September
September / 153 | defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand."
In the face of such faith as this, what could even a giant do?
_ Every word of David's triumphant shout of victory was fulfilled; __ and the mighty enemy was delivered into the hands of the youth
| he had disdained.
O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;/ his steadfast love endures forever! (Ps 118:1) Thanksgiving or complaining—these words express two contrasting attitudes of the souls of God's children regarding his dealings with them; and they are more powerful than we are inclined to believe, in furthering or frustrating his purposes of comfort and peace towards us. The soul that gives thanks can find comfort in everything; the soul that complains can find comfort in nothing.
Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (1 Thes 5:18) God's command is to give thanks in all circumstances. It is an actual and positive command; and if we want to obey God, we have simply got to give thanks in everything. There is no getting around it.
A great many Christians have never realized this. Although they may be familiar with the command, they have always looked upon it as a sort of counsel of perfection, to which mere flesh and blood could never be expected to attain. Unconsciously, perhaps, they change the wording of the passage and substitute "be resigned" for "give thanks." Instead of "all circumstances," they substitute "a few circumstances." And they entirely leave out the words "for this is the will of God in Christ
Jesus for you."
If brought face to face with the actual wording of the command, such Christians will say, "Oh, but it is an impossible command. If everything came directly from God, one might be able to do it, but most things come through human sources, and
154 / Daily He Leads Me often are the result of sin." To this I answer that it is true that we cannot always give thanks for the things themselves, but we can always give thanks for God's love and care in the circumstances.
He may not have ordered them, but he is in them somewhere, and he is in them to work out even the most grievous situation for our good.
I give thee thanks, O Lord, with my whole heart; before the gods I sing thy praise. (Ps 138:1) It is evident from the whole teaching of scripture that the Lord loves to be thanked and praised just as much as we do. lam sure that it gives him real downright pleasure, just as it does us and that our failure to thank him for his gifts wounds his loving heart, just as our hearts are wounded when our loved ones fail to appreciate the benefits we have so enjoyed bestowing upon them. What a joy it is to receive from our friends an acknowledgment of their thanksgiving for our gifts, and is it not likely that it is a joy to the Lord also?
As therefore you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so live in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
(Col 2:6-7) Even when we realize that things come directly from God, we find it very hard to give thanks for what hurts us. Do we not, however, all know what it is to thank a skillful physician for his treatment of our diseases, even though that treatment may have been very severe? Surely we should no less give thanks to our
Divine Physician, when he is obliged to give us bitter medicine to cure our spiritual diseases, or to perform a painful operation to rid us of something that harms.
Rather than thanking him we complain against him; although we generally direct our complaints, not against the Divine Physician himself, who has ordered our medicine, but
September / 155 _ against the "bottle" in which he has sent it. This "bottle" is usually some human being whose unkindness, carelessness, neglect, or cruelty has caused our suffering, but who has been after all only the instrument or "second cause" that God has used for our healing.
The people murmured against Moses, saying, "What shall we drink?" (Ex 15:24) When the children of Israel found themselves wandering in the wilderness, they complained that Moses had brought them there to kill them with hunger and thirst. But in reality their complaining was against God, for God was really the one who had brought them out of Egypt, not Moses. He was only a "second cause."
We may think, as the Israelites did, that our discomforts and deprivations have come from human hands only, and may therefore feel at liberty to "murmur against" these second causes. But God is the great Cause behind all second causes. The second causes are only the instruments that he uses; and when we murmur against these, we are really murmuring, not against the instruments, but against God himself. Second causes are powerless to act, except by God's permission; and what he permits becomes really his arranging. At bottom, all complaining means just this, that we do not believe in God and do not trust in his salvation.
I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;/1 will complain in the bitterness of my soul. (Jb 7:11) Job was a great complainer, and we may think, as we read his story, that he had excellent reason to complain. His circumstances seemed to be full of hopeless misery. We can hardly wonder at Job's complaint. And yet, could he but have seen the divine side of all his troubles, he would have known that they were permitted in the tenderest love and were to bring him a
156 / Daily He Leads Me revelation of God such as he could have had by no other means.
Could he have seen that this was to be the outcome, he would not have uttered a single complaint, but would have given triumphant thanks for the trials which were to bring him such glorious blessing. And could \ we but see, in our heaviest trials, the end from the beginning, I am sure that thanksgiving would take the place of complaining in every case.
I Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and thou didst hear my voice. ...1 with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to thee; what I have vowed will pay. Deliverance belongs to the Lord! (Jon 2:2, 9) Jonah was a wonderful illustration of this. His prayer of thanksgiving out of the belly of hell is a tremendous lesson.
No depth of misery is too great for the sacrifice of thanksgiving. We cannot, it is true, give thanks for the misery, but we can givé thanks to the Lord in the misery, just as Jonah did. No matter what our trouble, the Lord is in it somewhere; and, of course, being there, he is there to help and bless us. Therefore, when our "souls faint within us" because of our troubles, we have only to remember this, and to thank him for his presence and his love. ji Good and upright is the Lord; / therefore he instructs sinners in the way. / He leads the humble in what is right, / and teaches the humble his way. (Ps 25:8-9)
Jt.is not because things are good that we are to thank the Lord, but because he is good. We are not wise enough to judge things, to know whether they are really, in their essence, joys or sorrows; but we always k know that the Lord is good, and that his goodness makes it absolutely certain that everything he provides or permits, must be good; and must therefore be something for which we would be heartily thankful, if only we could see it with his eyes.
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September / 157 | I Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his ! courts with praise! / Give thanks to him, bless his name! (Ps 100:4) We are commanded to enter into God's gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise, and I am convinced that the giving of thanks is the key that opens these gates more quickly than anything else. Try it. The next time you feel dead, cold, and low-spirited, begin to praise and thank the Lord.
Enumerate to yourself the benefits he has bestowed upon you, and thank him heartily for each one, and see if your spirits do not begin to rise and your heart get warmed up.
Sometimes, you may feel too disheartened to pray; then try giving thanks instead. Before you know it, you will find yourself glad and thankful for all God's loving-kindness and his tender mercies.
I And when the priests came out of the holy place, a cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord. (1 Kgs 8: 10-11)
It is striking to notice how much thanksgiving had to do with the building of the Temple. When they had collected the treasures for the Temple, David gave thanks to the Lord for enabling them to do it. When the Temple was finished, the people gave thanks again. Then a wonderful thing happened— the glory of the Lord filled the Temple. When the people praised and gave thanks, then the house was filled with the glory of the Lord. We may be sure that the reason our hearts are not more often filled with the "glory of the Lord," is because we do not raise our voices often enough in praise and thanksgiving.
I For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren. (Rom 8:29)
158 / Daily He Leads Me God's ultimate purpose in our creation was that we should finally be "conformed to the image of his Son." Christ was to be the first-born among many brethren, and his brethren were to be like him. All the discipline and training of our lives has this end in view; and God has implanted in every human heart a longing, however unformed and unexpressed, after the best and highest it knows.
When God said in the beginning, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,' we cannot for a moment suppose that he meant we were to be made in the image and likeness of his body. He must have meant that we were to be made in the image and likeness of his nature and character. Neither could he have meant that we were to be created full-fledged in this image, but that we were to be begun, as all adult life is begun, in helpless and ignorant infancy. God knows what we will become just as an architect knows what his building will become, when as yet only the foundation has been laid.
Ji Weare God's children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. (1 Jn 3:2)
Christ is the pattern of what each one of us is to be when finished. We are to be filled with the Spirit of Christ; we are to share his resurrection life and to walk as he walked. We are to be one with him as he is one with the Father; and the glory God gave to him, he is to give to us. When all this is brought to pass, then, and not until then, will God's purpose in our creation be fully accomplished.
Our likeness to Christ is an accomplished fact in the mind of God, but we are, so to speak, still being manufactured, and the great Master Workman is at work upon us.
"I And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another. (2 Cor 3:18)
September / 159 In order to be laborers together with God, we must not only build with his materials, but also according to his processes, and of these we are often quite ignorant. Our idea of building is of hard laborious work, done by the sweat of our brow; but God's idea is far different. Paul tells us what it is. Our work is to "behold the glory of the Lord," and, as we behold, the Lord effects the marvelous transformation, and we are changed into his likeness. This means, of course, to behold, not in the earthly sense of merely looking at a thing, but in the divine sense of really seeing the thing. We are to behold with our spiritual eyes the glory of the Lord and are to continue beholding it. The glory of the Lord does not consist, however, of a great shiny halo. The real glory of the Lord is the glory of what he is and what he does, the glory of character. This is what we are to behold.
7, Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old nature with its practices and have put on the new nature, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. (Col 3:9) Sin must disappear when Christ comes in, and no soul that is not prepared to surrender all that is contrary to God's will, can hope to welcome him. The "old nature" must be put off if the new nature is to reign. But both the putting off and the putting on must be done by faith. There is no other way. We must move our personality, our ego, our will, out of self and into Christ. We must count ourselves to be dead to self and alive only to God.
The same kind of faith which brings the forgiveness of sins within our grasp, brings also this union with Christ. To those who do not understand the law of faith, this will no doubt be as great a mystery as the secrets of gravitation were before the law of gravitation was discovered. But, to those who understand it, the law of faith works as unerringly and as definitely as the law of gravitation. No one can read the seventh chapter of Hebrews and fail to see that faith is an all-conquering force. I believe myself it is the creative force of the universe. It is the higher law that controls all the lower laws beneath it. What looks like a miracle is simply the working of this higher controlling law.
160 / Daily He Leads Me I 8 If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, "Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you. (Mt 17:20-21)
Faith, we are told, calls those things which are not as though they were, and, in so calling them, brings them into being.
Therefore, although we cannot see any tangible sign of change when by faith we put off the old man, which is corrupt, and by faith put on the new man, we really are transformed, and faith has accomplished it. I cannot explain this theologically, but I can fearlessly assert that it is a tremendous practical reality; and that those souls who abandon the self-life and give themselves up to the Lord to be fully possessed by him, do find that he takes possession of the inner springs of their being and works there to will and to do his good pleasure.
I You show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living
God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
(2 Cor 3:3) Paul says we are to be "letters of Christ," known and read by all men. If every child of God would begin from this day on to be a "letter of Christ," living a truly Christlike life at home and abroad, it would not be a month before the churches would be overflowing with people who wanted to know what power could so transform human nature into something divine.
The world is full of unbelievers, and nothing will convince them but facts which they cannot disprove. We must meet them with transformed lives. If they see that we were once cross and now kind, once proud and now humble, once fretful and now patient and calm, and if we are able to testify that it is faith in Christ that has accomplished this change, they will not help but be impressed. iy You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. (Acts 1:8)
September / 161 A cross Christian, an anxious one, a discouraged and gloomy Christian, a doubting Christian, a complaining Christian, an exacting Christian, a selfish, cruel, hard-hearted Christian, a self-indulgent Christian, a Christian, in short, who is not Christlike, may preach to the winds with as much hope of success, as to preach to his own family or friends, who see him as he is. There is no escape from this inevitable law of things, and we may as well recognize it at once. If we want our loved ones to trust the Lord, volumes of talk about it will not be of any help unless we display a little real trust on our own part. The longest prayer and the loudest preaching are of no avail in any family circle, however they may do in the pulpit, unless the preacher lives out the things preached. ad | You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly
Father is perfect. (Mt 5:48) It was no mere figure of speech when our Lord, in that wonderful Sermon on the Mount, said these words to his disciples. He meant, of course, according to our measure, but he meant that we were real rmed to his image. It is to een removed from the image of Christ for such a transformation to be possible, we must remember that our Maker is not done with us yet. The day will come, if we do not hinder it, when the work begun in Genesis shall be finished in Revelation, and the whole creation shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption. We will enter into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
Ds In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soul. (Ps 94:19, KJV)
With the psalmist, we must allow God's comfort to delight us.
But I am afraid that among the multitude of our thoughts within us, there are far too often many more thoughts of our own
162 / Daily He Leads Me discomforts than of God's comforts. We must think of his comforts if we are to be comforted by them. It might be a good exercise of soul for some of us to analyze our thoughts for a few days and see how many thoughts we actually do give to God's comforts, compared to the the number we give to our own discomforts. I think the result would amaze us!
Ds Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations. (Eph 3:20-21) Discomfort and unrest in the spiritual life arise from strenuous but useless efforts to get up some satisfactory basis of confidence within ourselves. The self looks for the "right kind of feelings," or the right amount of fervor or earnestness, or at least a sufficient degree of interest in spiritual matters. Because none of these things are ever satisfactory (and never will be}, it is impossible for the spiritual life to be anything but uncomfortable.
