the hurt is the great point of revelation.

March 2nd.

HAVE YOU FELT THE HURT OF THE LORD?

"Jesus said unto him the third time, Lovest thou Me?" John 21:17

Have you felt the hurt of the Lord to the uncovered quick, the place where the real sensitiveness of your life is lodged? The devil never hurts there, neither sin nor human affection hurts there, nothing goes through to that place but the word of God. "Peter was grieved because Jesus said unto him the third time. . . ." He was awakening to the fact that in the real true centre of his personal life he was devoted to Jesus, and he began to see what the patient questioning meant. There was not the slightest strand of delusion left in Peter's mind, he never could be deluded again. There was no room for passionate utterance, no room for exhilaration or sentiment. It was a revelation to him to realize how much he did love the Lord, and with amazement he said - "Lord, Thou knowest al things." Peter began to see how much he did love Jesus; but he did not say - "Look at this or that to confirm it." Peter was beginning to discover to himself how much he did love the Lord, that there was no one in heaven above or upon earth beneath beside Jesus Christ; but he did not know it until the probing, hurting questions of the Lord came. The Lord's questions always reveal me to myself.

The patient directness and skil of Jesus Christ with Peter! Our Lord never asks questions until the right time. Rarely, but probably once, He wil get us into a corner where He wil hurt us with His undeviating questions, and we wil realize that we do love Him far more deeply than any profession can ever show.

March 3rd.

THE UNRELIEVED QUEST

"Feed My sheep." John 21:17

This is love in the making. The love of God is tin-made, it is God's nature. When we receive the Holy Spirit He unites us with God so that His love is manifested in us. When the soul is united to God by the indwel ing Holy Spirit, that is not the end; the end is that we may be one with the Father as Jesus was. What kind of oneness had Jesus Christ with the Father? Such a oneness that the Father sent Him down here to be spent for us, and He says - "As the Father hath sent Me, even so send I you."

Peter realizes now with the revelation of the Lord's hurting question that he does love Him; then comes the point - "Spend it out." Don't testify how much you love Me, don't profess about the marvel ous revelation you have had, but -"Feed My sheep." And Jesus has some extraordinarily funny sheep, some bedraggled, dirty sheep, some awkward, butting sheep, some sheep that have gone astray! It is impossible to weary God's love, and it is impossible to weary that love in me if it springs from the one centre. The love of God pays no attention to the distinctions made by natural individuality. If I love my Lord I have no business to be guided by natural temperament; I have to feed His sheep. There is no relief and no release from this commission. Beware of counterfeiting the love of God by working along the line of natural human sympathy, because that wil end in blaspheming the love of God.

March 4th.

COULD THIS BE TRUE OF ME?

"But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself. " Acts 20:24

It is easier to serve God without a vision, easier to work for God without a cal , because then you are not bothered by what God requires; common sense is your guide, veneered over with Christian sentiment. Y ou wil be more prosperous and successful, more leisure-hearted, if you never realize the cal of God. But if once you receive a commission from Jesus Christ, the memory of what God wants wil always come like a goad; you wil no longer be able to work for Him on the common-sense basis.

What do I real y count dear? If I have not been gripped by Jesus Christ, I wil count service dear, time given to God dear, my life dear unto myself. Paul says he counted his life dear only in order that he might fulfil the ministry he had received; he refused to use his energy for any other thing. Acts 20:24

states Paul's almost sublime annoyance at being asked to consider himself; he was absolutely indifferent to any consideration other than that of fulfil ing the ministry he had received. Practical work may be a competitor against abandonment to God, because practical work is based on this argument -

Remember how 'useful you are here, or - Think how much value you would be in that particular type of work." That attitude does not put Jesus Christ as the Guide as to where we should go, but our judgment as to where we are of most use. Never consider whether you are of use; but ever consider that you are not your own but His.

March 5th.

IS HE REALLY LORD?

". . . so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus." Acts 20:24

Joy means the perfect fulfilment of that for which I was created and regenerated, not the successful doing of a thing. The joy Our Lord had lay in doing what the Father sent Him to do, and He says - "As My Father hath sent Me, even so am I sending you." Have I received a ministry from the Lord? If so, I have to be loyal to it, to count my life precious only for the fulfil ing of that ministry. Think of the satisfaction it wil be to hear Jesus say - "Wel done, good and faithful servant"; to know that you have done what He sent you to do. We have al to find our niche in life, and spiritual y we find it when we receive our ministry from the Lord. In order to do this we must have companied with Jesus; we must know Him as more than a personal Saviour. "I wil show him how great things he must suffer for My sake."

"Lovest thou Me?" Then - "Feed My sheep." There is no choice of service, only absolute loyalty to Our Lord's commission; loyalty to what you discern when you are in closest contact with God. If you have received a ministry from the Lord Jesus, you wil know that the need is never the cal : the need is the opportunity. The cal is loyalty to the ministry you received when you were in real touch with Him. This does not imply that there is a campaign of service marked out for you, but it does mean that you wil have to ignore the demands for service along other lines.

March 6th.

AMID A CROWD OF PALTRY THINGS

". . . in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses." 2 Corinthians 6:4

It takes Almighty grace to take the next step when there is no vision and no spectator - the next step in devotion, the next step in your study, in your reading, in your kitchen; the next step in your duty, when there is no vision from God, no enthusiasm and no spectator. It takes far more of the grace of God, far more conscious drawing upon God to take that step, than it does to preach the Gospel.

Every Christian has to partake of what was the essence of the Incarnation, he must bring the thing down into flesh and blood actualities and work it out through the finger tips. We flag when there is no vision, no uplift, but just the common round, the trivial task. The thing that tel s in the long run for God and for men is the steady persevering work in the unseen, and the only way to keep the life uncrushed is to live looking to God. Ask God to keep the eyes of your spirit open to the Risen Christ, and it wil be impossible for drudgery to damp you. Continual y get away from pettiness and paltriness of mind and thought out into the thirteenth chapter of St. John's Gospel.

March 7th.

UNDAUNTED RADIANCE

"Nay, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us." Romans 8:37

Paul is speaking of the things that might seem likely to separate or wedge in between the saint and the love of God; but the remarkable thing is that nothing can wedge in between the love of God and the saint. These things can and do come in between the devotional exercises of the soul and God and separate individual life from God; but none of them is able to wedge in between the love of God and the soul of the saint. The bedrock of our Christian faith is the unmerited, fathomless marvel of the love of God exhibited on the Cross of Calvary, a love we never can and never shal merit. Paul says this is the reason we are more than conquerors in al these things, super-victors, with a joy we would not have but for the very things which look as if they are going to overwhelm us.

The surf that distresses the ordinary swimmer produces in the surf-rider the super-joy of going clean through it. Apply that to our own circumstances, these very things - tribulation, distress, persecution, produce in us the super-joy; they are not things to fight. We are more than conquerors through Him in al these things, not in spite of them, but in the midst of them. The saint never knows the joy of the Lord in spite of tribulation, but because of it - "I am exceeding joyful in al our tribulation," says Paul.

Undaunted radiance is not built on anything passing, but on the love of God that nothing can alter. The experiences of life, terrible or monotonous, are impotent to touch the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

March 8th.

THE RELINQUISHED LIFE

"I am crucified with Christ." Galatians 2:20

No one is ever united with Jesus Christ until he is wil ing to relinquish not sin only, but his whole way of looking at things. To be born from above of the Spirit of God means that we must let go before we lay hold, and in the first stages it is the relinquishing of al pretence. What Our Lord wants us to present to Him is not goodness, nor honesty, nor endeavour, but real solid sin; that is al He can take from us. And what does He give in exchange for our sin?

Real solid righteousness. But we must relinquish al pretence of being any thing, al claim of being worthy of God's consideration.

Then the Spirit of God wil show us what further there is to relinquish. There wil have to be the relinquishing of my claim to my right to myself in every phase. Am I wil ing to relinquish my hold on al I possess, my hold on my affections, and on everything, and to be identified with the death of Jesus Christ?

There is always a sharp painful disil usionment to go through before we do relinquish. When a man real y sees himself as the Lord sees him, it is not the abominable sins of the flesh that shock him, but the awful nature of the pride of his own heart against Jesus Christ. When he sees himself in the light of the Lord, the shame and the horror and the desperate conviction come home.

If you are up against the question of relinquishing, go through the crisis, relinquish al , and God wil make you fit for al that He requires of you.

March 9th.

THE TIME OF RELAPSE

"Will ye also go away?" John 6:67

A penetrating question. Our Lord's words come home most when He talks in the most simple way. We know Who Jesus is, but in spite of that He says -

"Wil ye also go away?" We have to maintain a venturing attitude toward Him al the time.

"From that time many of His disciples went back, and walked no more with Him." They went back from walking with Jesus, not into sin, but they relapsed.

Many to-day are spending and being spent in work for Jesus Christ, but they do not walk with Him. The one thing God keeps us to steadily is that we may be one with Jesus Christ. After sanctification the discipline of our spiritual life is along this line. If God gives a clear and emphatic realization to your soul of what He wants, do not try to keep yourself in that relationship by any particular method, but live a natural life of absolute dependence on Jesus Christ.

Never try to live the life with God on any other line than God's line, and that line is absolute devotion to Him. The certainty that I do not know - that is the secret of going with Jesus.

Peter only saw in Jesus Someone to minister salvation to him and to the world. Our Lord wants us to be yoke-fel ows with Him.

v. 70. Jesus answers the great lack in Peter. We cannot answer for others. March 10th.

HAVE A MESSAGE AND BE ONE

"Preach the word." 2 Timothy 4:2

We are not saved to be "channels only," but to be sons and daughters of God. We are not turned into spiritual mediums, but into spiritual messengers; the message must be part of ourselves. The Son of God was His own message, His words were spirit and life; and as His disciples our lives must be the sacrament of our message. The natural heart wil do any amount of serving, but it takes the heart broken by conviction of sin, and baptized by the Holy Ghost, and crumpled into the purpose of God before the life becomes the sacrament of its message.

There is a difference between giving a testimony and preaching. A preacher is one who has realized the cal of God and is determined to use his every power to proclaim God's truth. God takes us out of our own ideas for our lives and we are "batter'd to shape and use," as the disciples were after Pentecost. Pentecost did not teach the disciples any thing; it made them the incarnation of what they preached - "Ye shal be witnesses unto Me."

Let God have perfect liberty when you speak. Before God's message can liberate other souls, the liberation must be real in you. Gather your material, and set it alight when you speak.

March 11th.

VISION "I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision." Acts 26:19

If we lose the vision, we alone are responsible, and the way we lose the vision is by spiritual leakage. If we do not run our belief about God into practical issues, it is al up with the vision God has given. The only way to be obedient to the heavenly vision is to give our utmost for God's highest, and this can only be done by continual y and resolutely recal ing the vision. The test is the sixty seconds of every minute, and the sixty minutes of every hour, not our times of prayer and devotional meetings.

"Though it tarry, wait for it." We cannot attain to a vision, we must live in the inspiration of it until it accomplishes itself. We get so practical that we forget the vision. At the beginning we saw it but did not wait for it; we rushed off into practical work, and when the vision was fulfil ed, we did not see it. Waiting for the vision that tarries is the test of our loyalty to God. It is at the peril of our soul's welfare that we get caught up in practical work and miss the fulfilment of the vision.

Watch God's cyclones. The only way God sows His saints is by His whirlwind. Are you going to prove an empty pod? It wil depend on whether or not you are actual y living in the light of what you have seen. Let God fling you out, and do not go until He does. If you select your own spot, you wil prove an empty pod. If God sows you, you wil bring forth fruit.

It is essential to practise the walk of the feet in the light of the vision.

March 12th.

ABANDONMENT

"Then Peter began to say unto Him, Lo, we have left all, and have followed Thee. . . ." Mark 10:28

Our Lord replies in effect, that abandonment is for Himself, and not for what the disciples themselves wil get from it. Beware of an abandonment which has the commercial spirit in it - "I am going to give myself to God because I want to be delivered from sin, because I want to be made holy." Al that is the result of being right with God, but that spirit is not of the essential nature of Christianity. Abandonment is not for anything at al . We have got so commercialized that we only go to God for something from Him, and not for Himself. It is like saying, "No, Lord, I don't want Thee, I want myself; but I want myself clean and fil ed with the Holy Ghost; I want to be put in Thy show room and be able to say -'This is what God has done for me.'" If we only give up something to God because we want more back, there is nothing of the Holy Spirit in our abandonment; it is miserable commercial self-interest. That we gain heaven, that we are delivered from sin, that we are made useful to God - these things never enter as considerations into real abandonment, which is a personal sovereign preference for Jesus Christ Himself.

When we come up against the barriers of natural relationship, where is Jesus Christ? Most of us desert Him - "Yes, Lord, I did hear Thy cal ; but my mother is in the road, my wife, my self-interest, and I can go no further." "Then," Jesus says, "you cannot be My disciple."

The test of abandonment is always over the neck of natural devotion. Go over it, and God's own abandonment wil embrace al those you had to hurt in abandoning. Beware of stopping short of abandonment to God. Most of us know abandonment in vision only.

March 13th.

THE ABANDONMENT OF GOD

"God so loved the world that He gave. . ." John 3:16

Salvation is not merely deliverance from sin, nor the experience of personal holiness; the salvation of God is deliverance out of self entirely into union with Himself. My experimental knowledge of salvation wil be along the line of deliverance from sin and of personal holiness; but salvation means that the Spirit of God has brought me into touch with God's personality, and I am thril ed with something infinitely greater than myself, I am caught up into the abandonment of God.

To say that we are cal ed to preach holiness or sanctification, is to get into a side eddy. We are cal ed to proclaim Jesus Christ. The fact that He saves from sin and makes us holy is part of the effect of the wonderful abandonment of God.

Abandonment never produces the consciousness of its own effort, because the whole life is taken up with the One to Whom we abandon. Beware of talking about abandonment if you know nothing about it, and you wil never know anything about it until you have realized that John 3:16 means that God gave Himself absolutely. In our abandonment we give ourselves over to God just as God gave Himself for us, without any calculation. The consequence of abandonment never enters into our outlook because our life is taken up with Him.

March 14th.

OBEDIENCE

"His servants ye are to whom ye obey." Romans 6:16

The first thing to do in examining the power that dominates me is to take hold of the unwelcome fact that I am responsible for being thus dominated. If I am a slave to myself, I am to blame because at a point away back I yielded to myself. Likewise, if I obey God I do so because I have yielded myself to Him.

Yield in childhood to selfishness, and you wil find it the most enchaining tyranny on earth. There is no power in the human soul of itself to break the bondage of a disposition formed by yielding. Yield for one second to anything in the nature of lust (remember what lust is: "I must have it at once," whether it be the lust of the flesh or the lust of the mind) - once yield and though you may hate yourself for having yielded, you are a bondslave to that thing. There is no release in human power at al but only in the Redemption. You must yield yourself in utter humiliation to the only One Who can break the dominating power viz., the Lord Jesus Christ - "He hath anointed me . . . to preach deliverance to al captives."

You find this out in the most ridiculously smal ways - "Oh, I can give that habit up when I like." You cannot, you wil find that the habit absolutely dominates you because you yielded to it wil ingly. It is easy to sing - "He wil break every fetter" and at the same time be living a life of obvious slavery to yourself.

Yielding to Jesus wil break every form of slavery in any human life.

March 15th.

THE DISCIPLINE OF DISMAY

"And as they followed, they were afraid." Mark 10:32

At the beginning we were sure we knew al about Jesus Christ, it was a delight to sel al and to fling ourselves out in a hardihood of love; but now we are not quite so sure. Jesus is on in front and He looks strange: "Jesus went before them and they were amazed."

There is an aspect of Jesus that chil s the heart of a disciple to the core and makes the whole spiritual life gasp for breath. This strange Being with His face "set like a flint" and His striding determination, strikes terror into me. He is no longer Counsel or and Comrade, He is taken up with a point of view I know nothing about, and I am amazed at Him. At first I was confident that I understood Him, but now I am not so sure. I begin to realize there is a distance between Jesus Christ and me; I can no longer be familiar with Him. He is ahead of me and He never turns round; I have no idea where He is going, and the goal has become strangely far off.

Jesus Christ had to fathom every sin and every sorrow man could experience, and that is what makes Him seem strange. When we see Him in this aspect we do not know Him, we do not recognize one feature of His life, and we do not know how to begin to fol ow Him. He is on in front, a Leader Who is very strange, and we have no comradeship with Him.

The discipline of dismay is essential in the life of discipleship. The danger is to get back to a little fire of our own and kindle enthusiasm at it (cf. Isaiah 1:1011). When the darkness of dismay comes, endure until it is over, because out of it wil come that fol owing of Jesus which is an unspeakable joy.

March 16th.

THE MASTER ASSIZES

"For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ." 2 Corinthians 5:10

Paul says that we must al , preacher and people alike, "appear before the judgment seat of Christ." If you learn to live in the white light of Christ here and now, judgment final y wil cause you to delight in the work of God in you. Keep yourself steadily faced by the judgment seat of Christ; walk now in the light of the holiest you know. A wrong temper of mind about another soul wil end in the spirit of the devil, no matter how saintly you are. One carnal judgment, and the end of it is hel in you. Drag it to the light at once and say - "My God, I have been guilty there." If you don't, hardness wil come al through. The penalty of sin is confirmation in sin. It is not only God who punishes for sin; sin confirms itself in the sinner and gives back ful pay. No struggling nor praying wil enable you to stop doing some things, and the penalty of sin is that gradual y you get used to it and do not know that it is sin. No power save the incoming of the Holy Ghost can alter the inherent consequences of sin.

"But if we walk in the light as He is in the light." Walking in the light means for many of us walking according to our standard for another person. The deadliest Pharisaism to-day is not hypocrisy, but unconscious unreality.

March 17th.

THE WORKER'S RULING PASSION

Wherefore we labour that. . we may be accepted of Him." 2 Corinthians 5:9

"Wherefore we labour . . . ." It is arduous work to keep the master ambition in front. It means holding one's self to the high ideal year in and year out, not being ambitious to win souls or to establish churches or to have revivals, but being ambitious only to be "accepted of Him." It is not lack of spiritual experience that leads to failure, but lack of labouring to keep the ideal right. Once a week at least take stock before God and see whether you are keeping your life up to the standard He wishes. Paul is like a musician who does not heed the approval of the audience if he can catch the look of approval from his Master.

Any ambition which is in the tiniest degree away from this central one of being "approved unto God" may end in our being castaways. Learn to discern where the ambition leads, and you wil see why it is so necessary to live facing the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul says - "Lest my body should make me take another line, I am constantly watching so that I may bring it into subjection and keep it under." (1 Cor. 9:27.) I have to learn to relate everything to the master ambition, and to maintain it without any cessation. My worth to God in public is what I am in private. Is my master ambition to please Him and be acceptable to Him, or is it something less, no matter how noble?

March 18th.

SHALL I ROUSE MYSELF UP TO THIS?

"Perfecting holiness in the fear of God." 2 Corinthians 7:1

"Having therefore these promises." I claim the fulfilment of God's promises, and rightly, but that is only the human side; the Divine side is that through the promises I recognize God's claim on me. For instance, am I realizing that my body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, or have I a habit of body that plainly wil not bear the light of God on it? By sanctification the Son of God is formed in me, then I have to transform my natural life into a spiritual life by obedience to Him. God educates us down to the scruple. When He begins to check, do not confer with flesh and blood, cleanse yourself at once. Keep yourself cleansed in your daily walk.

I have to cleanse myself from al filthiness of the flesh and spirit until both are in accord with the nature of God. Is the mind of my spirit in perfect agreement with the life of the Son of God in me, or am I insubordinate in intel ect? Am I forming the mind of Christ, Who never spoke from His right to Himself, but maintained an inner watchfulness whereby He continual y submitted His spirit to His Father? I have the responsibility of keeping my spirit in agreement with His Spirit, and by degrees Jesus lifts me up to where He lived - in perfect consecration to His Father's wil , paying no attention to any other thing. Am I perfecting this type of holiness in the fear of God? Is God getting His way with me, and are other people beginning to see God in my life more and more?

Be serious with God and leave the rest gaily alone. Put God first literal y.

March 19th.

THE WAY OF ABRAHAM IN FAITH

He went out, not knowing whither he went." Hebrews 11:8

In the Old Testament, personal relationship with God showed itself in separation, and this is symbolized in the life of Abraham by his separation from his country and from his kith and kin. To day the separation is more of a mental and moral separation from the way that those who are dearest to us look at things, that is, if they have not a personal relationship with God. Jesus Christ emphasized this (see Luke 14:26).

Faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the One Who is leading. It is a life of Faith, not of intel ect and reason, but a life of knowing Who makes us "go." The root of faith is the knowledge of a Person, and one of the biggest snares is the idea that God is sure to lead us to success.

The final stage in the life of faith is attainment of character. There are many passing transfigurations of character; when we pray we feel the blessing of God enwrapping us and for the time being we are changed, then we get back to the ordinary days and ways and the glory vanishes. The life of faith is not a life of mounting up with wings, but a life of walking and not fainting. It is not a

question of sanctification; but of something infinitely further on than sanctification, of faith that has been tried and proved and has stood the test. Abraham is not a type of sanctification, but a type of the life of faith, a tried faith built on a real God. "Abraham believed God."

March 20th.

FRIENDSHIP WITH GOD

"Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?" Genesis 18:17

Its Delights. This chapter brings out the delight of real friendship with God as compared with occasional feelings of His presence in prayer. To be so much in contact with God that you never need to ask Him to show you His wil , is to be nearing the final stage of your discipline in the life of faith. When you are rightly related to God, it is a life of freedom and liberty and delight, you are God's wil , and al your common-sense decisions are His wil for you unless He checks. You decide things in perfect delightful friendship with God, knowing that if your decisions are wrong He wil always check; when He checks, stop at once.

Its Difficulties. Why did Abraham stop praying when he did? He was not intimate enough yet to go boldly on until God granted his desire, there was something yet to be desired in his relationship to God. Whenever we stop short in prayer and say - "Wel , I don't know; perhaps it is not God's wil ," there is stil another stage to go. We are not so intimately acquainted with God as Jesus was, and as He wants us to be - "That they may be one even as we are one." Think of the last thing you prayed about - were you devoted to your desire or to God? Determined to get some gift of the Spirit or to get at God?

"Your Heavenly Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask Him." The point of asking is that you may get to know God better. "Delight thyself also in the Lord; and He shal give thee the desires of thine heart." Keep praying in order to get a perfect understanding of God Himself.

March 21st.

INTEREST OR IDENTIFICATION?

