Get a Move On!
Get a Move On!
And beside this, giving all diligence, add . . . 2 Peter 1:5
We are made partakers of the Divine nature through the promises (see v. 4), now, says Peter, “giving all diligence, add . . . ,” screw your attention down and form habits. No one is born with habit, we have to form habit, and the habits we form most easily are those which we form by imitation. 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 that is only a stage; if we stop there we get the strut of the spiritual prig.
1. In the Domain of Drudgery
Jesus . . . took a towel . . . , and began to wash the disciples’ feet. (John 13:3-5)
Are we refusing to enter the domain of drudgery? Drudgery is the touchstone of character. It is a “drudging” thing to be virtuous. Necessity is not virtue; virtue can only be the outcome of conflict. The virtuous man or woman is like one who has gone through the fight and has added virtue, added it on the basis of the Divine nature, not on the basis of human determination.
The greatest hindrance of our spiritual life lies in looking for big things to do; Jesus Christ “took a towel. . . .” We are not meant to be illuminated versions; we are meant to be the common stuff of ordinary human life exhibiting the marvel of the grace of God. The snare in Christian life is in looking for the gilt-edged moments, the thrilling times; there are times when there is no illumination and no thrill, when God’s angel is the routine of drudgery on the level of towels and washing feet. Are we prepared to “get a move on” there? Routine is God’s way of saving us between our times of inspiration. We are not to expect Him to give us His thrilling minutes always.
2. In the Domain of Determination
Abide in Me. (John 15:4)
The secret of bringing forth fruit is to abide in Jesus. “Abide in Me,” says Jesus, in spiritual matters, in intellectual matters, in money matters, in every one of the matters that make human life what it is. Beware of putting on your religious “blinkers”—“I can live finely in this type of meeting, or with that particular set.” The Christian life is not a bandbox life. We must live where we can be tested by the whole of life. Are we preventing God from doing things in our circumstances because we imagine it will hinder our communion with Him? That is impertinence. No matter what our circumstances are, we can be as sure of abiding in Him in them as in a prayer meeting. We are not to be changing and arranging our circumstances ourselves. Our Lord and Master never chose His own circumstances, He was meek towards His Father’s dispensation for Him; He was at home with His Father wherever His body was placed. Think of the amazing leisure of Our Lord’s life! For thirty years He did nothing. We keep God at excitement point, there is none of the serenity of the life “hid with Christ in God” about us.
“Abide in Me.” Think of the things that might take you out of abiding in Christ—“Yes, Lord, I will abide when once I can get this finished; I will abide, but I must do this first; when this week is over, I shall be all right.” Get a move on! Begin to abide now! In the initial stage abiding is a continual effort until it becomes so much of the law of our lives that we abide in Him unconsciously. Watch it in your bodily life, in your social life-are you abiding there? are you bringing forth fruit there? That is where My Father is glorified, says Jesus.
Are our minds stayed on Jesus? Do we brood and dwell on this line of abiding in Him? It takes the breathless panic out of us. Our Lord was never in a panic because with Him the abiding on the inside was unsullied. It is the “plague of flies,” mental, moral and spiritual, that annoy us and take us out of abiding in Jesus. There is something in human pride that can stand big troubles, but we need the supernatural grace and power of God to stand by us in the little things.
The tiniest detail in which we obey has all the omnipotent power of the grace of God behind it. When we do our duty, not for duty’s sake, but because we believe that God is engineering our circumstances in that way, then at the very point of our obedience the whole superb grace of God is ours. It is the “adding” that is difficult. We say we do not expect God to carry us to heaven on “flowery beds of ease,” but we act as if we did!
We have to live in the domain of drudgery by the power of God, and to learn to abide in Him where we are placed. Remember that God gives us the Spirit of Jesus, but He does not give us the mind of Jesus; we have to form the mind of Christ. The Spirit of Jesus is given to us by the marvel of the Atonement, then we have to construct with patience that way of thinking which is exactly in accordance with the mind of our Lord. God will not make us think as Jesus thought, we have to do that ourselves, to bring “into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” Peter’s counsel to “add,” means to form habits on the basis of the new life which God has put in.
3. In the Domain of Devotion
Ye are My friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. (John 15:14)
God created man to be His friend. If we are the friends of Jesus we have deliberately and carefully to lay down our life for Him. It is difficult, and thank God it is! When once the relationship of being the friends of Jesus is understood, we shall be called upon to exhibit to everyone we meet the love He has shown to us. Watch the kind of people God brings across your path, you will find it is His way of picturing to you the kind of person you have been to Him.—“You are My child, the friend of My Son, now exhibit to that ‘hedgehoggy’ person the love I exhibited to you when you were like that towards Me; exhibit to that mean, selfish person exactly the love I showed you when you were mean and selfish.” We shall find ample room to eat “humble pie” all the days of our life. The thing that keeps us going is to recognise the humour of our heavenly Father in it all, and we shall meet the disagreeable person with a spiritual chuckle because we know what God is doing, He is giving us a mirror that we may see what we have been like towards Him; now we have the chance to prove ourselves His friends, and the other person will be amazed and say—“Why the more I poke her, the sweeter she gets!” and will tumble in where we tumbled in, into the grace of God.