"I have been crucified with Christ." Galatians 2:20

The imperative need spiritual y is to sign the death warrant of the disposition of sin, to turn al emotional impressions and intel ectual beliefs into a moral verdict against the disposition of sin, viz., my claim to my right to myself. Paul says - "I have been crucified with Christ"; he does not say - "I have determined to imitate Jesus Christ," or, "I wil endeavour to fol ow Him" - but - "I have been identified with Him in His death." When I come to such a moral decision and act upon it, then al that Christ wrought for me on the Cross is wrought in me. The free committal of myself to God gives the Holy Spirit the chance to impart to me the holiness of Jesus Christ.

". . . nevertheless I live. . . ." The individuality remains, but the mainspring, the ruling disposition, is radical y altered. The same human body remains, but the old satanic right to myself is destroyed.

"And the life which I now live in the flesh . . . ," not the life which I long to live and pray to live, but the life I now live in my mortal flesh, the life which men can see, "I live by the faith of the Son of God." This faith is not Paul's faith in Jesus Christ, but the faith that the Son of God has imparted to him - "the faith of the Son of God." It is no longer faith in faith, but faith which has overleapt al conscious bounds, the identical faith of the Son of God.

March 22nd.

THE BURNING HEART

"Did not our heart burn within us?" Luke 24:32

We need to learn this secret of the burning heart. Suddenly Jesus appears to us, the fires are kindled, we have wonderful visions, then we have to learn to keep the secret of the burning heart that wil go through anything. It is the dul , bald, dreary, commonplace day, with commonplace duties and people, that kil s the burning heart unless we have learned the secret of abiding in Jesus.

Much of our distress as Christians comes not because of sin, but because we are ignorant of the laws of our own nature. For instance, the only test as to whether we ought to al ow an emotion to have its way is to see what the outcome of the emotion wil be. Push it to its logical conclusion, and if the outcome is something God would condemn, al ow it no more way. But if it be an emotion kindled by the Spirit of God and you do not let that emotion have its right issue in your life, it wil react on a lower level. That is the way sentimentalists are made. The higher the emotion is, the deeper the degradation wil be, if it is not worked out on its proper level. If the Spirit of God has stirred you, make as many things inevitable as possible, let the consequences be what they wil . We cannot stay on the mount of transfiguration, but we must obey the light we received there; we must act it out. When God gives a vision, transact business on that line, no matter what it costs.

"We cannot kindle when we wil

The fire which in the heart resides,

The spirit bloweth and is stil ,

In mystery our soul abides;

But tasks in hours of insight wil 'd

Can be through hours of gloom fulfil 'd."

March 23rd.

AM I CARNALLY MINDED?

"Whereas there is among you jealousy and strife, are ye not carnal?" 1 Corinthians 3:3

No natural man knows anything about carnality. The flesh lusting against the Spirit that came in at regeneration, and the Spirit lusting against the flesh, produces carnality. "Walk in the Spirit," says Paul, "and ye shal not fulfil the lusts of the flesh"; and carnality wil disappear.

Are you contentious, easily troubled about trifles? "Oh, but no one who is a Christian ever is!" Paul says they are, he connects these things with carnality.

Is there a truth in the Bible that instantly awakens petulance in you? That is a proof that you are yet carnal. If sanctification is being worked out, there is no trace of that spirit left.

If the Spirit of God detects anything in you that is wrong, He does not ask you to put it right; He asks you to accept the light, and He wil put it right. A child of the light confesses instantly and stands bared before God; a child of the darkness says - "Oh, I can explain that away." When once the light breaks and the conviction of wrong comes, be a child of the light, and confess, and God wil deal with what is wrong; if you vindicate yourself, you prove yourself to be a child of the darkness.

What is the proof that carnality has gone? Never deceive yourself; when carnality is gone it is the most real thing imaginable. God wil see that you have any number of opportunities to prove to yourself the marvel of His grace. The practical test is the only proof. "Why," you say, "if this had happened before, there would have been the spirit of resentment!" You wil never cease to be the most amazed person on earth at what God has done for you on the inside.

March 24th,

DECREASING INTO HIS PURPOSE

"He must increase, but I must decrease." John 3:30

If you become a necessity to a soul, you are out of God's order. As a worker, your great responsibility is to be a friend of the Bridegroom. When once you see a soul in sight of the claims of Jesus Christ, you know that your influence has been in the right direction, and instead of putting out a hand to prevent the throes, pray that they grow ten times stronger until there is no power on earth or in hel that can hold that soul away from Jesus Christ. Over and over again, we become amateur providences, we come in and prevent God; and say - "This and that must not be." Instead of proving friends of the Bridegroom, we put our sympathy in the way, and the soul wil one day say - "That one was a thief, he stole my affections from Jesus, and I lost my vision of Him."

Beware of rejoicing with a soul in the wrong thing, but see that you do rejoice in the right thing. "The friend of the Bridegroom . . . rejoiceth greatly because of the Bridegroom's voice: this my joy therefore is fulfil ed. He must increase, but I must decrease." This is spoken with joy and not with sadness - at last they are to see the Bridegroom! And John says this is his joy. It is the absolute effacement of the worker, he is never thought of again.

Watch for al you are worth until you hear the Bridegroom's voice in the life of another. Never mind what havoc it brings, what upsets, what crumblings of health, rejoice with divine hilarity when once His voice is heard. You may often see Jesus Christ wreck a life before He saves it. (Cf. Matt. 10:34.) March 25th,

THE MOST DELICATE MISSION ON EARTH

"The friend of the Bridegroom." John 3:29

Goodness and purity ought never to attract attention to themselves, they ought simply to be magnets to draw to Jesus Christ. If my holiness is not drawing towards Him, it is not holiness of the right order, but an influence that wil awaken inordinate affection and lead souls away into side-eddies. A beautiful saint may be a hindrance if he does not present Jesus Christ but only what Christ has done for him. He wil leave the impression - "What a fine character that man is!" That is not being a true friend of the Bridegroom; I am increasing al the time, He is not.

In order to maintain this friendship and loyalty to the Bridegroom, we have to be more careful of our moral and vital relationship to Him than of any other thing, even of obedience. Sometimes there is nothing to obey, the only thing to do is to maintain a vital connection with Jesus Christ, to see that nothing interferes with that. Only occasional у do we have to obey. When a crisis arises we have to find out what God's wil is, but the greater part of the life is not conscious obedience but the maintenance of this relationship - the friend of the Bridegroom. Christian work may be a means of evading the soul's concentration on Jesus Christ. Instead of being friends of the Bridegroom, we may become amateur providences, and may work against Him whilst we use His weapons.

March 26th,

VISION BY PERSONAL PURITY

"Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God." Matthew 5:8

Purity is not innocence, it is much more. Purity is the outcome of sustained spiritual sympathy with God. We have to grow in purity. The life with God may be right and the inner purity remain unsul ied, and yet every now and again the bloom on the outside may be sul ied. God does not shield us from this possibility, because in this way we realize the necessity of maintaining the vision by personal purity. If the spiritual bloom of our life with God is getting impaired in the tiniest degree, we must leave off everything and get it put right. Remember that vision depends on character - the pure in heart see God.

God makes us pure by His sovereign grace, but we have something to look after, this bodily life by which we come in contact with other people and with other points of view, it is these that are apt to sul y. Not only must the inner sanctuary be kept right with God, but the outer courts as wel are to be brought into perfect accord with the purity God gives us by His grace. The spiritual understanding is blurred immediately the outer court is sul ied. If we are going to retain personal contact with the Lord Jesus Christ, it wil mean there are some things we must scorn to do or to think, some legitimate things we must scorn to touch.

A practical way of keeping personal purity unsul ied in relation to other people is to say to yourself - That man, that woman, perfect in Christ Jesus! That friend, that relative, perfect in Christ Jesus!

March 27th,

VISION BY PERSONAL CHARACTER

"Come up hither, and I will shew thee things." Revelation 4:1

An elevated mood can only come out of an elevated habit of personal character. If in the externals of your life you live up to the highest you know, God wil continual у say - "Friend, go up higher." The golden rule in temptation is - Go higher. When you get higher up, you face other temptations and characteristics. Satan uses the strategy of elevation in temptation, and God does the same, but the effect is different. When the devil puts you into an elevated place, he makes you screw your idea of holiness beyond what flesh and blood could ever hear, it is a spiritual acrobatic performance, you are just poised and dare not move; but when God elevates you by His grace into the heavenly places, instead of finding a pinnacle to cling to, you find a great table-land where it is easy to move.

Compare this week in your spiritual history with the same week last year and see how God has cal ed you up higher. We have al been brought to see from a higher standpoint. Never let God give you one point of truth which you do not instantly live up to. Always work it out, keep in the light of it.

Growth in grace is measured not by the fact that you have not gone back, but that you have an insight into where you are spiritual y; you have heard God say "Come up higher," not to you personal y, but to the insight of your character.

"Shal I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?" God has to hide from us what He does until by personal character we get to the place where He can reveal it.

March 28th,

ISN'T THERE SOME MISUNDERSTANDING?

"Let us go into Judea. His disciples say unto Him . . . Goest Thou thither again ? " John 11:7-8

I may not understand what Jesus Christ says, but it is dangerous to say that therefore He was mistaken in what He said. It is never right to think that my obedience to a word of God wil bring dishonour to Jesus. The only thing that wil bring dishonour is not obeying Him. To put my view of His honour in place of what He is plainly impel ing me to do is never right, although it may arise from a real desire to prevent Him being put to open shame. I know when the proposition comes from God because of its quiet persistence: When I have to weigh the pros and cons, and doubt and debate come in, I am bringing in an element that is not of God, and I come to the conclusion that the suggestion was not a right one. Many of us are loyal to our notions of Jesus Christ, but how many of us are loyal to Him? Loyalty to Jesus means I have to step out where I do not see anything (cf. Matt. 14:29); loyalty to my notions means that I clear the ground first by my intel igence. Faith is not intel igent understanding, faith is deliberate commitment to a Person where I see no way.

Are you debating whether to take a step in faith in Jesus or to wait until you can see how to do the thing yourself? Obey Him with glad reckless joy. When He says something and you begin to debate, it is because you have a conception of His honour which is not His honour. Are you loyal to Jesus or loyal to your notion of Him? Are you loyal to what He says, or are you trying to compromise with conceptions which never came from Him? "Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it."

March 29th,

OUR LORD'S SURPRISE VISITS

"Be ye therefore ready also." Luke 12:40

The great need for the Christian worker is to be ready to face Jesus Christ at any and every turn. This is not easy, no matter what our experience is. The battle is not against sin or difficulties or circumstances, but against being so absorbed in work that we are not ready to face Jesus Christ at every turn.

That is the one great need, not the facing our belief, or our creed, the question whether we are of any use, but to face Him.

Jesus rarely comes where we expect Him; He appears where we least expect Him, and always in the most il ogical connections. The only way a worker can keep true to God is by being ready for the Lord's surprise visits. It is not service that matters, but intense spiritual reality, expecting Jesus Christ at every turn. This wil give our life the attitude of child-wonder which He wants it to have. If we are going to be ready for Jesus Christ, we have to stop being religious (that is, using religion as a higher kind of culture) and be spiritual у real.

If you are "looking off unto Jesus," avoiding the cal of the religious age you live in, and setting your heart on what He wants, on thinking on His line - you wil be cal ed unpractical and dreamy; but when He appears in the burden and the heat of the day, you wil be the only one who is ready. Trust no one, not even the finest saint who ever walked this earth, ignore him, if he hinders your sight of Jesus Christ.

March 30th,

HOLINESS V. HARDNESS Towards GOD

"And He . . . wondered that there was no intercessor." Isaiah 59:16

The reason many of us leave off praying and become hard towards God is because we have only a sentimental interest in prayer. It sounds right to say that we pray; we read books on prayer which tel us that prayer is beneficial, that our minds are quieted and our souls uplifted when we pray; but Isaiah implies that God is amazed at such thoughts of prayer.

Worship and intercession must go together, the one is impossible without the other. Intercession means that we rouse ourselves up to get the mind of Christ about the one for whom we pray. Too often instead of worshipping God, we construct statements as to how prayer works. Are we worshipping or are we in dispute with God - "I don't see how You are going to do it." This is a sure sign that we are not worshipping. When we lose sight of God we become hard and dogmatic. We hurl our own petitions at God's throne and dictate to Him as to what we wish Him to do. We do not worship God, nor do we seek to form the mind of Christ. If we are hard towards God, we wil become hard towards other people.

Are we so worshipping God that we rouse ourselves up to lay hold on Him so that we may be brought into contact with His mind about the ones for whom we pray? Are we living in a holy relationship to God, or are we hard and dogmatic?

"But there is no one interceding properly" - then be that one yourself, be the one who worships God and who lives in holy relationship to Him. Get into the real work of intercession, and remember it is a work, a work that taxes every power; but a work which has no snare. Preaching the gospel has a snare; intercessory prayer has none.

March 31st.

HEEDFULNESS V. HYPOCRISY IN OURSELVES

"If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and He shall give him Life for them that sin not unto death." 1 John 5:16

If we are not heedful of the way the Spirit of God works in us, we wil become spiritual hypocrites. We see where other folks are failing, and we turn our discernment into the gibe of criticism instead of into intercession on their behalf. The revelation is made to us not through the acuteness of our minds, but by the direct penetration of the Spirit of God, and if we are not heedful of the source of the revelation, we wil become criticizing centres and forget that God says he shal ask, and He shal give him life for them that sin not unto death." Take care lest you play the hypocrite by spending al your time trying to get others right before you worship God yourself.

One of the subtlest burdens God ever puts on us as saints is this burden of discernment concerning other souls. He reveals things in order that we may take the burden of these souls before Him and form the mind of Christ about them, and as we intercede on His line, God says He wil give us "life for them that sin not unto death." It is not that we bring God into touch with our minds, but that we rouse ourselves until God is able to convey His mind to us about the one for whom we intercede.

Is Jesus Christ seeing of the travail of His soul in us? He cannot unless we are so identified with Himself that we are roused up to get His view about the people for whom we pray. May we learn to intercede so whole-heartedly that Jesus Christ wil be abundantly satisfied with us as intercessors.

April 1st.

HEARTINESS V. HEARTLESSNESS TOWARDS OTHERS

"It is Christ. . . who also maketh intercession for us." "The Spirit. . . maketh intercession for the saints." Romans 8:34, 27

Do we need any more argument than this to become intercessors - that Christ "ever liveth to make intercession;" that the Holy Spirit "maketh intercession for the saints"? Are we living in such a vital relationship to our fel ow men that we do the work of intercession as the Spirit-taught children of God? Begin with the circumstances we are in - our homes, our business, our country, the present crisis as it touches us and others - are these things cmshing us? Are they badgering us out of the presence of God and leaving us no time for worship? Then let us cal a halt, and get into such living relationship with God that our relationship to others may be maintained on the line of intercession whereby God works His marvels.

Beware of outstripping God by your very longing to do His wil. We mn ahead of Him in a thousand and one activities, consequently we get so burdened with persons and with difficulties that we do not worship God, we do not intercede. If once the burden and the pressure come upon us and we are not in the worshipping attitude, it wil produce not only hardness toward God but despair in our own souls. God continual у introduces us to people for whom we have no affinity, and unless we are worshipping God, the most natural thing to do is to treat them heartlessly, to give them a text like the jab of a spear, or leave them with a rapped-out counsel of God and go. A heartless Christian must be a terrible grief to Our Lord.

Are we in the direct line of the intercession of our Lord and of the Holy Spirit? April 2nd.

THE GLORY THAT EXCELS

"The Lord. . . hath sent me that thou mightest receive thy sight." Acts 9:17

When Paul received his sight, he received spiritual у an insight into the Person of Jesus Christ, and the whole of his subsequent life and preaching was nothing but Jesus Christ - "I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." No attraction was ever al owed to hold the mind and soul of Paul save the face of Jesus Christ.

We have to learn to maintain an unimpaired state of character up to the last notch revealed in the vision of Jesus Christ.

The abiding characteristic of a spiritual man is the interpretation of the Lord Jesus Christ to himself, and the interpretation to others of the purposes of God. The one concentrated passion of the life is Jesus Christ. Whenever you meet this note in a man, you feel he is a man after God's own heart.

Never al ow anything to deflect you from insight into Jesus Christ. It is the test of whether you are spiritual or not. To be unspiritual means that other things have a growing fascination for you.

"Since mine eyes have looked on Jesus,

I've lost sight of al beside,

So enchained my spirit's vision,

Gazing on the Crucified."

April 3rd.

IF THOU HADST KNOWN!

"If thou hadst known ... in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes." Luke 19:42

Jesus had entered into Jerusalem in triumph, the city was stirred to its foundations; but a strange god was there, the pride of Pharisaism; it was religious and upright, but a "whited sepulchre."

What is it that blinds me in this "my day"? Have I a strange god - not a disgusting monster, but a disposition that rules me? More than once God has brought me face to face with the strange god and I thought I should have to yield, but I did not do it. I got through the crisis by the skin of my teeth and I find myself in the possession of the strange god stil ; I am blind to the things which belong to my peace. It is an appal ing thing that we can be in the place where the Spirit of God should be getting at us unhinderedly, and yet increase our condemnation in God's sight.

"If thou hadst known" - God goes direct to the heart, with the tears of Jesus behind. These words imply culpable responsibility; God holds us responsible for what we do not see. "Now they are hid from thine eyes" - because the disposition has never been yielded. The unfathomable sadness of the "might have been!" God never opens doors that have been closed. He opens other doors, but He reminds us that there are doors which we have shut, doors which need never have been shut, imaginations which need never have been sul ied. Never be afraid when God brings back the past. Let memory have its way. It is a minister of God with its rebuke and chastisement and sorrow. God wil turn the "might have been" into a wonderful culture for the future.

April 4th.

THOSE BORDERS OF DISTRUST "Behold, the hour cometh . . . that ye shall be scattered." John 16:32

Jesus is not rebuking the disciples, their faith was real, but it was disturbed; it was not at work in actual things. The disciples were scattered to their own interests, alive to interests that never were in Jesus Christ. After we have been perfectly related to God in sanctification, our faith has to be worked out in actualities. We shal be scattered, not into work, but into inner desolations and made to know what internal death to God's blessings means. Are we prepared for this? It is not that we choose it, but that God engineers our circumstances so that we are brought there. Until we have been through that experience, our faith is bolstered up by feelings and by blessings. When once we get there, no matter where God places us or what the inner desolations are, we can praise God that al is wel. That is faith being worked out in actualities.

"... and shal leave Me alone." Have we left Jesus alone by the scattering of His providence? Because we do not see God in our circumstances?

Darkness comes by the sovereignty of God. Are we prepared to let God do as He likes with us - prepared to be separated from conscious blessings?

Until Jesus Christ is Lord, we al have ends of our own to serve; our faith is real, but it is not permanent yet. God is never in a hurry; if we wait, we shal see that God is pointing out that we have not been interested in Himself but only in His blessings. The sense of God's blessing is elemental.

"Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." Spiritual grit is what we need. April 5th,

HIS AGONY AND OUR FELLOWSHIP

"Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, tarry ye here, and watch with Me." Matthew 26:36, 38

We can never fathom the agony in Gethsemane, but at least we need not misunderstand it. It is the agony of God and Man in one, face to face with sin.

We know nothing about Gethsemane in personal experience. Gethsemane and Calvary stand for something unique; they are the gateway into Life for us.

It was not the death on the cross that Jesus feared in Gethsemane; He stated most emphatical у that He came on purpose to die. In Gethsemane He feared lest He might not get through as Son of Man. He would get through as Son of God - Satan could not touch Him there; but Satan's onslaught was that He would get through as an isolated Figure only; and that would mean that He could be no Saviour. Read the record of the agony in the light of the temptation: "Then the devil leaveth Him for a season." In Gethsemane Satan came back and was again overthrown. Satan's final onslaught against our Lord as Son oj Man is in Gethsemane.

The agony in Gethsemane is the agony of the Son of God in fulfil ing His destiny as the Saviour of the world. The veil is drawn aside to reveal al it cost Him to make it possible for us to become sons of God. His agony is the basis of the simplicity of our salvation. The Cross of Christ is a triumph for the Son oj Man. It was not only a sign that Our Lord had triumphed, but that He had triumphed to save the human race. Every human being can get through into the presence of God now because of what the Son of Man went through.

April 6th,

THE COLLISION OF GOD AND SIN

"Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree." 1 Peter 2:24

The Cross of Jesus is the revelation of God's judgment on sin. Never tolerate the idea of martyrdom about the Cross of Jesus Christ. The Cross was a superb triumph in which the foundations of hel were shaken. There is nothing more certain in Time or Eternity than what Jesus Christ did on the Cross: He switched the whole of the human race back into a right relationship with God. He made Redemption the basis of human life, that is, He made a way for every son of man to get into communion with God.

The Cross did not happen to Jesus: He came on purpose for it. He is "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." The whole meaning of the Incarnation is the Cross. Beware of separating God manifest in the flesh from the Son becoming sin. The Incarnation was for the purpose of Redemption. God became incarnate for the purpose of putting away sin; not for the purpose of Self-realization. The Cross is the centre of Time and of Eternity, the answer to the enigmas of both.

The Cross is not the cross of a man but the Cross of God, and the Cross of God can never be realized in human experience. The Cross is the exhibition of the nature of God, the gateway whereby any individual of the human race can enter into union with God. When we get to the Cross, we do not go through it; we abide in the life to which the Cross is the gateway.

The centre of salvation is the Cross of Jesus, and the reason it is so easy to obtain salvation is because it cost God so much. The Cross is the point where God and sinful man merge with a crash and the way to life is opened - but the crash is on the heart of God.

April 7th,

WHY ARE WE NOT TOLD PLAINLY?

"He charged them that they should tell no man what things they had seen, till the Son of man were risen from the dead." Mark 9:9

Say nothing until the Son of man is risen in you - until the life of the risen Christ so dominates you that you understand what the historic Christ taught. When you get to the right state on the inside, the word which Jesus has spoken is so plain that you are amazed you did not see it before. You could not understand it before, you were not in the place in disposition where it could be borne.

Our Lord does not hide these things; they are unbearable until we get into a fit condition of spiritual life. "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." There must be communion with His risen life before a particular word can be borne by us. Do we know anything about the impartation of the risen life of Jesus? The evidence that we do is that His word is becoming interpretable to us. God cannot reveal anything to us if we have not His Spirit. An obstinate outlook wil effectual у hinder God from revealing anything to us. If we have made up our minds about a doctrine, the light of God wil come no more to us on that line, we cannot get it. This obtuse stage wil end immediately [when] His resurrection life has its way with us.

"Tel no man . . " - so many do tel what they saw on the mount of transfiguration. They have had the vision and they testify to it, but the life does not tal у with it, the Son of man is not yet risen in them. I wonder when He is going to be formed in you and in me?

April 8th,

HIS RESURRECTION DESTINY

"Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory?" Luke 24:2

Our Lord's Cross is the gateway into His life: His Resurrection means that He has power now to convey His life to me. When I am bom again from above, I receive from the Risen Lord His very life.

Our Lord's Resurrection destiny is to bring "many sons unto glory." The fulfil ing of His destiny gives Him the right to make us sons and daughters of God.

We are never in the relationship to God that the Son of God is in; but we are brought by the Son into the relation of sonship. When Our Lord rose from the dead, He rose to an absolutely new life, to a life He did not live before He was incarnate. He rose to a life that had never been before; and His resurrection means for us that we are raised to His risen life, not to our old life. One day we shal have a body like unto His glorious body, but we can know now the efficacy of His resurrection and walk in newness of life. "I would know Him in the power of His resurrection." "As Thou hast given Him power over al flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him." "Holy Spirit" is the experimental name for Eternal Life working in human beings here and now. The Holy Spirit is the Deity in proceeding power Who applies the Atonement to our experience.

Thank God it is gloriously and majestical у true that the Holy Ghost can work in us the very nature of Jesus if we wil obey Him.

April 9th,

HAVE I SEEN HIM?

"After that He appeared in another form unto two of them." Mark 16:12

Being saved and seeing Jesus are not the same thing. Many are partakers of God's grace who have never seen Jesus. When once you have seen Jesus, you can never be the same, other things do not appeal as they used to do.

Always distinguish between what you see Jesus to be, and what He has done for you. If you only know what He has done for you, you have not a big enough God; but if you have had a vision of Jesus as He is, experiences can come and go, you wil endure "as seeing Him Who is invisible." The man blind from his birth did not know Who Jesus was until He appeared and revealed Himself to him. Jesus appears to those for whom He has done something; but we cannot dictate when He wil come. Suddenly at any turn He may come. "Now I see Him!"

Jesus must appear to your friend as wel as to you, no one can see Jesus with your eyes. Severance takes place where one and not the other has seen Jesus. You cannot bring your friend unless God brings him. Have you seen Jesus? Then you wil want others to see Him too. "And they went and told it unto the residue, neither believed they them." You must tel , although they do not believe.

О could I tel, ye surely would believe it!

О could I only say what I have seen!

How should I tel or how can ye receive it,

How, til He bringeth you where I have been?"

April 10th,

MORAL DECISION ABOUT SIN

"Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin." Romans 6:6

Co-Crucifixion, Have I made this decision about sin - that it must be kil ed right out in me? It takes a long time to come to a moral decision about sin, but it is the great moment in my life when I do decide that just as Jesus Christ died for the sin of the world, so sin must die out in me, not be curbed or suppressed or counteracted, but crucified. No one can bring anyone else to this decision. We may be earnestly convinced, and religiously convinced, but what we need to do is to come to the decision which Paul forces here.

Haul yourself up, take a time alone with God, make the moral decision and say - "Lord, identify me with Thy death until I know that sin is dead in me."

Make the moral decision that sin in you must be put to death.

It was not a divine anticipation on the part of Paul, but a very radical and definite experience. Am I prepared to let the Spirit of God search me until I know what the disposition of sin is - the thing that lusts against the Spirit of God in me? Then if so, wil I agree with God's verdict on that disposition of sin - that it should be identified with the death of Jesus? I cannot reckon myself "dead indeed unto sin" unless I have been through this radical issue of wil before God.

Have I entered into the glorious privilege of being crucified with Christ until al that is left is the life of Christ in my flesh and blood? "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me."

April 11th.

MORAL DIVINITY

"For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection." Romans 6:5

Co-Resurrection. The proof that I have been through crucifixion with Jesus is that I have a decided likeness to Him. The incoming of the Spirit of Jesus into me readjusts my personal life to God. The resurrection of Jesus has given Him authority to impart the life of God to me, and my experimental life must be constructed on the basis of His life. I can have the resurrection life of Jesus now, and it wil show itself in holiness.

The idea al through the apostle Paul's writings is that after the moral decision to be identified with Jesus in His death has been made, the resurrection life of Jesus invades every bit of my human nature. It takes omnipotence to live the life of the Son of God in mortal flesh. The Holy Spirit cannot be located as a Guest in a house, He invades everything. When once I decide that my "old man" (i.e., the heredity of sin) should be identified with the death of Jesus, then the Holy Spirit invades me. He takes charge of everything, my part is to walk in the light and to obey al that He reveals. When I have made the moral decision about sin, it is easy to reckon actual у that I am dead unto sin, because I find the life of Jesus there al the time. Just as there is only one stamp of humanity, so there is only one stamp of holiness, the holiness of Jesus, and it is His holiness that is gifted to me. God puts the holiness of His Son into me, and I belong to a new order spiritual y.

April 12th.

MORAL DOMINION

"Death hath no more dominion over Him ... in that He liveth, He liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God." Romans 6:9-11

Co-Eternal Life. Eternal life was the life which Jesus Christ exhibited on the human plane, and it is the same life, not a copy of it, which is manifested in our mortal flesh when we are bom of God. Eternal life is not a gift from God, eternal life is the gift of God. The energy and the power which was manifested in Jesus wil be manifested in us by the sheer sovereign grace of God when once we have made the moral decision about sin.

"Ye shal receive the power of the Holy Ghost" - not power as a gift from the Holy Ghost; the power is the Holy Ghost, not something which He imparts. The life that was in Jesus is made ours by means of His Cross when once we make the decision to be identified with Him. If it is difficult to get right with God, it is because we wil not decide definitely about sin. Immediately we do decide, the ful life of God comes in. Jesus came to give us endless supplies of life: "that ye might be fil ed with al the fulness of God." Eternal Life has nothing to do with Time, it is the life which Jesus lived when He was down here.

The only source of Life is the Lord Jesus Christ.

The weakest saint can experience the power of the Deity of the Son of God if once he is wil ing to "let go." Any strand of our own energy wil blur the life of Jesus. We have to keep letting go, and slowly and surely the great ful life of God wil invade us in every part, and men wil take knowledge of us that we have been with Jesus.

April 13th.

WHAT TO DO UNDER THE CONDITIONS

"Cast thy burden upon the Lord." Psalm 55:22

We must distinguish between the burden-bearing that is right and the burdenbearing that is wrong. We ought never to bear the burden of sin or of doubt, but there are burdens placed on us by God which He does not intend to lift off, He wants us to rol them back on Him. "Cast that He hath given thee upon the Lord." (R.V. marg.) If we undertake work for God and get out of touch with

Him, the sense of responsibility wil be overwhelmingly crushing; but if we rol back on God that which He has put upon us, He takes away the sense of responsibility by bringing in the realization of Himself.

Many workers have gone out with high courage and fine impulses, but with no intimate fel owship with Jesus Christ, and before long they are crushed.

They do not know what to do with the burden, it produces weariness, and people say - "What an embittered end to such a beginning!"

"Rol thy burden upon the Lord" - you have been bearing it al ; deliberately put one end on the shoulders of God. "The government shal be upon His shoulder." Commit to God "that He hath given thee"; not fling it off, but put it over on to Him and yourself with it, and the burden is lightened by the sense of companionship. Never disassociate yourself from the burden.

April 14th,

INSPIRED INVINCIBILITY

"Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me." Matthew 11:29

"Whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth." How petty our complaining is! Our Lord begins to bring us into the place where we can have communion with Him, and we groan and say - "O Lord, let me be like other people!" Jesus is asking us to take one end of the yoke - "My yoke is easy, get alongside Me and we wil pul together." Are you identified with the Lord Jesus like that? If so, you wil thank God for the pressure of His hand.

"To them that have no might He increaseth strength." God comes and takes us out of our sentimentality, and our complaining turns into a paean of praise.

The only way to know the strength of God is to take the yoke of Jesus upon us and learn of Him.

The joy of the Lord is your strength." Where do the saints get their joy from?

If we did not know some saints, we would say - "Oh, he, or she, has nothing to bear." Lift the veil. The fact that the peace and the light and the joy of God are there is proof that the burden is there too. The burden God places squeezes the grapes and out comes the wine; most of us see the wine only. No power on earth or in hel can conquer the Spirit of God in a human spirit, it is an inner unconquerableness.

If you have the whine in you, kick it out ruthlessly. It is a positive crime to be weak in God's strength.

April 15th,

THE RELAPSE OF CONCENTRATION

"But the high places were not taken away out of Israel; nevertheless the heart of Asa was perfect all his days." 2 Chronicles 15:17

Asa was incomplete in his external obedience, he was right in the main but not entirely right. Beware of the thing of which you say - "Oh, that does not matter much." The fact that it does not matter much to you may mean that it matters a very great deal to God. Nothing is a light matter with a child of God.

How much longer are some of us going to keep God trying to teach us one thing? He never loses patience. You say - "I know I am right with God"; but stil the "high places" remain, there is something over which you have not obeyed. Are you protesting that your heart is right with God, and yet is there something in your life about which He has caused you to doubt? Whenever there is doubt, quit immediately, no matter what it is. Nothing is a mere detail.

Are there some things in connection with your bodily life, your intel ectual life, upon which you are not concentrating at al ? You are al right in the main but you are slipshod; there is a relapse on the line of concentration. You no more need a holiday from spiritual concentration than your heart needs a holiday from beating. You cannot have a moral holiday and remain moral, nor can you have a spiritual holiday and remain spiritual. God wants you to be entirely His, and this means that you have to watch to keep yourself fit. It takes a tremendous amount of time. Some of us expect to "clear the numberless ascensions" in about two minutes.

April 16th.

CAN YOU COME DOWN?

"While ye have light, believe in the light." John 12:36

We al have moments when we feel better than our best, and we say - "I feel fit for anything; if only I could be like this always!" We are not meant to be.

Those moments are moments of in sight which we have to live up to when we do not feel like it. Many of us are no good for this workaday world when there is no high hour. We must bring our commonplace life up to the standard revealed in the high hour.

Never al ow a feeling which was stirred in you in the high hour to evaporate. Don't put your mental feet on the mantelpiece and say - "What a marvel ous state of mind to be in!" Act immediately, do something, if only because you would rather not do it. If in a prayer meeting God has shown you something to do, don't say - "Г1 do it"; do it! Take yourself by the scruff of the neck and shake off your incarnate laziness. Laziness is always seen in cravings for the high hour; we talk about working up to a time on the mount. We have to learn to live in the grey day according to what we saw on the mount.

Don't cave in because you have been baffled once, get at it again. Bum your bridges behind you, and stand committed to God by your own act. Never revise your decisions, but see that you make your decisions in the light of the high hour.

April 17th.

NECK OR NOTHING

"Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fisher's coat unto him . . . and did cast himself into the sea." John 21:7

Have you ever had a crisis in which you deliberately and emphatical у and recklessly abandoned everything? It is a crisis of wil . You may come up to it many times external y, but it amounts to nothing. The real deep crisis of abandonment is reached internal y, not external y. The giving up of external things may be an indication of being in total bondage.

Have you deliberately committed your wil to Jesus Christ? It is a transaction of wil , not of emotion; the emotion is simply the gilt-edge of the transaction. If you al ow emotion first, you wil never make the transaction. Do not ask God what the transaction is to be, but make it in regard to the thing you do see, either in the shal ow or the profound place.

If you have heard Jesus Christ's voice on the bil ows, let your convictions go to the winds, let your consistency go to the winds, but maintain your relationship to Him.

April 18th,

READINESS

"God called unto him and he said, Here am /" Exodus 3:4

When God speaks, many of us are like men in a fog, we give no answer. Moses' reply revealed that he was somewhere. Readiness means a right relationship to God and a knowledge of where we are at present. We are so busy tel ing God where we would like to go. The man or woman who is ready for God and His work is the one who carries off the prize when the summons comes. We wait with the idea of some great opportunity, something sensational, and when it comes we are quick to cry - "Here am I." Whenever Jesus Christ is in the ascendant, we are there, but we are not ready for an obscure duty.

Readiness for God means that we are ready to do the tiniest little thing or the great big thing, it makes no difference. We have no choice in what we want to do, whatever God's programme may be we are there, ready. When any duty presents itself we hear God's voice as Our Lord heard His Father's voice, and we are ready for it with al the alertness of our love for Him. Jesus Christ expects to do with us as His Father did with Him. He can put us where He likes, in pleasant duties or in mean duties, because the union is that of the Father and Himself. "That they may be one, even as We are one."

Be ready for the sudden surprise visits of God. A ready person never needs to get ready. Think of the time we waste trying to get ready when God has cal ed! The burning bush is a symbol of everything that surrounds the ready soul, it is ablaze with the presence of God.

April 19th,

IS IT NOT IN THE LEAST LIKELY?

"For Joab had turned after Adonijah, though he turned not after Absalom." 1 Kings 2:28

Joab stood the big test, he remained absolutely loyal and true to David and did not turn after the fascinating and ambitious Absalom, but yet towards the end of his life he turned after the craven Adonijah. Always remain alert to the fact that where one man has gone back is exactly where any one may go back (see 1 Cor. 10:13). You have gone through the big crisis, now be alert over the least things; take into calculation the "retired sphere of the leasts."

We are apt to say - "It is not in the least likely that having been through the supreme crisis, I shal turn now to the things of the world." Do not forecast where the temptation wil come, it is the least likely thing that is the peril. In the aftermath of a great spiritual transaction the "retired sphere of the leasts" begins to tel ; it is not dominant, but remember it is there, and if you are not warned, it wil trip you up. You have remained true to God under great and intense trials, now beware of the undercurrent. Do not be morbidly introspective, looking forward with dread, but keep alert; keep your memory bright before God.

Unguarded strength is double weakness because that is where the "retired sphere of the leasts" saps. The Bible characters fel on their strong points, never on their weak ones.

"Kept by the power of God" - that is the only safety.

April 20th.

CAN A SAINT SLANDER GOD?

"For all the promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him Amen." 2 Corinthians 1:20

Jesus told the parable of the talents recorded in Matthew 25 as a warning that it is possible for us to misjudge our capacity. This parable has not to do with natural gifts, but with the Pentecostal gift of the Holy Ghost. We must not measure our spiritual capacity by education or by intel ect; our capacity in spiritual things is measured by the promises of God. If we get less than God wants us to have, before long we wil slander Him as the servant slandered his master: "You expect more than You give me power to do; You demand too much of me, I cannot stand true to You where I am placed." When it is a question of God's Almighty Spirit, never say "I can't." Never let the limitation of natural ability come in. If we have received the Holy Spirit, God expects the work of the Holy Spirit to be manifested in us.

The servant justified himself in everything he did and condemned his lord on every point - "Your demand is out of al proportion to what you give." Have we been slandering God by daring to worry when He has said: "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and al these things shal be added unto you"? Worrying means exactly what this servant implied - "I know You mean to leave me in the lurch." The person who is lazy natural у is always captious -"I haven't had a decent chance," and the one who is lazy spiritual у is captious with God. Lazy people always strike out on an independent line.

Never forget that our capacity in spiritual matters is measured by the promises of God. Is God able to fulfil His promises? Our answer depends on whether we have received the Holy Spirit.

April 21st.

NOW DON'T HURT THE LORD!

"Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip?" John 14:9

Our Lord must be repeatedly astounded at us - astounded at how un-simple we are. It is opinions of our own which make us stupid, when we are simple we are never stupid, we discern al the time. Philip expected the revelation of a tremendous mystery, but not in the One Whom he knew. The mystery of God is not in what is going to be, it is now; we look for it presently, in some cataclysmic event. We have no reluctance in obeying Jesus, but it is probable that we are hurting Him by the questions we ask. "Lord, show us the Father." His answer comes straight back - "There He is, always here or nowhere."

We look for God to manifest Himself to His children: God only manifests Himself in His children. Other people see the manifestation, the child of God does not. We want to be conscious of God; we cannot be conscious of our consciousness and remain sane. If we are asking God to give us experiences, or if conscious experience is in the road, we hurt the Lord. The very questions we ask hurt Jesus because they are not the questions of a child.

"Let not your heart be troubled" - then am I hurting Jesus by al owing my heart to be troubled? If I believe the character of Jesus, am I living up to my belief?

Am I al owing anything to perturb my heart, any morbid questions to come in? I have to get to the implicit relationship that takes everything as it comes from Him. God never guides presently, but always now. Realize that the Lord is here now, and the emancipation is immediate.

April 22nd.

THE LIGHT THAT FAILS

We all with open face beholding . . . the glory of the Lord." 2 Corinthians 3:18

A servant of God must stand so much alone that he never knows he is alone. In the first phases of Christian life disheartenments come, people who used to be lights flicker out, and those who used to stand with us pass away. We have to get so used to it that we never know we are standing alone. "A1 men forsook me . . notwithstanding the Lord stood with me" (2 Tim. 4:16-17). We must build our faith, not on the fading light, but on the light that never fails.

When "big" men go we are sad, until we see that they are meant to go, the one thing that remains is looking in the face of God for ourselves.

A1 ow nothing to keep you from looking God sternly in the face about yourself and about your doctrine, and every time you preach see that you look God in the face about things first, then the glory wil remain al through. A Christian worker is one who perpetual у looks in the face of God and then goes forth to talk to people. The characteristic of the ministry of Christ is that of unconscious glory that abides. "Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him."

We are never cal ed on to parade our doubts or to express the hidden ecstasies of our life with God. The secret of the worker's life is that he keeps in tune with God al the time.

April 23rd.

THE WORSHIP OF THE WORK

"Labourers together with God." 1 Corinthians 3:9

Beware of any work for God which enables you to evade concentration on Him. A great many Christian workers worship their work. The one concern of a worker should be concentration on God, and this wil mean that al the other margins of life, mental, moral and spiritual, are free with the freedom of a child, a worshipping child, not a wayward child. A worker without this solemn dominant note of concentration on God is apt to get his work on his neck; there is no margin of body, mind or spirit free, consequently he becomes spent out and crushed. There is no freedom, no delight in life; nerves, mind and heart are so crushingly burdened that God's blessing cannot rest. But the other side is just as true - when once the concentration is on God, al the margins of life are free and under the dominance of God alone. There is no responsibility on you for the work; the only responsibility you have is to keep in living constant touch with God, and to see that you al ow nothing to hinder your co-operation with Him. The freedom after sanctification is the freedom of a child, the things that used to keep the life pinned down are gone. But be careful to remember that you are freed for one thing only - to be absolutely devoted to your co-Worker.

We have no right to judge where we should be put, or to have preconceived notions as to what God is fitting us for. God engineers everything; wherever He puts us our one great aim is to pour out a whole-hearted devotion to Him in that particular work. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might."

April 24th,

THE WARNING AGAINST WANTONING

"Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you." Luke 10:20

As Christian workers, worldliness is not our snare, sin is not our snare, but spiritual wantoning is, viz.: taking the pattern and print of the religious age we live in, making eyes at spiritual success. Never court anything other than the approval of God, go "without the camp, bearing His reproach." Jesus told the disciples not to rejoice in successful service, and yet this seems to be the one thing in which most of us do rejoice. We have the commercial view - so many souls saved and sanctified, thank God, now it is al right. Our work begins where God's grace has laid the foundation; we are not to save souls, but to disciple them. Salvation and sanctification are the work of God's sovereign grace; our work as His disciples is to disciple lives until they are whol у yielded to God. One life whol у devoted to God is of more value to God than one hundred lives simply awakened by His Spirit. As workers for God we must reproduce our own kind spiritual y, and that wil be God's witness to us as workers. God brings us to a standard of life by His grace, and we are responsible for reproducing that standard in others.

Unless the worker lives a life hidden with Christ in God, he is apt to become an irritating dictator instead of an indwel ing disciple. Many of us are dictators, we dictate to people and to meetings. Jesus never dictates to us in that way. Whenever Our Lord talked about discipleship, He always prefaced it with an "IF," never with an emphatic assertion - "You must." Discipleship carries an option with it.

April 25th,

INSTANT IN SEASON

Be instant in season, out of season." 2 Timothy 4:2

Many of us suffer from the morbid tendency to be instant "out of season." The season does not refer to time, but to us - 'Be instant in season, out of season," whether we feel like it or not. If we do only what we feel inclined to do, some of us would do nothing for ever and ever. There are unemployables in the spiritual domain, spiritual у decrepit people, who refuse to do anything unless they are supernatural у inspired. The proof that we are rightly related to God is that we do our best whether we feel inspired or not.

One of the great snares of the Christian worker is to make a fetish of his rare moments. When the Spirit of God gives you a time of inspiration and insight, you say - "Now I wil always be like this for God." No, you wil not, God wil take care you are not. Those times are the gift of God entirely. You cannot give them to yourself when you choose. If you say you wil only be at your best, you become an intolerable drag on God; you wil never do anything unless God keeps you consciously inspired. If you make a god of your best moments, you wil find that God wil fade out of your life and never come back until you do the duty that lies nearest, and have learned not to make a fetish of your rare moments.

April 26th,

THE SUPREME CLIMB "Take now thy son . . and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of " Genesis 22:2

Character determines how a man interprets God's wil (cf. Psalm 18:25-26). Abraham interpreted God's command to mean that he had to kil his son, and he could only leave this tradition behind by the pain of a tremendous ordeal. God could purify his faith in no other way. If we obey what God says according to our sincere belief, God wil break us from those traditions that misrepresent Him. There are many such beliefs to be got rid of, e.g., that God removes a child because the mother loves him too much - a devil's lie! and a travesty of the true nature of God. If the devil can hinder us from taking the supreme climb and getting rid of wrong traditions about God, he wil do so; but if we keep true to God, God wil take us through an ordeal which wil bring us out into a better knowledge of Himself.

The great point of Abraham's faith in God was that he was prepared to do anything for God. He was there to obey God, no matter to what belief he went contrary. Abraham was not a devotee of his convictions, or he would have slain Isaac and said that the voice of the angel was the voice of the devil. That is the attitude of a fanatic. If you wil remain true to God, God wil lead you straight through every barrier into the inner chamber of the knowledge of Himself; but there is always this point of giving up convictions and traditional beliefs. Don't ask God to test you. Never declare as Peter did - "I wil do anything, I wil go to death with Thee." Abraham did not make any such declaration, he remained true to God, and God purified his faith.

April 27th,

WHAT DO YOU WANT?

"Seekest thou great things for thyself?" Jeremiah 45:5

Are you seeking great things for yourself? Not seeking to be a great one, but seeking great things from God for yourself. God wants you in a closer

relationship to Himself than receiving His gifts, He wants you to get to know Him. A great thing is accidental, it comes and goes. God never gives us anything accidental. There is nothing easier than getting into a right relationship with God except when it is not God Whom you want but only what He gives.

If you have only come the length of asking God for things, you have never come to the first strand of abandonment, you have become a Christian from a standpoint of your own. "I did ask God for the Holy Spirit, but He did not give me the rest and the peace I expected." Instantly God puts His finger on the reason - you are not seeking the Lord at al , you are seeking something for yourself. Jesus says - "Ask, and it shal be given you." Ask God for what you want, and you cannot ask if you are not asking for a right thing. When you draw near to God, you cease from asking for things. "Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him." Then why ask? That you may get to know Him.

Are you seeking great things for yourself? "O Lord, baptize me with the Holy Ghost." If God does not, it is because you are not abandoned enough to Him, there is something you wil not do. Are you prepared to ask yourself what it is you want from God and why you want it? God always ignores the present perfection for the ultimate perfection. He is not concerned about making you blessed and happy just now; He is working out His ultimate perfection al the time - "that they may be one even as We are."

April 28th,

WHAT YOU WILL GET

"Thy life will I give thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest." Jeremiah

45:5

This is the unshakable secret of the Lord to those who trust Him - "I wil give thee thy life." What more does a man want than his life? It is the essential thing. "Thy life for a prey" means that wherever you may go, even if it is into hel , you wil come out with your life, nothing can harm it. So many of us are caught up in the shows of things, not in the way of property and possessions, but of blessings. A1 these have to go; but there is something grander that never can go - the life that is "hid with Christ in God."

Are you prepared to let God take you into union with Himself, and pay no more attention to what you cal the great things? Are you prepared to abandon entirely and let go? The test of abandonment is in refusing to say - "Wei , what about this?" Beware of suppositions. Immediately you al ow - What about this? - it means you have not abandoned, you do not real у trust God. Immediately you do abandon, you think no more about what God is going to do.

Abandon means to refuse yourself the luxury of asking any questions. If you abandon entirely to God, He says at once, "Thy life wil I give thee for a prey."

The reason people are tired of life is because God has not given them anything, they have not got their life as a prey. The way to get out of that state is to abandon to God. When you do get through to abandonment to God, you wil be the most surprised and delighted creature on earth; God has got you absolutely and has given you your life. If you are not there, it is either because of disobedience or a refusal to be simple enough.

April 29th.

THE GRACIOUSNESS OF UNCERTAINTY

"It doth not yet appear what we shall be." 1 John 3:2

Natural y, we are inclined to be so mathematical and calculating that we look upon uncertainty as a bad thing. We imagine that we have to reach some end, but that is not the nature of spiritual life. The nature of spiritual life is that we are certain in our uncertainty, consequently we do not make our nests anywhere. Common sense says - "Wei, supposing I were in that condition ..." We cannot suppose ourselves in any condition we have never been in.

Certainty is the mark of the common-sense life: gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life. To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in al our ways, we do not know what a day may bring forth. This is general у said with a sigh of sadness, it should be rather an expression of breathless expectation. We are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God. Immediately we abandon to God, and do the duty that lies nearest, He packs our life with surprises al the time. When we become advocates of a creed, something dies; we do not believe God, we only believe our belief about Him.

Jesus said, "Except ye become as little children." Spiritual life is the life of a child. We are not uncertain of God, but uncertain of what He is going to do next. If we are only certain in our beliefs, we get dignified and severe and have the ban of finality about our views; but when we are rightly related to God, life is ful of spontaneous, joyful uncertainty and expectancy.

"Believe also in Me," said Jesus, not - "Believe certain things about Me." Leave the whole thing to Him, it is gloriously uncertain how He wil come in, but He wil come. Remain loyal to Him.

April 30th,

THE SPONTANEITY OF LOVE

"Love suffereth long, and is kind..." 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Love is not premeditated, it is spontaneous, i.e., it bursts up in extraordinary ways. There is nothing of mathematical certainty in Paul's category of love.

We cannot say - "Now I am going to think no evil; I am going to believe al things." The characteristic of love is spontaneity. We do not set the statements of Jesus in front of us as a standard; but when His Spirit is having His way with us, we live according to His standard with out knowing it, and on looking back we are amazed at the disinterestedness of a particular emotion, which is the evidence that the spontaneity of real love was there. In everything to do with the life of God in us, its nature is only discerned when it is past.

The springs of love are in God, not in us. It is absurd to look for the love of God in our hearts natural y, it is only there when it has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

If we try to prove to God how much we love Him, it is a sure sign that we do not love Him. The evidence of our love for Him is the absolute spontaneity of our love, it comes natural y. In looking back we cannot tel why we did certain things, we did them according to the spontaneous nature of His love in us.

The life of God manifests itself in this spontaneous way because the springs of love are in the Holy Ghost. (Romans 5:5.) May 1st.

INSIGHT NOT EMOTION

"I have to lead my life in faith, without seeing Him." 2 Corinthians 5:7 (MOFFATT) For a time we are conscious of God's attentions, then, when God begins to use us in His enterprises, we take on a pathetic look and talk of the trials and the difficulties, and al the time God is trying to make us do our duty as obscure people. None of us would be obscure spiritual у if we could help it. Can we do our duty when God has shut up heaven? Some of us always want to be il uminated saints with golden babes and the flush of inspiration, and to have the saints of God dealing with us al the time. A gilt-edged saint is no good, he is abnormal, unfit for daily life, and altogether unlike God. We are here as men and women, not as half-fledged angels, to do the work of the world, and to do it with an infinitely greater power to stand the turmoil because we have been bom from above.

If we try to re-introduce the rare moments of inspiration, it is a sign that it is not God we want. We are making a fetish of the moments when God did come and speak, and insisting that He must do it again; whereas what God wants us to do is to "walk by faith." How many of us have laid ourselves by, as it were, and said - "I cannot do any more until God appears to me." He never wil , and without any inspiration, without any sudden touch of God, we wil have to get up. Then comes the surprise - "Why, He was there al the time, and I never knew it!" Never live for the rare moments, they are surprises. God wil give us touches of inspiration when He sees we are not in danger of being led away by them. We must never make our moments of inspiration our standard; our standard is our duty.

May 2nd.

THE PASSION OF PATIENCE

"Though it tarry, wait for it." Habakkuk 2:3

Patience is not indifference; patience conveys the idea of an immensely strong rock withstanding al onslaughts. The vision of God is the source of patience, because it imparts a moral inspiration. Moses endured, not because he had an ideal of right and duty, but because be had a vision of God. He

"endured, as seeing Him Who is invisible." A man with the vision of God is not devoted to a cause or to any particular issue; he is devoted to God Himself. You always know when the vision is of God because of the inspiration that comes with it; things come with largeness and tonic to the life because everything is energized by God. If God gives you a time spiritual y, as He gave His Son actual y, of temptation in the wilderness, with no word from Himself at al , endure, and the power to endure is there because you see God.

"Though it tarry, wait for it." The proof that we have the vision is that we are reaching out for more than we have grasped. It is a bad thing to be satisfied spiritual y. "What shal I render unto the Lord?" said the Psalmist. "I wil take the cup of salvation." We are apt to look for satisfaction in ourselves - "Now I have got the thing; now I am entirely sanctified; now I can endure." Instantly we are on the road to ruin. Our reach must exceed our grasp. "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect." If we have only what we have experienced, we have nothing; if we have the inspiration of the vision of God, we have more than we can experience. Beware of the danger of relaxation spiritual y.

May 3rd.

VITAL INTERCESSION "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit." Ephesians 6:18

As we go on in intercession we may find that our obedience to God is going to cost other people more than we thought. The danger then is to begin to intercede in sympathy with those whom God was gradual у lifting to a total у different sphere in answer to our prayers. Whenever we step back from identification with God's interest in others into sympathy with them, the vital connection with God has gone, we have put our sympathy, our consideration for them in the way, and this is a deliberate rebuke to God.

It is impossible to intercede vital у unless we are perfectly sure of God, and the greatest dissipator of our relationship to God is personal sympathy and personal prejudice. Identification is the key to intercession, and whenever we stop being identified with God, it is by sympathy, not by sin. It is not likely that sin wil interfere with our relationship to God, but sympathy wil , sympathy with ourselves or with others which makes us say - "I wil not al ow that thing to happen." Instantly we are out of vital connection with God.

Intercession leaves you neither time nor inclination to pray for your own "sad sweet self." The thought of yourself is not kept out, because it is not there to keep out; you are completely and entirely identified with God's interests in other lives.

Discernment is God's cal to intercession, never to fault finding.

May 4th,

VICARIOUS INTERCESSION

"Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood oj Jesus." Hebrews 10:19

Beware of imagining that intercession means bringing our personal sympathies into the presence of God and demanding that He does what we ask. Our approach to God is due entirely to the vicarious identification of our Lord with sin. We have "boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus."

Spiritual stubbornness is the most effectual hindrance to intercession, because it is based on sympathy with that in ourselves and in others that we do not think needs atoning for. We have the notion that there are certain right and virtuous things in us which do not need to be based on the Atonement, and just in the domain of "stodge" that is produced by this idea we cannot intercede. We do not identify ourselves with God's interests in others, we get petulant with God; we are always ready with our own ideas, and intercession becomes the glorification of our own natural sympathies. We have to realize that the identification of Jesus with sin means the radical alteration of al our sympathies. Vicarious intercession means that we deliberately substitute God's interests in others for our natural sympathy with them.

Am I stubborn or substituted? Petted or perfect in my relationship to God? Sulky or spiritual? Determined to have my own way or determined to be identified with Him?

May 5th,

JUDGMENT ON THE ABYSS OF LOVE

"For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God." 1 Peter

4:17

The Christian worker must never forget that salvation is God's thought, not man's; therefore it is an unfathomable abyss. Salvation is the great thought of God, not an experience. Experience is only a gateway by which salvation comes into our conscious life. Never preach the experience; preach the great thought of God behind. When we preach we are not proclaiming how man can be saved from hel and be made moral and pure; we are conveying good news about God.

In the teachings of Jesus Christ the element of judgment is always brought out, it is the sign of God's love. Never sympathize with a soul who finds it difficult to get to God, God is not to blame. It is not for us to find out the reason why it is difficult, but so to present the truth of God that the Spirit of God wil show what is wrong. The great sterling test in preaching is that it brings everyone to judgment. The Spirit of God locates each one to himself.

If Jesus ever gave us a command He could not enable us to fulfil, He would be a liar; and if we make our inability a barrier to obedience, it means we are tel ing God there is something He has not taken into account. Every element of self-reliance must be slain by the power of God. Complete weakness and dependence wil always be the occasion for the Spirit of God to manifest His power.

May 6th,

LIBERTY ON THE ABYSS OF THE GOSPEL

"Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free." Galatians 5:1

A spiritual у minded man wil never come to you with the demand - "Believe this and that;" but with the demand that you square your life with the standards of Jesus. We are not asked to believe the Bible, but to believe the One Whom the Bible reveals (cf. John 5:39-40). We are cal ed to present liberty of conscience, not liberty of view. If we are free with the liberty of Christ, others wil be brought into that same liberty - the liberty of realizing the dominance of

Jesus Christ.

Always keep your life measured by the standards of Jesus. Bow your neck to His yoke alone, and to no other yoke whatever; and be careful to see that you never bind a yoke on others that is not placed by Jesus Christ. It takes God a long time to get us out of the way of thinking that unless everyone sees as we do, they must be wrong. That is never God's view. There is only one liberty, the liberty of Jesus at work in our conscience enabling us to do what is right.

Don't get impatient, remember how God dealt with you - with patience and with gentleness; but never water down the truth of God. Let it have its way and never apologize for it. Jesus said, "Go and make disciples," not "make converts to your opinions."

May 7th,

BUILDING FOR ETERNITY

"For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?" Luke 14:28

Our Lord refers not to a cost we have to count, but to a cost which He has counted. The cost was those thirty years in Nazareth, those three years of popularity, scandal and hatred, the deep unfathomable agony in Gethsemane, and the onslaught at Calvary - the pivot upon which the whole of Time and Eternity turns. Jesus Christ has counted the cost. Men are not going to laugh at Him at last and say - "This man began to build, and was not able to finish."

The conditions of discipleship laid down by Our Lord in vv. 26, 27 and 33 mean that the men and women He is going to use in His mighty building enterprises are those in whom He has done everything. "If any man come to Me, and hate not. . . he cannot be My disciple." Our Lord implies that the only men and women He wil use in His building enterprises are those who love Him personal y, passionately and devotedly beyond any of the closest ties on earth. The conditions are stem, but they are glorious.

A1 that we build is going to be inspected by God. Is God going to detect in His searching fire that we have built on the foundation of Jesus some enterprise of our own? These are days of tremendous enterprises, days when we are trying to work for God, and therein is the snare. Profoundly speaking, we can never work for God. Jesus takes us over for His enterprises, His building schemes entirely, and no soul has any right to claim where he shal be put.

May 8th,

THE PATIENCE OF FAITH

"Because thou hast kept the word of My patience." Revelation 3:10

Patience is more than endurance. A saint's life is in the hands of God like a bow and arrow in the hands of an archer. God is aiming at something the saint cannot see, and He stretches and strains, and every now and again the saint says - "I cannot stand any more." God does not heed, He goes on stretching til His purpose is in sight, then He lets fly. Trust yourself in God's hands. For what have you need of patience just now? Maintain your relationship to Jesus Christ by the patience of faith. "Though He slay me, yet wil I wait for Him."

Faith is not a pathetic sentiment, but robust vigorous confidence built on the fact that God is holy love. You cannot see Him just now, you cannot understand what He is doing, but you know Him. Shipwreck occurs where there is not that mental poise which comes from being established on the eternal truth that God is holy love. Faith is the heroic effort of your life, you fling yourself in reckless confidence on God.

God has ventured al in Jesus Christ to save us, now He wants us to venture our al in abandoned confidence in Him. There are spots where that faith has not worked in us as yet, places untouched by the life of God. There were none of those spots in Jesus Christ's life, and there are to be none in ours. "This is life eternal, that they might know Thee." The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we take this view, life becomes one great romance, a glorious opportunity for seeing marvel ous things al the time. God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.

May 9th.

GRASP WITHOUT REACH

"Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint." Proverbs 29:18 (R.V.) There is a difference between an ideal and a vision. An ideal has no moral inspiration; a vision has. The people who give themselves over to ideals rarely do anything. A man's conception of Deity may be used to justify his deliberate neglect of his duty. Jonah argued that because God was a God of justice and of mercy, therefore everything would be al right. I may have a right conception of God, and that may be the very reason why I do not do my duty. But wherever there is vision, there is also a life of rectitude because the vision imparts moral incentive.

Ideals may lul to ruin. Take stock of yourself spiritual у and see whether you have ideals only or if you have vision.

"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,

Or what's a heaven for?"

"Where there is no vision. ..." When once we lose sight of God, we begin to be reckless, we cast off certain restraints, we cast off praying, we cast off the vision of God in little things, and begin to act on our own initiative. If we are eating what we have out of our own hand, doing things on our own initiative without expecting God to come in, we are on the downward path, we have lost the vision. Is our attitude to-day an attitude that springs from our vision of God? Are we expecting God to do greater things than He has ever done? Is there a freshness and vigour in our spiritual out look?

May 10th.

TAKE THE INITIATIVE "Add to your faith virtue. . ." ("Furnish your faith with resolution.") (MOFFATT.) 2 Peter 1:5

"Add" means there is something we have to do. We are in danger of forgetting that we cannot do what God does, and that God wil not do what we can do. We cannot save ourselves nor sanctify ourselves, God does that; but God wil not give us good habits, He wil not give us character, He wil not make us walk aright. We have to do al that ourselves, we have to work out the salvation God has worked in. "Add" means to get into the habit of doing things, and in the initial stages it is difficult. To take the initiative is to make a beginning, to instruct yourself in the way you have to go.

Beware of the tendency of asking the way when you know it perfectly wel . Take the initiative, stop hesitating, and take the first step. Be resolute when God speaks, act in faith immediately on what He says, and never revise your decisions. If you hesitate when God tel s you to do a thing, you endanger your standing in grace. Take the initiative, take it yourself, take the step with your wil now, make it impossible to go back. Bum your bridges behind you -

"I will write that letter"; "I will pay that debt." Make the thing inevitable.

We have to get into the habit of hearkening to God about everything, to form the habit of finding out what God says. If when a crisis comes, we instinctively turn to God, we know that the habit has been formed. We have to take the initiative where we are, not where we are not.

May 11th,

YOU WON T REACH IT ON TIPTOE

"Add to your brotherliness . . . love." 2 Peter 1:7

Love is indefinite to most of us, we do not know what we mean when we talk about love. Love is the sovereign preference of one person for another, and spiritual у Jesus demands that that preference be for Himself (cf. Luke 14:26). When the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, Jesus

Christ is easily first; then we must practise the working out of these things mentioned by Peter.

The first thing God does is to knock pretence and the pious pose right out of me. The Holy Spirit reveals that God loved me not because I was lovable, but because it was His nature to do so. Now, He says to me, show the same love to others - "Love as I have loved you." "I wil bring any number of people about you whom you cannot respect, and you must exhibit My love to them as I have exhibited it to you." You won't reach it on tiptoe. Some of us have tried to, but we were soon tired.

"The Lord suffereth long. ..." Let me look within and see His dealings with me. The knowledge that God has loved me to the uttermost, to the end of al my sin and meanness and selfishness and wrong, wil send me forth into the world to love in the same way. God's love to me is inexhaustible, and I must love others from the bedrock of God's love to me. Growth in grace stops the moment I get huffed. I get huffed because I have a peculiar person to live with.

Just think how disagreeable I have been to God! Am I prepared to be so identified with the Lord Jesus that His life and His sweetness are being poured out al the time? Neither natural love nor Divine love wil remain unless it is cultivated. Love is spontaneous, but it has to be maintained by discipline.

May 12th,

MAKE a HABIT of HAVING no HABITS

"For if these things are yours and abound, they make you to be not idle nor unfruitful." 2 Peter 1:8 (R.V.) When we begin to form a habit we are conscious of it. There are times when we are conscious of becoming virtuous and patient and godly, but it is only a stage; if we stop there we shal get the strut of the spiritual prig. The right thing to do with habits is to lose them in the life of the Lord, until every habit is so practised that there is no conscious habit at al. Our spiritual life continual у resolves into introspection because there are some qualities we have not added as yet. Ultimately the relationship is to be a completely simple one.

Your god may be your little Christian habit, the habit of prayer at stated times, or the habit of Bible reading. Watch how your Father wil upset those times if you begin to worship your habit instead of what the habit symbolizes - I can't do that just now, I am praying; it is my hour with God. No, it is your hour with your habit. There is a quality that is lacking in you. Recognize the defect and then look for the opportunity of exercising yourself along the line of the quality to be added.

Love means that there is no habit visible, you have come to the place where the habit is lost, and by practice you do the thing unconsciously. If you are consciously holy, there are certain things you imagine you cannot do, certain relationships in which you are far from simple; that means there is something to be added. The only supernatural life is the life the Lord Jesus lived, and He was at home with God anywhere. Is there anywhere where you are not at home with God? Let God press through in that particular circumstance until you gain Him, and life becomes the simple life of a child.

May 13th,

The HABIT of a GOOD CONSCIENCE

"A conscience void of offence toward God, and toward men." Acts 24:16

God's commands are given to the life of His Son in us, consequently to the human nature in which His Son has been formed, His commands are difficult, but immediately we obey they become divinely easy.

Conscience is that faculty in me which attaches itself to the highest that I know, and tel s me what the highest I know demands that I do. It is the eye of the soul which looks out either towards God or towards what it regards as the highest, and therefore conscience records differently in different people. If I am in the habit of steadily facing myself with God, my conscience wil always introduce God's perfect law and indicate what I should do. The point is, wil I obey? I have to make an effort to keep my conscience so sensitive that I walk without offence. I should be living in such perfect sympathy with God's Son, that in every circumstance the spirit of my mind is renewed, and I "make out" at once "what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, wil of God."

God always educates us down to the scruple. Is my ear so keen to hear the tiniest whisper of the Spirit that I know what I should do? "Grieve not the Holy Spirit." He does not come with a voice like thunder; His voice is so gentle that it is easy to ignore it. The one thing that keeps the conscience sensitive to Him is the continual habit of being open to God on the inside. When there is any debate, quit. "Why shouldn't I do this?" You are on the wrong track. There is no debate possible when conscience speaks. At your peril, you al ow one thing to obscure your inner communion with God. Drop it, whatever it is, and see that you keep your inner vision clear.

May 14th,

THE HABIT OF ENJOYING THE DISAGREEABLE

"That life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh." 2 Corinthians 4:10

We have to form habits to express what God's grace has done in us. It is not a question of being saved from hel , but of being saved in order to manifest the life of the Son of God in our mortal flesh, and it is the disagreeable things which make us exhibit whether or not we are manifesting His life. Do I manifest the essential sweetness of the Son of God, or the essential irritation of "myself" apart from Him? The only thing that wil enable me to enjoy the disagreeable is the keen enthusiasm of letting the life of the Son of God manifest itself in me. No matter how disagreeable a thing may be, say - "Lord, I am delighted to obey Thee in this matter," and instantly the Son of God wil press to the front, and there wil be manifested in my human life that which glorifies Jesus.

There must be no debate. The moment you obey the light, the Son of God presses through you in that particular; but if you debate you grieve the Spirit of God. You must keep yourself fit to let the life of the Son of God be manifested, and you cannot keep yourself fit if you give way to self-pity. Our circumstances are the means of manifesting how wonderful у perfect and extraordinarily pure the Son of God is. The thing that ought to make the heart beat is a new way of manifesting the Son of God. It is one thing to choose the disagreeable, and another thing to go into the disagreeable by God's engineering. If God puts you there, He is amply sufficient.

Keep your soul fit to manifest the life of the Son of God. Never live on memories; let the word of God be always living and active in you.

May 15th,

The HABIT of RISING to the OCCASION

"That ye may know what is the hope of His calling ..." Ephesians 1:18

Remember what you are saved for - that the Son of God might be manifested in your mortal flesh. Bend the whole energy of your powers to realize your election as a child of God; rise to the occasion every time.

You cannot do anything for your salvation, but you must do something to manifest it, you must work out what God has worked in. Are you working it out with your tongue, and your brain and your nerves? If you are stil the same miserable crosspatch, set on your own way, then it is a lie to say that God has saved and sanctified you.

God is the Master Engineer, He al ows the difficulties to come in order to see if you can vault over them properly - "By my God have I leaped over a wal."

God wil never shield you from any of the requirements of a son or daughter of His. Peter says - "Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you." Rise to the occasion; do the thing. It does not matter how it hurts as long as it gives God the chance to manifest Him self in your mortal flesh.

May God not find the whine in us any more, but may He find us ful of spiritual pluck and athleticism, ready to face anything He brings. We have to exercise ourselves in order that the Son of God may be manifested in our mortal flesh. God never has museums. The only aim of the life is that the Son of God may be manifested, and al dictation to God vanishes. Our Lord never dictated to His Father, and we are not here to dictate to God; we are here to submit to His wil so that He may work through us what He wants. When we realize this, He wil make us broken bread and poured out wine to feed and nourish others.

May 16th,

THE HABIT OF WEALTH

"Partakers of the divine nature." 2 Peter 1:4

We are made partakers of the Divine nature through the promises; then we have to "manipulate" the Divine nature in our human nature by habits, and the first habit to form is the habit of realizing the provision God has made. "Oh, I can't afford it," we say - one of the worst lies is tucked up in that phrase. It is ungovernably bad taste to talk about money in the natural domain, and so it is spiritual y, and yet we talk as if our Heavenly Father had cut us off with a shil ing! We think it a sign of real modesty to say at the end of a day - "Oh, wel, I have just got through, but it has been a severe tussle." And al the Almighty God is ours in the Lord Jesus! And He wil tax the last grain of sand and the remotest star to bless us if we wil obey Him. What does it matter if external circumstances are hard? Why should they not be! If we give way to self-pity and indulge in the luxury of misery, we banish God's riches from our own lives and hinder others from entering into His provision. No sin is worse than the sin of self-pity, because it obliterates God and puts self-interest upon the throne. It opens our mouths to spit out murmurings and our lives become craving spiritual sponges, there is nothing lovely or generous about them.

When God is beginning to be satisfied with us He wil impoverish everything in the nature of fictitious wealth, until we learn that al our fresh springs are in Him. If the majesty and grace and power of God are not being manifested in us (not to our consciousness), God holds us responsible. "God is able to make al grace abound," then learn to lavish the grace of God on others. Be stamped with

God's nature, and His blessing wil come through you al the time.

May 17th,

HIS ASCENSION AND OUR UNION

And it came to pass, while He blessed them, He was parted from them, and carried up into heaven." Luke 24:51

We have no corresponding experience to the events in Our Lord's life after the Transfiguration. From then onwards Our Lord's life' was altogether vicarious. Up to the time of the Transfiguration He had exhibited the normal perfect life of a man; from the Transfiguration onwards - Gethsemane, the Cross, the Resurrection - everything is unfamiliar to us. His Cross is the door by which every member of the human race can enter into the life of God; by His Resurrection He has the right to give eternal life to any man, and by His Ascension Our Lord enters heaven and keeps the door open for humanity.

On the Mount of Ascension the Transfiguration is completed. If Jesus had gone to heaven from the Mount of Transfiguration, He would have gone alone; He would have been nothing more to us than a glorious Figure. But He turned His back on the glory, and came down from the Mount to identify Himself with fal en humanity.

The Ascension is the consummation of the Transfiguration. Our Lord does now go back into His primal glory; but He does not go back simply as Son of God; He goes back to God as Son of Man as wel as Son of God. There is now freedom of access for anyone straight to the very throne of God by the Ascension of the Son of Man. As Son of Man Jesus Christ deliberately limited omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience in Himself. Now they are His in absolute ful power. As Son of Man Jesus Christ has al power at the throne of God. He is King of kings and Lord of lords from the day of His Ascension until now.

May 18th,

CAREFUL UNREASONABLENESS "Behold the fowls of the air."... "Consider the lilies of the field." Matthew 6:26, 28

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they simply are! Think of the sea, the air, the sun, the stars and the moon - al these are, and what a ministration they exert. So often we mar God's designed influence through us by our self-conscious effort to be consistent and useful. Jesus says that there is only one way to develop spiritual y, and that is by concentration on God. "Do not bother about being of use to others; believe on Me" - pay attention to the Source, and out of you wil flow rivers of living water. We cannot get at the springs of our natural life by common sense, and Jesus is teaching that growth in spiritual life does not depend on our watching it, but on concentration on our Father in heaven. Our heavenly Father knows the circumstances we are in, and if we keep concentrated on Him we wil grow spiritual у as the lilies.

The people who influence us most are not those who buttonhole us and talk to us, but those who live their lives like the stars in heaven and the lilies in the field, perfectly simply and unaffectedly. Those are the lives that mould us.

If you want to be of use to God, get rightly related to Jesus Christ and He wil make you of use unconsciously every minute you live.

May 19th,

"OUT OF THE WRECK I RISE"

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" Romans 8:35

God does not keep a man immune from trouble; He says - "I wil be with him in trouble." It does not matter what actual troubles in the most extreme form get hold of a man's life, not one of them can separate him from his relationship to God. We are "more than conquerors in al these things." Paul is not talking of imaginary things, but of things that are desperately actual; and he says we are super-victors in the midst of them, not by our ingenuity, or by our courage, or by anything other than the fact that not one of them affects our relationship to God in Jesus Christ. Rightly or wrongly, we are where we are, exactly in the condition we are in. I am sorry for the Christian who has not something in his circumstances he wishes was not there.

"Shal tribulation . . . ?" Tribulation is never a noble thing; but let tribulation be what it may - exhausting, gal ing, fatiguing, it is not able to separate us from the love of God. Never let cares or tribulations separate you from the fact that God loves you.

"Shal anguish ...?"- can God's love hold when everything says that His love is a lie, and that there is no such thing as justice?

"Shal famine ...?"- can we not only believe in the love of God but be more than conquerors, even while we are being starved?

Either Jesus Christ is a deceiver and Paul is deluded, or some extraordinary thing happens to a man who holds on to the love of God when the odds are al against God's character. Logic is silenced in the face of every one of these things. Only one thing can account for it - the love of God in Christ Jesus.

"Out of the wreck I rise" every time.

May 20th,

THE REALM OF THE REAL

"In your patience possess ye your souls." Luke 21:19

When a man is bom again, there is not the same robustness in his thinking or reasoning for a time as formerly. We have to make an expression of the new life, to form the mind of Christ. "Acquire your soul with patience." Many of us prefer to stay at the threshold of the Christian life instead of going on to construct a soul in accordance with the new life God has put within. We fail because we are ignorant of the way we are made, we put things down to the devil instead of our own undisciplined natures. Think what we can be when we are roused!

There are certain things we must not pray about - moods, for instance. Moods never go by praying, moods go by kicking. A mood nearly always has its seat in the physical condition, not in the moral. It is a continual effort not to listen to the moods which arise from a physical condition, never submit to them for a second. We have to take ourselves by the scruff of the neck and shake ourselves, and we wil find that we can do what we said we could not. The curse with most of us is that we won't. The Christian life is one of incarnate spiritual pluck.

May 21st.

DIVINE REASONINGS OF FAITH

"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." Matthew 6:33

Immediately we look at these words of Jesus, we find them the most revolutionary statement human ears ever listened to. "Seek уe first the kingdom of God." We argue in exactly the opposite way, even the most spiritual y-minded of us - "But I must live; I must make so much money; I must be clothed; I must be fed." The great concern of our lives is not the kingdom of God, but how we are to fit ourselves to live. Jesus reverses the order: Get rightly related to God first, maintain that as the great care of your life, and never put the concern of your care on the other things.

"Take no thought for your life. ..." Our Lord points out the utter unreasonableness from His standpoint of being so anxious over the means of living.

Jesus is not saying that the man who takes thought for nothing is blessed - that man is a fool. Jesus taught that a disciple has to make his relationship to God the dominating concentration of his life, and to be careful у careless about every thing else in comparison to that. Jesus is saying - "Don't make the ruling factor of your life what you shal eat and what you shal drink, but be concentrated absolutely on God." Some people are careless over what they eat and drink, and they suffer for it; they are careless about what they wear, and they look as they have no business to look; they are careless about their earthly affairs, and God holds them responsible. Jesus is saying that the great care of the life is to put the relationship to God first, and everything else second.

It is one of the severest disciplines of the Christian life to al ow the Holy Spirit to bring us into harmony with the teaching of Jesus in these verses.

May 22nd.

NOW THIS EXPLAINS IT

"That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us." John 17:21

If you are going through a solitary way, read John 17, it wil explain exactly why you are where you are - Jesus has prayed that you may be one with the Father as He is. Are you helping God to answer that prayer, or have you some other end for your life? Since you became a disciple you cannot be as independent as you used to be.

The purpose of God is not to answer our prayers, but by our prayers we come to discern the mind of God, and this is revealed in John 17. There is one prayer God must answer, and that is the prayer of Jesus - "that they may be one, even as We are One." Are we as close to Jesus Christ as that?

God is not concerned about our plans; He does not say - Do you want to go through this bereavement; this upset? He al ows these things for His own purpose. The things we are going through are either making us sweeter, better, nobler men and women; or they are making us more captious and fault-finding, more insistent upon our own way. The things that happen either make us fiends, or they make us saints; it depends entirely upon the relationship we are in to God. If we say - "Thy wil be done," we get the consolation of John 17, the consolation of knowing that our Father is working according to His own wisdom. When we understand what God is after we wil not get mean and cynical. Jesus has prayed nothing less for us than absolute oneness with Himself as He was one with the Father. Some of us are far off it, and yet God wil not leave us alone until we are one with Him, because Jesus has prayed that we may be.

May 23rd.

CAREFUL INFIDELITY

"Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body what ye shall put on." Matthew 6:25

Jesus sums up common-sense carefulness in a disciple as infidelity. If we have received the Spirit of God, He wil press through and say - Now where does God come in in this relationship, in this mapped out holiday, in these new books? He always presses the point until we learn to make Him our first consideration. Whenever we put other things first, there is confusion.

"Take no thought..." don't take the pressure of forethought upon yourself. It is not only wrong to worry, it is infidelity, because worrying means that we do not think that God can look after the practical details of our lives, and it is never any thing else that worries us. Have you ever noticed what Jesus said would choke the word He puts in? The devil? No, the cares of this world. It is the little worries always. I wil not trust where I cannot see, that is where infidelity begins. The only cure for infidelity is obedience to the Spirit.

The great word of Jesus to His disciples is abandon.

May 24th.

THE DELIGHT OF DESPAIR

"And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead." Revelation 1:17

It may be that like the apostle John you know Jesus Christ intimately, when suddenly He appears with no familiar characteristic at al , and the only thing you can do is to fal at His feet as dead. There are times when God cannot reveal Himself in any other way than in His majesty, and it is the awfulness of the vision which brings you to the delight of despair; if you are ever to be raised up, it must be by the hand of God.

"He laid His right hand upon me." In the midst of the awfulness, a touch comes, and you know it is the right hand of Jesus Christ. The right hand not of restraint nor of correction nor of chastisement, but the right hand of the Everlasting Father. Whenever His hand is laid upon you, it is ineffable peace and comfort, the sense that "underneath are the everlasting arms," ful of sustaining and comfort and strength. When once His touch comes, nothing at al can cast you into fear again. In the midst of al His ascended glory the Lord Jesus comes to speak to an insignificant disciple, and to say - "Fear not." His tenderness is ineffably sweet. Do I know Him like that?

Watch some of the things that strike despair. There is despair in which there is no delight, no horizon, no hope of anything brighter; but the delight of despair comes when I know that "in me (that is, in my flesh) dwel eth no good thing." I delight to know that there is that in me which must fal prostrate before God when He manifests Himself, and if I am ever to be raised up it must be by the hand of God. God can do nothing for me until I get to the limit of the possible.

May 25th,

THE TEST OF SELF-INTEREST

"If thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left." Genesis 13:9

As soon as you begin to live the life of faith in God, fascinating and luxurious prospects wil open up before you, and these things are yours by right; but if you are living the life of faith you wil exercise your right to waive your rights, and let God choose for you. God sometimes al ows you to get into a place of testing where your own welfare would be the right and proper thing to consider if you were not living a life of faith; but if you are, you wil joyful у waive your right and leave God to choose for you. This is the discipline by means of which the natural is transformed into the spiritual by obedience to the voice of God.

Whenever right is made the guidance in the life, it wil blunt the spiritual insight. The great enemy of the life of faith in God is not sin, but the good which is not good enough. The good is always the enemy of the best. It would seem the wisest thing in the world for Abraham to choose, it was his right, and the people around would consider him a fool for not choosing. Many of us do not go on spiritual у because we prefer to choose what is right instead of relying on God to choose for us. We have to learn to walk according to the standard which has its eye on God. "Walk before Me."

May 26th,

THINK AS JESUS TAUGHT

"Pray without ceasing." 1 Thessalonians 5:17

We think rightly or wrongly about prayer according to the conception we have in our minds of prayer. If we think of prayer as the breath in our lungs and the blood from our hearts, we think rightly. The blood flows ceaselessly, and breathing continues ceaselessly; we are not conscious of it, but it is always going on. We are not always conscious of Jesus keeping us in perfect joint with God, but if we are obeying Him, He always is. Prayer is not an exercise, it is the life. Beware of anything that stops ejaculatory prayer. "Pray without ceasing," keep the childlike habit of ejaculatory prayer in your heart to God al the time.

Jesus never mentioned unanswered prayer, He had the boundless certainty that prayer is always answered. Have we by the Spirit the unspeakable certainty that Jesus had about prayer, or do we think of the times when God does not seem to have answered prayer? "Every one that asketh receiveth."

We say - "But . . . , but . . ." God answers prayer in the best way, not sometimes, but every time, although the immediate manifestation of the answer in the domain in which we want it may not always fol ow. Do we expect God to answer prayer?

The danger with us is that we want to water down the things that Jesus says and make them mean something in accordance with common sense; if it were only common sense, it was not worth while for Him to say it. The things Jesus says about prayer are supernatural revelations.

May 27th,

THE LIFE THAT LIVES

"Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high." Luke 24:49

The disciples had to tarry until the day of Pentecost not for their own preparation only; they had to wait until the Lord was glorified historical y. As soon as He was glorified, what happened? "Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, He hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear." The parenthesis in John 7:39 ("For the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified") does not apply to us; the Holy Ghost has been given, the Lord is glorified; the waiting depends not on God's providence, but on our fitness.

The Holy Spirit's influence and power were at work before Pentecost, but He was not here. Immediately Our Lord was glorified in Ascension, the Holy Spirit came into this world, and He has been here ever since. We have to receive the revelation that He is here. The reception of the Holy Spirit is the maintained attitude of a believer. When we receive the Holy Spirit, we receive quickening life from the ascended Lord.

It is not the baptism of the Holy Ghost which changes men, but the power of the ascended Christ coming into men's lives by the Holy Ghost that changes them. We too often divorce what the New Testament never divorces. The baptism of the Holy Ghost is not an experience apart from Jesus Christ: it is the evidence of the ascended Christ.

The baptism of the Holy Ghost does not make you think of Time or Eternity, it is one amazing glorious NOW. "This is life eternal that they might know Thee." Begin to know Him now, and finish never.

May 28th,

UNQUESTIONED REVELATION

"Ariel in that day ye shall ask Me nothing." John 16:23

When is "that day"? When the Ascended Lord makes you one with the Father. In that day you wil be one with the Father as Jesus is, and "in that day,"

Jesus says, "ye shal ask Me nothing." Until the resurrection life of Jesus is manifested in you, you want to ask this and that; then after a while you find al questions gone, you do not seem to have any left to ask. You have come to the place of entire reliance on the resurrection life of Jesus which brings you into perfect contact with the purpose of God. Are you living that life now? If not, why shouldn't you?

There may be any number of things dark to your understanding, but they do not come in between your heart and God. "And in that day ye shal ask Me no question" - you do not need to, you are so certain that God wil bring things out in accordance with His wil . John 14:1 has become the real state of your heart, and there are no more questions to be asked. If anything is a mystery to you and it is coming in between you and God, never look for the explanation in your intel ect, look for it in your disposition, it is that which is wrong. When once your disposition is wil ing to submit to the life of Jesus, the understanding wil be perfectly clear, and you wil get to the place where there is no distance between the Father and His child because the Lord has made you one, and "in that day ye shal ask Me no question."

May 29th,

UNDISTURBED RELATIONSHIP "At that day ye shall ask in My name ..." "The Father Himself loveth you." John 16:26, 27

"At that day ye shal ask in My name," i.e., in My nature. Not - "You shal use My name as a magic word," but - "You wil be so intimate with Me that you wil be one with Me." "That day" is not a day hereafter, but a day meant for here and now. "The Father Himself loveth you" - the union is so complete and absolute. Our Lord does not mean that life wil be free from external perplexities, but that just as He knew the Father's heart and mind, so by the baptism of the Holy Ghost He can lift us into the heavenly places where He can reveal the counsels of God to us.

"Whatsoever ye shal ask the Father in My name. . . ." "That day" is a day of undisturbed relationship between God and the saint. Just as Jesus stood unsul ied in the presence of His Father, so by the mighty efficacy of the baptism of the Holy Ghost, we can be lifted into that relationship - "that they may be one, even as We are One."

"He wil give it you." Jesus says that God wil recognize our prayers. What a chal enge! By the Resurrection and Ascension power of Jesus, by the sent-down Holy Ghost, we can be lifted into such a relationship with the Father that we are at one with the perfect sovereign wil of God by our free choice even as Jesus was. In that wonderful position, placed there by Jesus Christ, we can pray to God in His name, in His nature, which is gifted to us by the Holy Ghost, and Jesus says - "What soever ye shal ask the Father in My name, He wil give it you." - The sovereign character of Jesus Christ is tested by His own statements.

May 30th,

"YES - BUT ...!" "Lord, I will follow Thee; but..." Luke 9:61

Supposing God tel s you to do something which is an enormous test to your common sense, what are you going to do? Hang back? If you get into the habit of doing a thing in the physical domain, you wil do it every time until you break the habit determinedly; and the same is true spiritual y. Again and again you wil get up to what Jesus Christ wants, and every time you wil turn back when it comes to the point, until you abandon resolutely. "Yes, but -

supposing I do obey God in this matter, what about . . . ?" "Yes, I wil obey God if He wil let me use my common sense, but don't ask me to take a step in the dark." Jesus Christ demands of the man who trusts Him the same reckless sporting spirit that the natural man exhibits. If a man is going to do anything worth while, there are times when he has to risk everything on his leap, and in the spiritual domain Jesus Christ demands that you risk everything you hold by common sense and leap into what He says, and immediately you do, you find that what He says fits on as solidly as common sense. At the bar of common sense Jesus Christ's statements may seem mad; but bring them to the bar of faith, and you begin to find with awestruck spirit that they are the words of God. Trust entirely in God, and when He brings you to the venture, see that you take it. We act like pagans in a crisis, only one out of a crowd is daring enough to bank his faith in the character of God.

May 31st.

GOD FIRST

Put God First in Trust. "Jesus did not commit Himself unto them . . . for He knew what was in man." John 2:24-25

Our Lord trusted no man; yet He was never suspicious, never bitter, never in despair about any man, because He put God first in trust; He trusted absolutely in what God's grace could do for any man. If I put my trust in human beings first, I wil end in despairing of everyone; I wil become bitter, because I have insisted on man being what no man ever can be - absolutely right. Never trust anything but the grace of God in yourself or in anyone else.

Put God's Needs First. "Lo, I come to do Thy will, 0 God." Hebrews 10:9

A man's obedience is to what he sees to be a need; Our Lord's obedience was to the wil of His Father. The cry to-day is - "We must get some work to do; the heathen are dying without God; we must go and tel them of Him." We have to see first of al that God's needs in us personal у are being met.

"Tarry ye until. ..." The purpose of this Col ege is to get us rightly related to the needs of God. When God's needs in us have been met, then He wil open the way for us to realize His needs elsewhere.

Put God's Trust First. "And whoso receiveth one such little child in my name receiveth Me." Matthew 18:5

God's trust is that He gives me Himself as a babe. God expects my personal life to be a "Bethlehem." Am I al owing my natural life to be slowly transfigured by the indwel ing life of the Son of God? God's ultimate purpose is that His Son might be manifested in my mortal flesh.

June 1st.

THE STAGGERING QUESTION

"Son of man, can these bones live?" Ezekial 37:3

Can that sinner be turned into a saint? Can that twisted life be put right? There is only one answer: "O Lord, Thou knowest, I don't." Never trample in with religious common sense and say - "Oh, yes, with a little more Bible reading and devotion and prayer, I see how it can be done."

It is much easier to do something than to trust in God; we mistake panic for inspiration. That is why there are so few fel ow workers with God and so many workers for Him. We would far rather work for God than believe in Him. Am I quite sure that God wil do what I cannot do? I despair of men in the degree in which I have never realized that God has done anything for me. Is my experience such a wonderful realization of God's power and might that I can never despair of anyone I see? Have I had any spiritual work done in me at al ? The degree of panic is the degree of the lack of personal spiritual experience.

"Behold, О my people, I wil open your graves." When God wants to show you what human nature is like apart from Himself, He has to show it you in yourself. If the Spirit of God has given you a vision of what you are apart from the grace of God (and He only does it when His Spirit is at work), you know there is no criminal who is half so bad in actuality as you know yourself to be in possibility. My "grave" has been opened by God and "I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwel eth no good thing." God's Spirit continual у reveals what human nature is like apart from His grace.

June 2nd.

WHAT ARE YOU HAUNTED BY?

What man is he thatfeareth the Lord?" Psalm 25:12

What are you haunted by? You wil say - By nothing, but we are al haunted by something, general у by ourselves, or, if we are Christians, by our experience. The Psalmist says we are to be haunted by God. The abiding consciousness of the life is to be God, not thinking about Him. The whole of our life inside and out is to be absolutely haunted by the presence of God. A child's consciousness is so mother-haunted that although the child is not consciously thinking of its mother, yet when calamity arises, the relationship that abides is that of the mother. So we are to live and move and have our being in God, to look at everything in relation to God, because the abiding consciousness of God pushes itself to the front al the time.

If we are haunted by God, nothing else can get in, no cares, no tribulation, no anxieties. We see now why Our Lord so emphasized the sin of worry. How can we dare be so utterly unbelieving when God is round about us? To be haunted by God is to have an effective barricade against al the onslaughts of the enemy.

"His soul shal dwel at ease." In tribulation, misunderstanding, slander, in the midst of al these things, if our life is hid with Christ in God, He wil keep us at ease. We rob ourselves of the marvel ous revelation of this abiding companionship of God. "God is our Refuge" - nothing can come through that shelter.

June 3rd.

THE SECRET OF THE LORD

"The secret (friendship R.V.) of the Lord is with them that fear Him." Psalm

25:14

What is the sign of a friend? That he tel s you secret Sorrows? No, that he tel s you secret joys. Many wil confide to you their secret sorrows, but the last mark of intimacy is to confide secret joys. Have we ever let God tel us any of His joys, or are we tel ing God our secrets so continual у that we leave no room for Him to talk to us? At the beginning of our Christian life we are ful of requests to God, then we find that God wants to get us into relationship with Himself, to get us in touch with His purposes. Are we so wedded to Jesus Christ's idea of prayer - "Thy wil be done" - that we catch the secrets of God?

The things that make God dear to us are not so much His great big blessings as the tiny things, because they show His amazing intimacy with us; He knows every detail of our individual lives.

". . . him shal He teach in the way that He shal choose." At first we want the consciousness of being guided by God, then as we go on we live so much in the consciousness of God that we do not need to ask what His wil is, because the thought of choosing any other wil never occur to us. If we are saved and sanctified God guides us by our ordinary choices, and if we are going to choose what He does not want, He wil check, and we must heed. Whenever there is doubt, Stop at once. Never reason it out and say - "I wonder why I shouldn't?" God instructs us in what we choose, that is, He guides our common sense, and we no longer hinder His Spirit by continual у saying - "Now, Lord, what is Thy wil ?"

June 4th.

THE NEVER-FAILING GOD

"For He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." Hebrews 8:5

What line does my thought take? Does it turn to what God says or to what I fear? Am I learning to say not what God says, but to say something after I have heard what He says? "He hath said, I wil never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I wil not fear what man shal do unto me."

"I wil in no wise fail thee" - not for al my sin and selfishness and stubbornness and waywardness. Have I real у let God say to me that He wil never fail me? If I have listened to this say-so of God's, then let me listen again.

"Neither wil I in any wise forsake thee." Sometimes it is not difficulty that makes me think God wil forsake me, but drudgery. There is no Hil Difficulty to climb, no vision given, nothing wonderful or beautiful, just the commonplace day in and day out - can I hear God's say-so in these things?

We have the idea that God is going to do some exceptional thing, that He is preparing and fitting us for some extraordinary thing by and bye, but as we go on in grace we find that God is glorifying Himself here and now, in the present minute. If we have God's say-so behind us, the most amazing strength comes, and we learn to sing in the ordinary days and ways.

June 5th,

GOD S SAY-SO

"He hath said. . . so that we may boldly say ..." Hebrews 8:5-6

My say-so is to be built on God's say-so. God says - "I wil never leave thee," then I can with good courage say - "The Lord is my helper, I wil not fear - " I wil not be haunted by apprehension. This does not mean that I wil not be tempted to fear, but I wil remember God's say-so. I wil be ful of courage, like a child "bucking himself up" to reach the standard his father wants. Faith in many a one falters when the apprehensions come, they forget the meaning of God's say-so, forget to take a deep breath spiritual y. The only way to get the dread taken out of us is to listen to God's say-so.

What are you dreading? You are not a coward about it, you are going to face it, but there is a feeling of dread. When there is nothing and no one to help you, say - "But the Lord is my Helper, this second, in my present outlook." Are you learning to say things after listening to God, or are you saying things and trying to make God's word fit in? Get hold of the Father's say-so, and then say with good courage - "I wil not fear." It does not matter what evil or wrong may be in the way, He has said - "I wil never leave thee."

Frailty is another thing that gets in between God's say-so and ours. When we realize how feeble we are in facing difficulties, the difficulties become like giants, we become like grasshoppers, and God becomes a nonentity. Remember God's say-so - "I will in no wise fail you." Have we learned to sing after hearing God's key-note? Are we always possessed with the courage to say - "The Lord is my helper," or are we succumbing?

June 6th,

WORK OUT WHAT GOD WORKS IN

"Work out your own salvation." Philippians 2:12-13

Your wil agrees with God, but in your flesh there is a disposition which renders you powerless to do what you know you ought to do. When the Lord is presented to the conscience, the first thing conscience does is to rouse the wil , and the wil always agrees with God. You say - "But I do not know whether my wil is in agreement with God." Look to Jesus and you wil find that your wil and your conscience are in agreement with Him every time. The thing in you which makes you say "I shan't" is something less profound than your wil ; it is perversity, or obstinacy, and they are never in agreement with God. The profound thing in man is his wil , not sin. Wil is the essential element in God's creation of man: sin is a perverse disposition which entered into man. In a regenerated man the source of wil is almighty. "For it is God which worketh in you both to wil and to do of His good pleasure." You have to work out with concentration and care what God works in; not work your own salvation, but work it out, while you base resolutely in unshaken faith on the complete and perfect Redemption of the Lord. As you do this, you do not bring an opposed wil to God's wil, God's wil is your wil, and your natural choices are along the line of God's wil , and the life is as natural as breathing. God is the source of your wil , therefore you are able to work out His wil . Obstinacy is an unintel igent 'wadge' that refuses to be enlightened; the only thing is for it to be blown up with dynamite, and the dynamite is obedience to the Holy Spirit.

Do I believe that Almighty God is the source of my wil ? God not only expects me to do His wil, but He is in me to do it.

June 7th,

DON'T SLACK OFF

"Whatsoever ye shalt ask in My name, that will I do." John 14:13

Am I fulfil ing this ministry of the interior? There is no snare or any danger of infa.tua.tion or pride in intercession, it is a hidden ministry that brings forth fruit whereby the Father is glorified. Am I al owing my spiritual life to be frittered away, or am I bringing it al to one centre - the Atonement of my Lord? Is Jesus Christ more and more dominating every interest in my life? If the one central point, the great exerting influence in my life is the Atonement of the Lord, then every phase of my life wil bear fruit for Him.

I must take time to realize what is the central point of power. Do I give one minute out of sixty to concentrate upon it? "If ye abide in Me" - continue to act and think and work from that centre - "ye shal ask what ye wil , and it shal be done unto you." Am I abiding? Am I taking time to abide? What is the greatest factor of power in my life? Is it work, service, sacrifice for others, or trying to work for God? The thing that ought to exert the greatest power in my life is the Atonement of the Lord. It is not the thing we spend the most time on that moulds us most; the greatest element is the thing that exerts most power. We must determine to be limited and concentrate our affinities.

"Whatsoever ye shal ask in My name, that wil I do." The disciple who abides in Jesus is the wil of God, and his apparently free choices are God's fore-ordained decrees. Mysterious? Logical у contradictory and absurd? Yes, but a glorious truth to a saint.

June 8th,

WHAT NEXT?

Determine to know more than others, "If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them." John 8:17

If you do not cut the moorings, God wil have to break them by a storm and send you out. Launch al on God, go out on the great swel ing tide of His purpose, and you wil get your eyes open. If you believe in Jesus, you are not to spend al your time in the smooth waters just inside the harbour bar, ful of delight, but always moored; you have to get out through the harbour bar into the great deeps of God and begin to know for yourself, begin to have spiritual discernment.

When you know you should do a thing, and do it, immediately you know more. Revise where you have become stodgy spiritual y, and you wil find it goes back to a point where there was something you knew you should do, but you did not do it because there seemed no immediate cal to, and now you have no perception, no discernment; at a time of crisis you are spiritual у distracted instead of spiritual у self-possessed. It is a dangerous thing to refuse to go on knowing.

The counterfeit of obedience is a state of mind in which you work up occasions to sacrifice yourself; ardour is mistaken for discernment. It is easier to sacrifice yourself than to fulfil your spiritual destiny, which is stated in Romans 12:1-2. It is a great deal better to fulfil the purpose of God in your life by discerning His wil than to perform great acts of self-sacrifice. "To obey is better than sacrifice." Beware of harking back to what you were once when God wants you to be something you have never been. "If any man wil do ... he shal know."

June 9th.

THE NEXT BEST THING TO DO

Ask if you have not Received. "For every one that asketh receiveth." Luke 11:10

There is nothing more difficult than to ask. We wil long and desire and crave and suffer, but not until we are at the extreme limit wil we ask. A sense of unreality makes us ask. Have you ever asked out of the depths of moral poverty? "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God . . . but be sure that you do lack wisdom. You cannot bring yourself up against Reality when you like. The next best thing to do if you are not spiritual у real, is to ask God for the Holy Spirit on the word of Jesus Christ (see Luke 11:13). The Holy Spirit is the One Who makes real in you al that Jesus did for you.

"For every one that asketh receiveth." This does not mean you wil not get if you do not ask (cf. Matt. 5:45), but until you get to the point of asking you won't receive from God. To receive means you have come into the relationship of a child of God, and now you perceive with intel igent and moral appreciation and spiritual understanding that these things come from God.

"If any of you lack wisdom ..." If you realize you are lacking, it is because you have come in contact with spiritual reality; do not put your reasonable blinkers on again. People say - Preach us the simple gospel: don't tel us we have to be holy, because that produces a sense of abject poverty, and it is not nice to feel abjectly poor. "Ask" means beg. Some people are poor enough to be interested in their poverty, and some of us are like that spiritual y.

We wil never receive if we ask with an end in view; if we ask, not out of our poverty but out of our lust. A pauper does not ask from any other reason than the abject panging condition of his poverty, he is not ashamed to beg. - Blessed are the paupers in spirit.

June 10th.

THE NEXT BEST THING TO DO

Seek if you have not Found. "Seek, and ye shall find." Luke 11:9

"Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss." If you ask for things from life instead of from God, you ask amiss, i.e., you ask from a desire for self-realization. The more you realize yourself the less wil you seek God. "Seek, and ye shal find." Get to work, narrow your interests to this one. Have you ever sought God with your whole heart, or have you only given a languid cry to Him after a twinge of moral neuralgia? Seek, concentrate, and you wil find.

"Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters." Are you thirsty, or smugly indifferent - so satisfied with your experience that you want nothing more of God? Experience is a gateway, not an end. Beware of building your faith on experience, the metal ic note wil come in at once, the censorious note. You can never give another person that which you have found, but you can make him homesick for what you have.

"Knock, and it shal be opened unto you." "Draw nigh to God." Knock - the door is closed, and you suffer from palpitation as you knock. "Cleanse your hands" - knock a bit louder, you begin to find you are dirty. "Purify your heart" - this is more personal stil , you are desperately in earnest now - you wil do anything. "Be afflicted" - have you ever been afflicted before God at the state of your inner life? There is no strand of self-pity left, but a heartbreaking affliction of amazement to find you are the kind of person that you are. "Humble yourself" - it is a humbling business to knock at God's door - you have to knock with the crucified thief. "To him that knocketh, it shall be opened."

June 11th.

GETTING THERE

Where the sin and the sorrow cease, and the song and the saint commence.

"Come unto Me." Matthew 11:28

Do I want to get there? I can now. The questions that matter in life are remarkably few, and they are al answered by the words - "Come unto Me." Not - Do this, or don't do that; but - "Come unto Me." If I wil come to Jesus my actual life wil be brought into accordance with my real desires; I wil actual у cease from sin, and actual у find the song of the Lord begin.

Have you ever come to Jesus? Watch the stubbornness of your heart, you wil do anything rather than the one simple childlike thing - "Come unto Me." If you want the actual experience of ceasing from sin, you must come to Jesus.

Jesus Christ makes Himself the touchstone. Watch how He used the word "Come." At the most unexpected moments there is the whisper of the Lord -

"Come unto Me," and you are drawn immediately. Personal contact with Jesus alters everything. Be stupid enough to come and commit yourself to what He says. The attitude of coming is that the wil resolutely lets go of everything and deliberately commits al to Him.

". . . and I wil give you rest," i.e., I wil stay you. Not -1 wil put you to bed and hold your hand and sing you to sleep; but -1 wil get you out of bed, out of the languor and exhaustion, out of the state of being half dead while you are alive; I wil imbue you with the spirit of life, and you wil be stayed by the perfection of vital activity. We get pathetic and talk about "suffering the wil of the Lord!" Where is the majestic vitality and might of the Son of God about that?

June 12th,

GETTING THERE

Where the self-interest sleeps and the real interest awakens, "Master, where dwellest Thou? . . Come and see." "Come with Me." John 1:39

"They abode with Him that day." That is about al some of us ever do, then we wake up to actualities, self-interest arises and the abiding is passed. There is no condition of life in which we cannot abide in Jesus.

Thou art Simon, thou shalt be cal ed Cephas." God writes the new name on

those places only in our lives where He has erased the pride and self-sufficiency and self-interest. Some of us have the new name in spots only, like spiritual measles. In sections we look al right. When we have our best spiritual mood on, you would think we were very high-toned saints; but don't look at us when we are not in that mood. The disciple is one who has the new name written al over him; self-interest and pride and self-sufficiency have been completely erased.

Pride is the deification of self, and this to-day in some of us is not of the order of the Pharisee, but of the publican. To say "Oh, I'm no saint," is acceptable to human pride, but it is unconscious blasphemy against God. It literal у means that you defy God to make you a saint, "I am much too weak and hopeless, I am outside the reach of the Atonement." Humility before men may be unconscious blasphemy before God. Why are you not a saint? It is either that you do not want to be a saint, or that you do not believe God can make you one. It would be al right, you say, if God saved you and took you straight to heaven. That is just what He wil do! "We wil come unto him, and make our abode with him." Make no conditions, let Jesus be everything, and He wil take you home with Him not only for a day, but for ever.

June 13th,

GETTING THERE

Where the selective affinity dies and the sanctified abandon lives, "Come ye after Me." Mark 1:17

One of the greatest hindrances in coming to Jesus is the excuse of temperament. We make our temperament and our natural affinities barriers to coming to Jesus. The first thing we realize when we come to Jesus is that He pays no attention whatever to our natural affinities. We have the notion that we can consecrate our gifts to God. You cannot consecrate what is not yours; there is only one thing you can consecrate to God, and that is your right to yourself (Romans 12:1). If you wil give God your right to yourself, He wil make a holy experiment out of you. God's experiments always succeed. The one mark of a saint is the moral originality which springs from abandonment to Jesus Christ.

In the life of a saint there is this amazing wel spring of original life al the time; the Spirit of God is a wel of water springing up, perennial у fresh. The saint realizes that it is God Who engineers circumstances, consequently there is no whine, but a reckless abandon to Jesus. Never make a principle out of your experience; let God be as original with other people as He is with you.

If you abandon to Jesus, and come when He says "Come," He wil continue to say "Come" through you; you wil go out into life reproducing the echo of Christ's "Come." That is the result in every soul who has abandoned and come to Jesus.

Have I come to Jesus? Wil I come now ?

June 14th,

GET A MOVE ON

In the Matter of Determination, "Abide in Me." John 15:4

The Spirit of Jesus is put into me by the Atonement, then I have to construct with patience the way of thinking that is exactly in accordance with my Lord.

God wil not make me think like Jesus, I have to do it myself; I have to bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. "Abide in Me" - in intel ectual matters, in money matters, in every one of the matters that make human life what it is. It is not a bandbox life.

Am I preventing God from doing things in my circumstances because I say it wil hinder my communion with Him? That is an impertinence. It does not matter what my circumstances are, I can be as sure of abiding in Jesus in them as in a prayer meeting. I have not to change and arrange my circumstances myself. With Our Lord the inner abiding was unsul ied; He was at home with God wherever His body was placed. He never chose His own circumstances, but was meek towards His Father's dispensations for Him. Think of the amazing leisure of Our Lord's life! We keep God at excitement point, there is none of the serenity of the life hid with Christ in God about us.

Think of the things that take you out of abiding in Christ - Yes, Lord, just a minute, I have got this to do; Yes, I wil abide when once this is finished; when this week is over, it wil be al right, I wil abide then. Get a move on; begin to abide now. In the initial stages it is a continual effort until it becomes so much the law of life that you abide in Him unconsciously. Determine to abide in Jesus wherever you are placed.

June 15th,

GET A MOVE ON

In the Matter of Drudgery, "And beside this ... add2 Peter 1:5

You have inherited the Divine nature, says Peter (v.4), now screw your attention down and form habits, give diligence, concentrate. "Add" means al that character means. No man is bom either natural у or supernatural у with character, he has to make character. Nor are we bom with habits; we have to form habits on the basis of the new life God has put into us. We are not meant to be il uminated versions, but the common stuff of ordinary life exhibiting the marvel of the grace of God. Drudgery is the touchstone of character. The great hindrance in spiritual life is that we wil look for big things to do. "Jesus took a towel. . . and began to wash the disciples' feet."

There are times when there is no il umination and no thril , but just the daily round, the common task. Routine is God's way of saving us between our times of inspiration. Do not expect God always to give you His thril ing minutes, but learn to live in the domain of drudgery by the power of God.

It is the "adding" that is difficult. We say we do not expect God to carry us to heaven on flowery beds of ease, and yet we act as if we did! The tiniest detail in which I obey has al the omnipotent power of the grace of God behind it. If I do my duty, not for duty's sake, but because I believe God is engineering my circumstances, then at the very point of my obedience the whole superb grace of God is mine through the Atonement.

June 16th.

WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF THIS?

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend.". . . "I have called you friends." John 15:13, 15

Jesus does not ask me to die for Him, but to lay down my life for Him. Peter said - "I wil lay down my life for Thy sake" and he meant it; his sense of the heroic was magnificent. It would be a bad thing to be incapable of making such a declaration as Peter made; the sense of our duty is only realized by our sense of the heroic. Has the Lord ever asked you - "Wilt thou lay down thy life for My sake?" It is far easier to die than to lay down the life day in and day out with the sense of the high cal ing. We are not made for brll iant moments, but we have to walk in the light of them in ordinary ways. There was only one brll iant moment in the life of Jesus, and that was on the Mount of Transfiguration; then He emptied Himself the second time of His glory, and came down into the demon-possessed val ey. For thirty-three years Jesus laid out His life to do the wil of His Father, and, John says, "we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." It is contrary to human nature to do it.

If I am a friend of Jesus, I have deliberately and careful у to lay down my life for Him. It is difficult, and thank God it is difficult. Salvation is easy because it cost God so much, but the manifestation of it in my life is difficult. God saves a man and endues him with the Holy Spirit, and then says in effect - "Now work it out, be loyal to Me, whilst the nature of things round about you would make you disloyal." "I have cal ed you friends." Stand loyal to your Friend, and remember that His honour is at stake in your bodily life.

June 17th.

THE UNCRITICAL TEMPER

"Judge not, that ye be not judged." Matthew 7:1

Jesus says regarding judging - Don't. The average Christian is the most penetratingly critical individual. Criticism is a part of the ordinary faculty of man; but in the spiritual domain nothing is accomplished by criticism. The effect of criticism is a dividing up of the powers of the one criticized; the Holy Ghost is the only One in the true position to criticize, He alone is able to show what is wrong without hurting and wounding. It is impossible to enter into communion with God when you are in a critical temper; it makes you hard and vindictive and cruel, and leaves you with the flattering unction that you are a superior person. Jesus says, as a disciple cultivate the uncritical temper. It is not done once and for al . Beware of anything that puts you in the superior person's place.

There is no getting away from the penetration of Jesus. If I see the mote in your eye, it means I have a beam in my own. Every wrong thing that I see in you, God locates in me. Every time I judge, I condemn myself (see Romans 2:17-20). Stop having a measuring rod for other people. There is always one fact more in every man's case about which we know nothing. The first thing God does is to give us a spiritual spring-cleaning; there is no possibility of pride left in a man after that. I have never met the man I could despair of after discerning what lies in me apart from the grace of God.

June 18th,

DON'T THINK NOW, TAKE THE ROAD

"And Peter. . . walked on the water to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid." Matthew 14:29-30

The wind was actual у boisterous, the waves were actual у high, but Peter did not see them at first. He did not reckon with them, he simply recognized his Lord and stepped out in recognition of Him, and walked on the water. Then he began to reckon with the actual things, and down he went instantly. Why could not our Lord have enabled him to walk at the bottom of the waves as wel as on the top of them? Neither could be done saving by recognition of the Lord Jesus.

We step right out on God over some things, then self-consideration enters in and down we go. If you are recognizing your Lord, you have no business with where He engineers your circumstances. The actual things are, but immediately you look at them you are overwhelmed, you cannot recognize Jesus, and the rebuke comes: "Wherefore didst thou doubt?" Let actual circumstances be what they may, keep recognizing Jesus, maintain complete reliance on Him.

If you debate for a second when God has spoken, it is al up. Never begin to say - "Wei , I wonder if He did speak?" Be reckless immediately, fling it al out on Him. You do not know when His voice wil come, but whenever the realization of God comes in the faintest way imaginable, recklessly abandon. It is only by abandon that you recognize Him. You wil only realize His voice more clearly by recklessness.

June 19th,

SERVICE OF PASSIONATE DEVOTION

"Lovest thou Me? . . . Feed My sheep." John 21:16

Jesus did not say - Make converts to your way of thinking, but look after My sheep, see that they get nourished in the knowledge of Me. We count as service what we do in the way of Christian work; Jesus Christ cal s service what we are to Him, not what we do for Him. Discipleship is based on devotion to Jesus Christ, not on adherence to a belief or a creed. "If any man come to Me and hate not . . . , he cannot be My disciple." There is no argument and no compulsion, but simply - If you would be My disciple, you must be devoted to Me. A man touched by the Spirit of God suddenly says - "Now I see Who Jesus is," and that is the source of devotion.

To-day we have substituted credal belief for personal belief, and that is why so many are devoted to causes and so few devoted to Jesus Christ. People do not want to be devoted to Jesus, but only to the cause He started. Jesus Christ is a source of deep offence to the educated mind of to-day that does not want Him in any other way than as a Comrade. Our Lord's first obedience was to the wil of His Father, not to the needs of men; the saving of men was the natural outcome of His obedience to the Father. If I am devoted to the cause of humanity only, I wil soon be exhausted and come to the place where my love wil falter; but if I love Jesus Christ personal у and passionately, I can serve humanity though men treat me as a door-mat. The secret of a disciple's life is devotion to Jesus Christ, and the characteristic of the life is its unobtrusiveness. It is like a com of wheat, which fal s into the ground and dies, but presently it wil spring up and alter the whole landscape (John 12:24).

June 20th,

HAVE YOU COME TO "WHEN" YET?

"Ariel the Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends." Job 42:10

The plaintive, self-centred, morbid kind of prayer, a dead-set that I want to be right, is never found in the New Testament. The fact that I am trying to be right with God is a sign that I am rebel ing against the Atonement. "Lord, I wil purify my heart if You wil answer my prayer; I wil walk rightly if You wil help me." I cannot make myself right with God, I cannot make my life perfect; I can only be right with God if I accept the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ as an absolute gift. Am I humble enough to accept it? I have to resign every kind of claim and cease from every effort, and leave myself entirely alone in His hands, and then begin to pour out in the priestly work of intercession. There is much prayer that arises from real disbelief in the Atonement. Jesus is not beginning to save us, He has saved us, the thing is done, and it is an insult to ask Him to do it.

If you are not getting the hundredfold more, not getting insight into God's word, then start praying for your friends, enter into the ministry of the interior. "The Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends." The real business of your life as a saved soul is intercessory prayer. Wherever God puts you in circumstances, pray immediately, pray that His Atonement may be realized in other lives as it has been in yours. Pray for your friends now; pray for those with whom you come in contact now.

June 21st.

THE MINISTRY OF THE INTERIOR

"But ye are ... a royal priesthood." 1 Peter 2:9

By what right do we become "a royal priesthood"? By the right of the Atonement. Are we prepared to leave ourselves resolutely alone and to launch out into the priestly work of prayer? The continual grubbing on the inside to see whether we are what we ought to be generates a self-centred, morbid type of Christianity, not the robust, simple life of the child of God. Until we get into a right relationship to God, it is a case of hanging on by the skin of our teeth, and we say - What a wonderful victory I have got. There is nothing indicative of the miracle of Redemption in that. Launch out in reckless belief that the Redemption is complete, and then bother no more about yourself, but begin to do as Jesus Christ said - pray for the friend who comes to you at midnight, pray for the saints, pray for al men. Pray on the realization that you are only perfect in Christ Jesus, not on this plea - "O Lord, I have done my best, please hear me."

How long is it going to take God to free us from the morbid habit of thinking about ourselves? We must get sick unto death of ourselves, until there is no longer any surprise at anything God can tel us about ourselves. We cannot touch the depths of meanness in ourselves. There is only one place where we are right, and that is in Christ Jesus. When we are there, then we have to pour out for al we are worth in this ministry of the interior.

June 22nd.

THE UNDEVIATING TEST

"For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." Matthew 7:2

This statement is not a haphazard guess, it is an eternal law of God. Whatever judgment you give, it is measured to you again. There is a difference between retaliation and retribution. Jesus says that the basis of life is retribution - "with what measure ye mete, it shal be measured to you again." If you have been shrewd in finding out the defects in others, remember that wil be exactly the measure given to you. Life serves back in the coin you pay. This law works from God's throne downwards (cf. Psalm 18:25-26).

Romans 2 applies it in a stil more definite way, and says that the one who criticizes another is guilty of the very same thing. God looks not only at the act, He looks at the possibility. We do not believe the statements of the Bible to begin with. For instance, do we believe this statement, that the things we criticize in others we are guilty of ourselves? The reason we see hypocrisy and fraud and unreality in others is because they are al in our own hearts. The great characteristic of a saint is humility - Yes, al those things and other evils would have been manifested in me but for the grace of God, therefore I have no right to judge.

Jesus says - "Judge not, that ye be not judged" if you do judge, it wil be measured to you exactly as you have judged. Who of us would dare to stand before God and say - "My God, judge me as I have judged my fel ow men?" We have judged our fel ow men as sinners; if God should judge us like that we would be in hel . God judges us through the marvel ous Atonement of Jesus Christ.

June 23rd.

ACQUAINTANCE WITH GRIEF

"A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." Isaiah 53:3

We are not acquainted with grief in the way in which Our Lord was acquainted with it; we endure it, we get through it, but we do not become intimate with it. At the beginning of life we do not reconcile ourselves to the fact of sin. We take a rational view of life and say that a man by control ing his instincts, and by educating himself, can produce a life which wil slowly evolve into the life of God. But as we go on, we find the presence of something which we have not taken into consideration, viz., sin, and it upsets al our calculations. Sin has made the basis of things wild and not rational. We have to recognize that sin is a fact, not a defect; sin is red-handed mutiny against God. Either God or sin must die in my life. The New Testament brings us right down to this one issue. If sin rules in me, God's life in me wil be kil ed; if God rules in me, sin in me wil be kil ed. There is no possible ultimate but that. The climax of sin is that it crucified Jesus Christ, and what was true in the history of God on earth wil be true in your history and in mine. In our mental outlook we have to reconcile ourselves to the fact of sin as the only explanation as to why Jesus Christ came, and as the explanation of the grief and sorrow in life.

June 24th,

RECONCILING ONE S SELF TO THE FACT OF SIN

This is your hour, and the power of darkness." Luke 22:53

It is not being reconciled to the fact of sin that produces al the disasters in life. You may talk about the nobility of human nature, but there is something in human nature which wil laugh in the face of every ideal you have. If you refuse to agree with the fact that there is vice and self-seeking, something downright spiteful and wrong in human beings, instead of reconciling yourself to it, when it strikes your life, you wil compromise with it and say it is of no use to battle against it. Have you made al owance for this hour and the power of darkness, or do you take a recognition of yourself that misses out sin? In your bodily relationships and friendships do you reconcile yourself to the fact of sin? If not, you wil be caught round the next comer and you wil compromise with it. If you reconcile yourself to the fact of sin, you wil realize the danger at once - Yes, I see what that would mean. The recognition of sin does not destroy the basis of friendship; it establishes a mutual regard for the fact that the basis of life is tragic. Always beware of an estimate of life which does not recognize the fact that there is sin.

Jesus Christ never trusted human nature, yet He was never cynical, never suspicious, because He trusted absolutely in what He could do for human nature. The pure man or woman, not the innocent, is the safeguarded man or woman. You are never safe with an innocent man or woman. Men and women have no business to be innocent; God demands that they be pure and virtuous. Innocence is the characteristic of a child; it is a blameworthy thing for a man or woman not to be reconciled to the fact of sin.

June 25th,

RECEIVING ONE S SELF IN THE FIRES OF SORROW

"What shall I say? Father, save me, from this hour? But for this cause came 1 unto this hour. Father, glorify Thy name." John 12:27-29 (R.V.) My attitude as a saint to sorrow and difficulty is not to ask that they may be prevented, but to ask that I may preserve the self God created me to be through every fire of sorrow. Our Lord received Himself in the fire of sorrow, He was saved not from the hour, but out of the hour.

We say that there ought to be no sorrow, but there is sorrow, and we have to receive ourselves in its fires. If we try and evade sorrow, refuse to lay our account with it, we are foolish. Sorrow is one of the biggest facts in life; it is no use saying sorrow ought not to be. Sin and sorrow and suffering are, and it is not for us to say that God has made a mistake in al owing them.

Sorrow bums up a great amount of shal owness, but it does not always make a man better. Suffering either gives me my self or it destroys my self. You cannot receive your self in success, you lose your head; you cannot receive your self in monotony, you grouse. The way to find yourself is in the fires of sorrow. Why it should be so is another matter, but that it is so is true in the Scriptures and in human experience. You always know the man who has been through the fires of sorrow and received himself, you are certain you can go to him in trouble and find that he has ample leisure for you. If a man has not been through the fires of sorrow, he is apt to be contemptuous, he has no time for you. If you receive yourself in the fires of sorrow, God wil make you nourishment for other people.

June 26th.

ALWAYS NOW

"We . . . beseech you that ye receive not the grace of God in vain." 2 Corinthians 6:1

The grace you had yesterday wil not do for to-day. Grace is the overflowing favour of God; you can always reckon it is there to draw upon. "In much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses" - that is where the test for patience comes. Are you failing the grace of God there? Are you saying -

Oh, wel, I won't count this time? It is not a question of praying and asking God to help you; it is taking the grace of God now. We make prayer the preparation for work, it is never that in the Bible. Prayer is the exercise of drawing on the grace of God. Don't say -1 wil endure this until I can get away and pray. Pray now; draw on the grace of God in the moment of need. Prayer is the most practical thing, it is not the reflex action of devotion. Prayer is the last thing in which we learn to draw on God's grace.

"In stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours" - in al these things manifest a drawing upon the grace of God that wil make you a marvel to yourself and to others. Draw now, not presently. The one word in the spiritual vocabulary is Now. Let circumstances bring you where they wil , keep drawing on the grace of God in every conceivable condition you may be in. One of the greatest proofs that you are drawing on the grace of God is that you can be humiliated without manifesting the slightest trace of anything but His grace.

"Having nothing ..." Never reserve anything. Pour out the best you have, and always be poor. Never be diplomatic and careful about the treasure God gives. This is poverty triumphant.

June 27th.

THE OVERSHADOWING PERSONAL DELIVERANCE

God promised Jeremiah that He would deliver him personal у - "Thy life wil I give unto thee for a prey." That is al God promises His children. Wherever God sends us, He wil guard our lives. Our personal property and possessions are a matter of indifference, we have to sit loosely to al those things; if we do not, there wil be panic and heartbreak and distress. That is the inwardness of the overshadowing of personal deliverance.

The Sermon on the Mount indicates that when we are on Jesus Christ's errands, there is no time to stand up for ourselves. Jesus says, in effect, Do not be bothered with whether you are being justly dealt with or not. To look for justice is a sign of deflection from devotion to Him. Never look for justice in this world, but never cease to give it. If we look for justice, we wil begin to grouse and to indulge in the discontent of self-pity - Why should I be treated like this? If we are devoted to Jesus Christ we have nothing to do with what we meet, whether it is just or unjust. Jesus says - Go steadily on with what I have told you to do and I wil guard your life. If you try to guard it yourself, you remove yourself from My deliverance. The most devout among us become atheistic in this connection; we do not believe God, we enthrone common sense and tack the name of God on to it. We do lean to our own understanding, instead of trusting God with al our hearts.

June 28th,

APPREHENDED BY GOD

"If that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended." Philippians 3:12

Never choose to be a worker; but when once God has put His cal on you, woe be to you if you turn to the right hand or to the left. We are not here to work for God because we have chosen to do so, but because God has apprehended us. There is never any thought of - "Oh, wel , I am not fitted for this." What you are to preach is determined by God, not by your own natural inclinations. Keep

your soul steadfastly related to God, and remember that you are cal ed not to bear testimony only, but to preach the gospel. Every Christian must testify, but when it comes to the cal to preach, there must be the agonizing grip of God's hand on you, your life is in the grip of God for that one thing. How many of us are held like that?

Never water down the word of God, preach it in its undiluted sternness; there must be unflinching loyalty to the word of God; but when you come to personal dealing with your fel ow men, remember who you are - not a special being made up in heaven, but a sinner saved by grace.

"I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do

June 29th,

DIRECTION OF DISCIPLINE

"And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell." Matthew 5:30

Jesus did not say that everyone must cut off the right hand, but - If your right hand offends you in your walk with Me, cut it off. There are many things that are perfectly legitimate, but if you are going to concentrate on God you cannot do them. Your right hand is one of the best things you have, but, says Jesus, if it hinders you in fol owing His precepts, cut it off. This line of discipline is the sternest one that ever struck mankind.

When God alters a man by regeneration, the characteristic of the life to begin with is that it is maimed. There are a hundred and one things you dare not do, things that to you and in the eyes of the world that knows you are as your right hand and your eye, and the unspiritual person says - Whatever is wrong in that? How absurd you are! There never has been a saint yet who did not have to live a maimed life to start with. But it is better to enter into life maimed and lovely in God's sight than to be lovely in man's sight and lame in God's. In the beginning Jesus Christ by His Spirit has to check you from doing a great many things that may be perfectly right for everyone else but not right for you. See that you do not use your limitations to criticize someone else.

It is a maimed life to begin with, but in v.48 Jesus gives the picture of a perfectly ful -orbed life - "Ye shal b & perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

June 30th,

DO IT NOW

"Agree with thine adversary quickly." Matthew 5:25

Jesus Christ is laying down this principle - Do what you know you must do, now, and do it quickly; if you do not, the inevitable process wil begin to work and you wil have to pay to the last farthing in pain and agony and distress. God's laws are unalterable; there is no escape from them. The teaching of Jesus goes straight to the way we are made up.

To see that my adversary gives me my rights is natural; but Jesus says that it is a matter of eternal and imperative importance to me that I pay my adversary what I owe him. From our Lord's standpoint it does not matter whether I am defrauded or not; what does matter is that I do not defraud. Am I insisting on my rights, or am I paying what I owe from Jesus Christ's standpoint?

Do the thing quickly, bring yourself to judgment now. In moral and spiritual matters, you must do it at once; if you do not, the inexorable process wil begin to work. God is determined to have His child as pure and clean and white as driven snow, and as long as there is disobedience in any point of His teaching, He wil prevent none of the working of His spirit. Our insistence in proving that we are right is nearly always an indication that there has been some point of disobedience. No wonder the Spirit so strongly urges to keep steadfastly in the light!

"Agree with thine adversary quickly." Have you suddenly turned a comer in any relationship and found that you had anger in your heart? Confess it quickly, quickly put it right before God, be reconciled to that one - do it now.

July 1st.

THE INEVITABLE PENALTY

"Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou have paid the uttermost farthing." Matthew 5:26

There is no heaven with a little comer of hel in it. God is determined to make you pure and holy and right; He wil not al ow you to escape for one moment from the scmtiny of the Holy Spirit. He urged you to come to judgment right away when He convicted you, but you did not; the inevitable process began to work and now you are in prison, and you wil only get out when you have paid the uttermost farthing. "Is this a God of mercy, and of love?" you say. Seen from God's side, it is a glorious ministry of love. God is going to bring you out pure and spotless and undefiled; but He wants you to recognize the disposition you were showing - the disposition of your right to yourself. The moment you are wil ing that God should alter your disposition, His recreating forces wil begin to work. The moment you realize God's purpose, which is to get you rightly related to Himself and then to your fel ow men, He wil tax the last limit of the universe to help you take the right road. Decide it now - "Yes, Lord, I will write that letter to-night"; "I will be reconciled to that man now."

These messages of Jesus Christ are for the wil and the conscience, not for the head. If you dispute the Sermon on the Mount with your head, you wil blunt the appeal to your heart.

"I wonder why I don't go on with God?" Are you paying your debts from God's standpoint? Do now what you wil have to do some day. Every moral cal has an "ought" behind it.

July 2nd.

THE CONDITIONS OF DISCIPLESHIP "If any man come to Me, and hate not... he cannot be My disciple." Luke 14:26, also 27, 33

If the closest relationships of life clash with the claims of Jesus Christ, He says it must be instant obedience to Himself. Discipleship means personal, passionate devotion to a Person, Our Lord Jesus Christ. There is a difference between devotion to a Person and devotion to principles or to a cause. Our Lord never proclaimed a cause; He proclaimed personal devotion to Himself. To be a disciple is to be a devoted love-slave of the Lord Jesus. Many of us who cal ourselves Christians are not devoted to Jesus Christ. No man on earth has this passionate love to the Lord Jesus unless the Holy Ghost has imparted it to him. We may admire Him, we may respect Him and reverence Him, but we cannot love Him. The only Lover of the Lord Jesus is the Holy Ghost, and He sheds abroad the very love of God in our hearts. Whenever the Holy Ghost sees a chance of glorifying Jesus, He wil take your heart, your nerves, your whole personality, and simply make you blaze and glow with devotion to Jesus Christ.

The Christian life is stamped by 'moral spontaneous originality,' consequently the disciple is open to the same charge that Jesus Christ was, viz., that of inconsistency. But Jesus Christ was always consistent to God, and the Christian must be consistent to the life of the Son of God in him, not consistent to hard and fast creeds. Men pour themselves into creeds, and God has to blast them out of their prejudices before they can become devoted to Jesus Christ.

July 3rd,

THE CONCENTRATION OF PERSONAL SIN

"Woe is me! for I am undone; because lam a man of unclean lips." Isaiah 6:5

When I get into the presence of God, I do not realize that I am a sinner in an indefinite sense; I realize the concentration of sin in a particular feature of my life. A man wil say easily - 'Oh, yes, I know I am a sinner'; but when he gets into the presence of God he cannot get off with that statement. The conviction is concentrated on -1 am this, or that, or the other. This is always the sign that a man or woman is in the presence of God. There is never any vague sense of sin, but the concentration of sin in some personal particular. God begins by convicting us of the one thing fixed on in the mind that is prompted by His Spirit; if we wil yield to His conviction on that point, He wil lead us down to the great disposition of sin underneath. That is the way God always deals with us when we are consciously in His presence.

This experience of the concentration of sin is true in the greatest and the least of saints as wel as in the greatest and the least of sinners. When a man is on the first rung of the ladder of experience, he may say -1 do not know where I have gone wrong; but the Spirit of God wil point out some particular definite thing. The effect of the vision of the holiness of the Lord on Isaiah was to bring home to him that he was a man of unclean lips. "And he laid it upon my mouth, and said Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged." The cleansing fire had to be applied where the sin had been concentrated.

July 4th,

ONE OF GOD S GREAT DON'TS

"Fret not thyself, it tendeth only to evil doing." Psalm 37:8 (R.V.) Fretting means getting out at elbows mental у or spiritual y. It is one thing to say "Fret not," but a very different thing to have such a disposition that you find yourself able not to fret. It sounds so easy to talk about "resting in the Lord" and "waiting patiently for Him" until the nest is upset - until we live, as so many are doing, in tumult and anguish, is it possible then to rest in the Lord? If this "don't" does not work there, it wil work nowhere. This "don't" must work in days of perplexity as wel as in days of peace, or it never wil work. And if it wil not work in your particular case, it wil not work in anyone else's case.

Resting in the Lord does not depend on external circumstances at al , but on your relationship to God Himself.

Fussing always ends in sin. We imagine that a little anxiety and worry are an indication of how real у wise we are; it is much more an indication of how real у wicked we are. Fretting springs from a determination to get our own way. Our Lord never worried and He was never anxious, because He was not

"out" to realize His own ideas; He was "out" to realize God's ideas. Fretting is wicked if you are a child of God.

Have you been bolstering up that stupid soul of yours with the idea that your circumstances are too much for God? Put al "supposing" on one side and dwel in the shadow of the Almighty. Deliberately tel God that you wil not fret about that thing. Al our fret and worry is caused by calculating without God.

July 5th,

DON'T CALCULATE WITHOUT GOD

"Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him; and He shall bring it to pass." Psalm 37:5

Don't calculate without God,

God seems to have a delightful way of upsetting the things we have calculated on without taking Him into account. We get into circumstances which were not chosen by God, and suddenly we find we have been calculating without God; He has not entered in as a living factor. The one thing that keeps us from the possibility of worrying is bringing God in as the greatest factor in al our calculations.

In our religion it is customary to put God first, but we are apt to think it is an impertinence to put Him first in the practical issues of our lives. If we imagine we have to put on our Sunday moods before we come near to God, we wil never come near Him. We must come as we are.

Don't calculate with the evil in view.

Does God real у mean us to take no account of the evil? "Love . . . taketh no account of the evil." Love is not ignorant of the existence of the evil, but it does not take it in as a calculating factor. Apart from God, we do reckon with evil; we calculate with it in view and work al our reasonings from that standpoint.

Don't calculate with the rainy day in view,

You cannot lay up for a rainy day if you are trusting Jesus Christ. Jesus said -"Let not your heart be troubled." God wil not keep your heart from being troubled. It is a command - "Let not..." Haul yourself up a hundred and one times a day in order to do it, until you get into the habit of putting God first and calculating with Him in view.

July 6th,

VISION AND REALITY

"And the parched ground shall become a pool." Isaiah 35:7

We always have visions, before a thing is made real. When we realize that although the vision is real, it is not real in us, then is the time that Satan comes in with his temptations, and we are apt to say it is no use to go on. Instead of the vision becoming real, there has come the val ey of humiliation.

"Life is not as idle ore,

But iron dug from central gloom,

And batter'd by the shocks of doom

To shape and use."

God gives us the vision, then He takes us down to the val ey to batter us into the shape of the vision, and it is in the val ey that so many of us faint and give way. Every vision wil be made real if we wil have patience. Think of the enormous leisure of God! He is never in a hurry. We are always in such a frantic hurry. In the light of the glory of the vision we go forth to do things, but the vision is not real in us yet; and God has to take us into the val ey, and put us through fires and floods to batter us into shape, until we get to the place where He can trust us with the veritable reality. Ever since we had the vision God has been at work, getting us into the shape of the ideal, and over and over again we escape from His hand and try to batter ourselves into our own shape.

The vision is not a castle in the air, but a vision of what God wants you to be. Let Him put you on His wheel and whirl you as He likes, and as sure as God is God and you are you, you wil turn out exactly in accordance with the vision. Don't lose heart in the process. If you have ever had the vision of God, you may try as you like to be satisfied on a lower level, but God wil never let you.

July 7th,

ALL NOBLE THINGS ARE DIFFICULT

"Enter ye in at the strait gate . . because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way. . ." Matthew 7:13-14

If we are going to live as disciples of Jesus, we have to remember that al noble things are difficult. The Christian life is gloriously difficult, but the difficulty of it does not make us faint and cave in, it rouses us up to overcome. Do we so appreciate the marvel ous salvation of Jesus Christ that we are our utmost for His highest?

God saves men by His sovereign grace through the Atonement of Jesus; He works in us to wil and to do of His good pleasure; but we have to work out that salvation in practical living. If once we start on the basis of His Redemption to do what He commands, we find that we can do it. If we fail, it is because we have not practised. The crisis wil reveal whether we have been practising or not. If we obey the Spirit of God and practise in our physical life what God has put in us by His Spirit, then when the crisis comes, we shal find that our own nature as wel as the grace of God wil stand by us.

Thank God He does give us difficult things to do! His salvation is a glad thing, but it is also a heroic, holy thing. It tests us for al we are worth. Jesus is bringing many "sons" unto glory, and God wil not shield us from the requirements of a son. God's grace turns out men and women with a strong family likeness to Jesus Christ, not milk sops. It takes a tremendous amount of discipline to live the noble life of a disciple of Jesus in actual things. It is always necessary to make an effort to be noble.

July 8th,

THE WILL TO LOYALTY

"Choose you this day whom ye will serve." Joshua 24:15

Wil is the whole man active. I cannot give up my wil, I must exercise it. I must will to obey, and I must will to receive God's Spirit. When God gives a vision of truth it is never a question of what He wil do, but of what we wil do. The Lord has been putting before us al some big propositions, and the best thing to do is to remember what you did when you were touched by God before - the time when you were saved, or first saw Jesus, or realized some truth. It was easy then to yield al egiance to God; recal those moments now as the Spirit of God brings before you some new proposition.

"Choose you this day whom ye wil serve." It is a deliberate calculation, not something into which you drift easily; and everything else is in abeyance until you decide. The proposition is between you and God; do not confer with flesh and blood about it. With every new proposition other people get more and more "out of it," that is where the strain comes. God al ows the opinion of His saints to matter to you, and yet you are brought more and more out of the certainty that others understand the step you are taking. You have no business to find out where God is leading, the only thing God wil explain to you is Himself.

Profess to Him - 'I wil be loyal.' Immediately you choose to be loyal to Jesus Christ, you are a witness against yourself. Don't consult other Christians, but profess before Him -1 wil serve Thee. Will to be loyal - and give other people credit for being loyal too.

July 9th,

THE GREAT PROBING "Ye cannot serve the Lord." Joshua 24:19

Have you the slightest reliance on anything other than God? Is there a remnant of reliance left on any natural virtue, any set of circumstances? Are you relying on yourself in any particular in this new proposition which God has put before you? That is what the probing means. It is quite true to say - "I cannot live a holy life," but you can decide to let Jesus Christ make you holy. "Ye cannot serve the Lord God"; but you can put yourself in the place where God's almighty power wil come through you. Are you sufficiently right with God to expect Him to manifest His wonderful life in you?

"Nay, but we wil serve the Lord." It is not an impulse, but a deliberate commitment. You say - But God can never have cal ed me to this, I am too unworthy, it can't mean me. It does mean you, and the weaker and feebler you are, the better. The one who has something to trust in is the last one to come anywhere near saying - "I wil serve the Lord."

We say - "If I real у could believe!" The point is - If I real у will believe. No wonder Jesus Christ lays such emphasis on the sin of unbelief. "And He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief." If we real у believed that God meant what He said - what should we be like! Dare I real у let God be to me al that He says He wil be?

July 10th,

THE SPIRITUAL SLUGGARD

"Let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works; not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together." Hebrews 10:24-25

We are al capable of being spiritual sluggards; we do not want to mix with the rough and tumble of life as it is, our one object is to secure retirement. The note struck in Hebrews 10 is that of provoking one another and of keeping together -both of which require initiative, the initiative of Christ-realization, not of selfrealization. To live a remote, retired, secluded life is the antipodes of spirituality as Jesus Christ taught it.

The test of our spirituality comes when we come up against injustice and meanness and ingratitude and turmoil, al of which have the tendency to make us spiritual sluggards. We want to use prayer and Bible reading for the purpose of retirement. We utilize God for the sake of getting peace and joy, that is, we do not want to realize Jesus Christ, but only our enjoyment of Him. This is the first step in the wrong direction. Al these things are effects and we try to make them causes.

"I think it meet," said Peter, "... to stir you up by putting you in remembrance." It is a most disturbing thing to be smitten in the ribs by some provoker of God, by someone who is ful of spiritual activity. Active work and spiritual activity are not the same thing. Active work may be the counterfeit of spiritual activity. The danger of spiritual sluggishness is that we do not wish to be stirred up, al we want to hear about is spiritual retirement. Jesus Christ never encourages the idea of retirement - "Go tel My brethren . ."

July 11th,

THE SPIRITUAL SAINT

"That I may know Him." Philippians 3:10

The initiative of the saint is not towards self-realization, but towards knowing Jesus Christ. The spiritual saint never believes circumstances to be haphazard, or thinks of his life as secular and sacred; he sees everything he is dumped down in as the means of securing the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

There is a reckless abandonment about him. The Holy Spirit is determined that we shal realize Jesus Christ in every domain of life, and He wil bring us back to the same point again and again until we do. Self-realization leads to the enthronement of work; whereas the saint enthrones Jesus Christ in his work. Whether it be eating or drinking or washing disciples feet, whatever it is, we have to take the initiative of realizing Jesus Christ in it. Every phase of our actual life has its counterpart in the life of Jesus. Our Lord realized His relationship to the Father even in the most menial work. "Jesus knowing . . . that He was come from God, and went to God . . . took a towel. . . and began to wash the disciples' feet."

The aim of the spiritual saint is "that I may know Him." Do I know Him where I am to-day? If not, I am failing Him. I am here not to realize myself, but to know Jesus. In Christian work the initiative is too often the realization that something has to be done and I must do it. That is never the attitude of the spiritual saint, his aim is to secure the realization of Jesus Christ in every set of circumstances he is in.

July 12th,

THE SPIRITUAL SOCIETY

"Till we all come . . unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." Ephesians 4:13

Rehabilitation means the putting back of the whole human race into the relationship God designed it to be in, and this is what Jesus Christ did in Redemption. The Church ceases to be a spiritual society when it is on the lookout for the development of its own organization. The rehabilitation of the human race on Jesus Christ's plan means the realization of Jesus Christ in corporate life as wel as in individual life. Jesus Christ sent apostles and teachers for this purpose - that the corporate Personality might be realized. We are not here to develop a spiritual life of our own, or to enjoy spiritual retirement; we are here so to realize Jesus Christ that the Body of Christ may be built up.

Am I building up the Body of Christ, or am I looking for my own personal development only? The essential thing is my personal relationship to Jesus Christ

- "That I may know Him." To fulfil God's design means entire abandonment to Him. Whenever I want things for myself, the relationship is distorted. It wil be a big humiliation to realize that I have not been concerned about realizing Jesus

Christ, but only about realizing what He has done for me.

"My goal is God Himself, not joy nor peace,

Nor even blessing, but Himself, my God."

Am I measuring my life by this standard or by anything less?

July 13th,

THE PRICE OF VISION

"In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord." Isaiah 6:1

Our soul's history with God is frequently the history of the "passing of the hero." Over and over again God has to remove our friends in order to bring Himself in their place, and that is where we faint and fail and get discouraged. Take it personal y: In the year that the one who stood to me for al that God was, died - I gave up everything? I became il ? I got disheartened? or - I saw the Lord?

My vision of God depends upon the state of my character. Character determines revelation. Before I can say "I saw also the Lord," there must be something corresponding to God in my character. Until I am bom again and begin to see the Kingdom of God, I see along the line of my prejudices only; I need the surgical operation of external events and an internal purification.

It must be God first, God second, and God third, until the life is faced steadily with God and no one else is of any account whatever. "In al the world there is none but thee, my God, there is none but thee." Keep paying the price. Let God see that you are wil ing to live up to the vision.

July 14th,

THE ACCOUNT WITH PERSECUTION

But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." Matthew 5:39, etc These verses reveal the humiliation of being a Christian. Natural y, if a man does not hit back, it is because he is a coward; but spiritual у if a man does not hit back, it is a manifestation of the Son of God in him. When you are insulted, you must not only not resent it, but make it an occasion to exhibit the Son of God. You cannot imitate the disposition of Jesus; it is either there or it is not. To the saint personal insult becomes the occasion of revealing the incredible sweetness of the Lord Jesus.

The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is not - Do your duty, but - Do what is not your duty. It is not your duty to go the second mile, to turn the other cheek, but Jesus says if we are His disciples we shal always do these things. There wil be no spirit of - "Oh, wel , I cannot do any more, I have been so misrepresented and misunderstood." Every time I insist upon my rights, I hurt the Son of God; whereas I can prevent Jesus from being hurt if I take the blow myself. That is the meaning of fil ing up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ. The disciple realizes that it is his Lord's honour that is at stake in his life, not his own honour.

Never look for right in the other man, but never cease to be right yourself. We are always looking for justice; the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is -

Never look for justice, but never cease to give it.

July 15th,

THE POINT OF SPIRITUAL HONOUR

"I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the barbarians." Romans 1:14

Paul was overwhelmed with the sense of his indebtedness to Jesus Christ, and he spent himself to express it. The great inspiration in Paul's life was his view of Jesus Christ as his spiritual creditor. Do I feel that sense of indebtedness to Christ in regard to every unsaved soul? The spiritual honour of my life as a saint is to fulfil my debt to Christ in relation to them. Every bit of my life that is of value I owe to the Redemption of Jesus Christ; am I doing anything to enable Him to bring His Redemption into actual manifestation in other lives? I can only do it as the Spirit of God works in me this sense of indebtedness.

I am not to be a superior person amongst men, but a bondslave of the Lord Jesus. "Ye are not your own." Paul sold himself to Jesus Christ. He says -1 am a debtor to everyone on the face of the earth because of the Gospel of Jesus; I am free to be an absolute slave only. That is the characteristic of the life when once this point of spiritual honour is realized. Quit praying about yourself and be spent for others as the bondslave of Jesus. That is the meaning of being made broken bread and poured out wine in reality.

July 16th,

THE NOTION OF DIVINE CONTROL

"How much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him ?" Matthew 7:11

Jesus is laying down rules of conduct for those who have His Spirit. By the simple argument of these verses He urges us to keep our minds fil ed with the notion of God's control behind everything, which means that the disciple must maintain an attitude of perfect trust and an eagerness to ask and to seek.

Notion your mind with the idea that God is there. If once the mind is notioned along that line, then when you are in difficulties it is as easy as breathing to remember - Why, my Father knows al about it! It is not an effort, it comes natural у when perplexities press. Before, you used to go to this person and that, but now the notion of the Divine control is forming so powerful у in you that you go to God about it. Jesus is laying down the rules of conduct for those who have His Spirit, and it works on this principle - God is my Father, He loves me, I shal never think of anything He wil forget, why should I worry?

There are times, says Jesus, when God cannot lift the darkness from you, but trust Him. God wil appear like an unkind friend, but He is not; He wil appear like an unnatural Father, but He is not; He wil appear like an unjust judge, but

He is not. Keep the notion of the mind of God behind al things strong and growing. Nothing happens in any particular unless God's wil is behind it, therefore you can rest in perfect confidence in Him. Prayer is not only asking, but an attitude of mind which produces the atmosphere in which asking is perfectly natural. "Ask, and it shal be given you."

July 17th,

THE MIRACLE OF BELIEF

"My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words." 1 Corinthians 2:1-5

Paul was a scholar and an orator of the first rank; he is not speaking out of abject humility; but saying that he would veil the power of God if, when he preached the gospel, he impressed people with his "excel ency of speech." Belief in Jesus is a miracle produced only by the efficacy of Redemption, not by impressiveness of speech, not by wooing and winning, but by the sheer unaided power of God. The creative power of the Redemption comes through the preaching of the Gospel, but never because of the personality of the preacher. The real fasting of the preacher is not from food, but rather from eloquence, from impressiveness and exquisite diction, from everything that might hinder the gospel of God being presented. The preacher is there as the representative of God - "as though God did beseech you by us." He is there to present the Gospel of God. If it is only because of my preaching that people desire to be better, they wil never get anywhere near Jesus Christ. Anything that flatters me in my preaching of the Gospel wil end in making me a traitor to Jesus; I prevent the creative power of His Redemption from doing its work.

"I, if I be lifted up ..., will draw all men unto Me."

July 18th,

THE MYSTERY OF BELIEVING 'And he said, Who art Thou, Lord?" Acts 9:6

By the miracle of Redemption Saul of Tarsus was turned in one second from a strong-wil ed, intense Pharisee into a humble, devoted slave of the Lord Jesus.

There is nothing miraculous about the things we can explain. We command what we are able to explain, consequently it is natural to seek to explain. It is not natural to obey; nor is it necessarily sinful to disobey. There is no moral virtue in obedience unless there is a recognition of a higher authority in the one who dictates. It is possibly an emancipation to the other person if he does not obey. If one man says to another - 'You must,' and - 'You shal ,' he breaks the human spirit and unfits it for God. A man is a slave for obeying unless behind his obedience there is a recognition of a holy God. Many a soul begins to come to God when he flings off being religious, because there is only one Master of the human heart, and that is not religion but Jesus Christ. But woe be to me if when I see Him I say -1 will not. He wil never insist that I do, but I have begun to sign the death warrant of the Son of God in my soul. When I stand face to face with Jesus Christ and say -1 wil not, He wil never insist; but I am backing away from the recreating power of His Redemption. It is a matter of indifference to God's grace how abominable I am if I come to the light; but woe be to me if I refuse the light (see John 3:19-21).

July 19th,

MASTERY OVER THE BELIEVER

"Ye call Me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am." John 13:13

Our Lord never insists on having authority; He never says - Thou shalt. He leaves us perfectly free - so free that we can spit in His face, as men did; so free that we can put Him to death, as men did; and He wil never say a word. But when His life has been created in me by His Redemption I instantly recognize His right to absolute authority over me. It is a moral domination - "Thou art worthy . . ." It is only the unworthy in me that refuses to bow down to the worthy. If when I meet a man who is more holy than myself, I do not recognize his worthiness and obey what comes through him, it is a revelation of the unworthy in me. God educates us by means of people who are a little better than we are, not intel ectual у but "holily," until we get under the domination of the Lord Himself, and then the whole attitude of the life is one of obedience to Him.

If Our Lord insisted upon obedience He would become a taskmaster, and He would cease to have any authority. He never insists on obedience, but when we do see Him we obey Him instantly, He is easily Lord, and we live in adoration of Him from morning til night. The revelation of my growth in grace is the way in which I look upon obedience. We have to rescue the word "obedience" from the mire. Obedience is only possible between equals; it is the relationship between father and son, not between master and servant. "I and My Father are one." "Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered." The Son's obedience was as Redeemer, because He was Son, not in order to be Son.

July 20th,

DEPENDENT ON GOD S PRESENCE

"They that wait upon the Lord. . . shall walk and not faint." Isaiah 40:31

There is no thril in walking; it is the test of al the stable qualities. To "walk and not faint" is the highest reach possible for strength. The word "walk" is used in the Bible to express the character - "John looking on Jesus as He walked, said, Behold the Lamb of God!" There is never any thing abstract in the Bible, it is always vivid and real. God does not say - Be spiritual, but - "Walk before Me."

When we are in an unhealthy state physical у or emotional y, we always want thril s. In the physical domain this wil lead to counterfeiting the Holy Ghost; in the emotional life it leads to inordinate affection and the destruction of morality; and in the spiritual domain if we insist on getting thril s, on mounting up with wings, it wil end in the destruction of spirituality.

The reality of God's presence is not dependent on any place, but only dependent upon the determination to set the Lord always before us. Our problems come when we refuse to bank on the reality of His presence. The experience the Psalmist speaks of - "Therefore wil we not fear, though ..." wil be ours when once we are based on Reality, not the consciousness of God's presence but the reality of it - Why, He has been here al the time!

At critical moments it is necessary to ask guidance, but it ought to be unnecessary to be saying always - "O Lord, direct me here, and there." Of course He wil ! If our common-sense decisions are not His order, He wil press through them and check; then we must be quiet and wait for the direction of His presence.

July 21st.

THE GATEWAY TO THE KINGDOM

"Blessed are the poor in spirit." Matthew 5:3

Beware of placing Our Lord as a Teacher first. If Jesus Christ is a Teacher only, then al He can do is to tantalize me by erecting a standard I can not attain. What is the use of presenting me with an ideal I cannot possibly come near? I am happier without knowing it. What is the good of tel ing me to be what I never can be - to be pure in heart, to do more than my duty, to be perfectly devoted to God? I must know Jesus Christ as Saviour before His teaching has any meaning for me other than that of an ideal which leads to despair. But when I am bom again of the Spirit of God, I know that Jesus Christ did not come to teach only: He came to make me what He teaches I should be. The Redemption means that Jesus Christ can put into any man the disposition that mled His own life, and al the standards God gives are based on that disposition.

The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount produces despair in the natural man -the very thing Jesus means it to do. As long as we have a self-righteous, conceited notion that we can carry out Our Lord's teaching, God wil al ow us to go on until we break our ignorance over some obstacle, then we are wil ing to come to Him as paupers and receive from Him. "Blessed are the paupers in spirit," that is the first principle in the Kingdom of God. The bedrock in Jesus Christ's kingdom is poverty, not possession; not decisions for Jesus Christ, but a sense of absolute futility -1 cannot begin to do it. Then Jesus says - Blessed are you. That is the entrance, and it does take us a long while to believe we are poor! The knowledge of our own poverty brings us to the moral frontier where Jesus Christ works.

July 22nd.

SANCTIFICATION

"This is the will of God, even your sanctification." 1 Thessalonians 4:3

The Death Side. In sanctification God has to deal with us on the death side as wel as on the life side. Many of us spend so much time in the place of death that we get sepulchral. There is always a battle royal before sanctification, always something that tugs with resentment against the demands of Jesus Christ. Immediately the Spirit of God begins to show us what sanctification means, the straggle begins. "If any man come to Me and hate not. . his own life, he cannot be My disciple."

The Spirit of God in the process of sanctification wil strip me until I am nothing but "myself," that is the place of death. Am I wil ing to be "myself," and nothing more - no friends, no father, no brother, no self-interest - simply ready for death? That is the condition of sanctification. No wonder Jesus said: "I came not to send peace, but a sword." This is where the battle comes, and where so many of us faint. We refuse to be identified with the death of Jesus on this point. "But it is so stem," we say; "He cannot wish me to do that." Our Lord is stem; and He does wish us to do that.

Am I wil ing to reduce myself simply to "me," determinedly to strip myself of al my friends think of me, of al I think of myself, and to hand that simple naked self over to God? Immediately I am, He wil sanctify me whol y, and my life wil be free from earnestness in connection with every thing but God.

When I pray - "Lord, show me what sanctification means for me," He wil show me. It means being made one with Jesus. Sanctification is not something Jesus Christ puts into me: it is Himself in me. (1 Cor. 1:30.)

July 23rd.

SANCTIFICATION

"Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us .. . sanctification." 1 Corinthians 1:30

The Life Side. The mystery of sanctification is that the perfections of Jesus Christ are imparted to me, not gradual y, but instantly when by faith I enter into the realization that Jesus Christ is made unto me sanctification. Sanctification does not mean anything less than the holiness of Jesus being made mine manifestly.

The one marvel ous secret of a holy life lies not in imitating Jesus, but in letting the perfections of Jesus manifest themselves in my mortal flesh.

Sanctification is "Christ in you." It is His wonderful life that is imparted to me in sanctification, and imparted by faith as a sovereign gift of God's grace. Am I wil ing for God to make sanctification as real in me as it is in His word?

Sanctification means the impartation of the Holy qualities of Jesus Christ. It is His patience, His love, His holiness, His faith, His purity, His godliness, that is manifested in and through every sanctified soul. Sanctification is not drawing from Jesus the power to be holy; it is drawing from Jesus the holiness that was manifested in Him, and He manifests it in me. Sanctification is an impartation, not an imitation. Imitation is on a different line. In Jesus Christ is the perfection of everything, and the mystery of sanctification is that al the perfections of Jesus are at my disposal, and slowly and surely I begin to live a life of ineffable order and sanity and holiness: "Kept by the power of God."

July 24th.

DISPOSITION AND DEEDS

"Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven."

Matthew 5:20

The characteristic of a disciple is not that he does good things, but that he is good in motive because he has been made good by the super-natural grace of God. The only thing that exceeds right -doing is right -being. Jesus Christ came to put into any man who would let Him a new heredity which would exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. Jesus says - If you are My disciple you must be right not only in your living, but in your motives, in your dreams, in the recesses of your mind. You must be so pure in your motives that God Almighty can see nothing to censure. Who can stand in the Eternal Light of God and have nothing for God to censure? Only the Son of God, and Jesus Christ claims that by His Redemption He can put into any man His own disposition, and make him as unsul ied and as simple as a child. The purity which God demands is impossible unless I can be remade within, and that is what Jesus has undertaken to do by His Redemption.

No man can make himself pure by obeying laws. Jesus Christ does not give us rules and regulations; His teachings are truths that can only be interpreted by the disposition He puts in. The great marvel of Jesus Christ's salvation is that He alters heredity. He does not alter human nature; He alters its mainspring.

July 25th,

AM I BLESSED LIKE THIS?

Blessed are ..." Matthew 5:3-10

When we first read the statements of Jesus they seem wonderful у simple and unstartling, and they sink unobserved into our unconscious minds. For instance, the Beatitudes seem merely mild and beautiful precepts for al unworldly and useless people, but of very little practical use in the stem workaday world in which we live. We soon find, however, that the Beatitudes contain the dynamite of the Holy Ghost. They explode, as it were, when the circumstances of our lives cause them to do so. When the Holy Spirit brings to our remembrance one of these Beatitudes we say - 'What a startling statement that is!' and we have to decide whether we wil accept the tremendous spiritual upheaval that wil be produced in our circumstances if we obey His words. That is the way the Spirit of God works. We do not need to be bom again to apply the Sermon on the Mount literal y. The literal interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount is child's play; the interpretation by the Spirit of God as He applies Our Lord's statements to our circumstances is the stem work of a saint.

The teaching of Jesus is out of al proportion to our natural way of looking at things and it comes with astonishing discomfort to begin with. We have slowly to form our walk and conversation on the line of the precepts of Jesus Christ as the Holy Spirit applies them to our circumstances. The Sermon on the Mount is not a set of mles and regulations: it is a statement of the life we wil live when the Holy Spirit is getting His way with us.

July 26th.

THE ACCOUNT WITH PURITY

"Out of the heart proceed..." Matthew 15:18-20

We begin by trusting our ignorance and cal ing it innocence, by trusting our innocence and cal ing it purity; and when we hear these mgged statements of Our Lord's, we shrink and say - But I never felt any of those awful things in my heart. We resent what Jesus Christ reveals. Either Jesus Christ is the supreme Authority on the human heart, or He is not worth paying any attention to. Am I prepared to trust His penetration, or do I prefer to trust my innocent ignorance? If I make conscious innocence the test, I am likely to come to a place where I find with a shuddering awakening that what Jesus Christ said is true, and I shal be appal ed at the possibility of evil and wrong in me. As long as I remain under the refuge of innocence I am living in a fool's paradise. If I have never been a blackguard, the reason is a mixture of cowardice and the protection of civilized life; but when I am undressed before God, I find that Jesus Christ is right in His diagnosis.

The only thing that safeguards is the Redemption of Jesus Christ. If I wil hand myself over to Him, I need never experience the terrible possibilities that are in my heart. Purity is too deep down for me to get to natural y: but when the Holy Spirit comes in, He brings into the centre of my personal life the very Spirit that was manifested in the life of Jesus Christ, viz., Holy Spirit, which is unsul ied purity.

July 27th,

THE WAY TO KNOW

"If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine ..." John 7:17

The golden rule for understanding spiritual у is not intel ect, but obedience. If a man wants scientific knowledge, intel ectual curiosity is his guide; but if he wants insight into what Jesus Christ teaches, he can only get it by obedience. If things are dark to me, then I may be sure there is something I wil not do.

Intel ectual darkness comes through ignorance; spiritual darkness comes because of something I do not intend to obey.

No man ever receives a word from God without instantly being put to the test over it. We disobey and then wonder why we don't go on spiritual y. 'If when you come to the altar,' said Jesus, 'there you remember your brother hath ought against you . . . don't say another word to Me, but first go and put that thing right.' The teaching of Jesus hits us where we live. We cannot stand as humbugs before Him for one second. He educates us down to the scruple. The Spirit of God unearths the spirit of self-vindication; He makes us sensitive to things we never thought of before.

When Jesus brings a thing home by His word, don't shirk it. If you do, you wil become a religious humbug. Watch the things you shrug your shoulders over, and you wil know why you do not go on spiritual y. First go - at the risk of being thought fanatical you must obey what God tel s you.

July 28th,

AFTER OBEDIENCE - WHAT?

And straightway He constrained His disciples to get into the ship, and to go to the other side. ..." Mark 6:45-52

We are apt to imagine that if Jesus Christ constrains us, and we obey Him, He wil lead us to great success. We must never put our dreams of success as God's purpose for us; His purpose may be exactly the opposite. We have an idea that God is leading us to a particular end, a desired goal; He is not. The question of getting to a particular end is a mere incident. What we cal the process, God cal s the end.

What is my dream of God's purpose? His purpose is that I depend on Him and on His power now. If I can stay in the middle of the turmoil calm and unperplexed, that is the end of the purpose of God. God is not working towards a particular finish; His end is the process - that I see Him walking on the waves, no shore in sight, no success, no goal, just the absolute certainty that it is al right because I see Him walking on the sea. It is the process, not the end, which is glorifying to God.

God's training is for now, not presently. His purpose is for this minute, not for something in the future. We have nothing to do with the afterwards of obedience; we get wrong when we think of the afterwards. What men cal training and preparation, God cal s the end.

God's end is to enable me to see that He can walk on the chaos of my life just now. If we have a further end in view, we do not pay sufficient attention to the immediate present: if we realize that obedience is the end, then each moment as it comes is precious.

July 29th,