If we recognize that all our salvation, from beginning to end, depends on the Lord alone; and if we have learned that he is able and willing to do for us "more abundantly than all we ask or think," then peace and comfort cannot fail to reign supreme.
Everything depends upon whether the Lord, in and of himself, is enough for our salvation, or whether we think other things must be added to make him sufficient.
9) Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns.
(Rv 19:6) Some years ago I was passing through a great deal of questioning and perplexity in my spiritual life. Someone advised me to pay a visit to a particular woman who was thought to be a deeply spiritual Christian. 1 summoned up my courage and went to see her and poured out my troubles. I expected her to take a deep interest in me and to take great pains
September / 163 _ todoall she could to help me. She listened patiently enough and did not interrupt me. But when I had finished my story and had paused, expecting sympathy and consideration, she simply said,
"Yes, all you say may be very true, but then, in spite of it all, there is God." I waited a few minutes for something more, but nothing came. "But," I continued, "surely you don't understand how very serious and perplexing my difficulties are." "Oh yes, I do,' she replied, "but then, as I tell you, there is God."
Her answer seemed to me most disappointing and unsatisfactory. I felt that my experiences could not be met by anything so simple as the statement, "Yes, but there is God." However, my need was so great that I went to her again and again, always with the hope that she would begin to understand the importance of my difficulties and would give me more help. It was of no avail. I was never able to draw forth any other answer. Always to everything would come the simple reply, "Yes, I know, but there is God." At last, I became convinced that my friend really and truly believed that the mere fact of the existence of God, as Creator and Redeemer, was an all-sufficient answer to every possible need of his creatures. Because she said it so often and seemed so sure, I began dimly to wonder whether after all God might be enough, even for my need. From wondering I came gradually to believing, and at last a conviction burst upon me that he really was enough, and my eyes were opened to the fact of the absolute and utter all-sufficiency of God.
2 5 For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world of life or death or the present or the future, all are yours; and you are Christ's; and Christ is Gods.
(1 Cor 3:21-23) No statement could be more all-embracing than this one. All things are yours simply because you belong to Christ, not because you are so good or so worthy, but simply and only because you belong to Christ. All the things we need are part of our inheritance in him, and they only await our claiming.
Because he is, all must go right for us. Because the mother is, all
164 / Daily He Leads Me must go right, up to the measure of her ability, for her children.
How much more true this must be of the Lord. While the mother lives, the child must be cared for; and, while God lives, his children must be cared for as well. What else could he do, being who he is? oy Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.
(Jb 13:15, KJV) God's saints in all ages have realized that God was enough for them. Job spoke words of trust which few can equal. David could say in the moment of his worst anguish, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, / I fear no evil; / for thou art with me."
Paul could say triumphantly, in the midst of many grievous _trials, For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor "principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate-us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
~}< Therefore, O doubting and sorrowful Christian hearts, in the face of all we have learned concerning the God of all comfort, cannot you realize with Job and David and Paul and the saints of all the ages, that nothing else is needed to quiet all your fears, but just this, that God is? Nothing can separate you from his
S Tavs, "absolutely nothing. Every possible contingency is provided for in Paul's words, and not one of them can separate you from the love of God which i is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
£ vs Wis Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Phil 4:6-7) FG Notice the phrase "have no anxiety." It covers all possible
3 /grounds for anxiety, both inward and outward. We are continZo
September / 165 ually tempted to think it is our duty to be anxious about some "things. Perhaps our thought will be, "Oh yes, it is quite right to ] give up all anxiety in a general way; and in spiritual matters of course anxiety is wrong: but there are things about which it would be a sin not to be anxious—about our children, for instance, or those we love, or about our church affairs and the cause of truth, or about business matters. It would show a great lack of concern not to be anxious about such things as these." Or _ else our thoughts say, "Yes, it is quite right to commit our loved © ones and all our outward affairs to the Lord, but when it comes to our inward lives, our religious experiences, our temptations,
| our besetting sins, our growth in grace, and all such things, these , we ought to be anxious about, for if we are not, they will be sure/ to be neglected."
W acwme Na To such suggestions and to all similar ones, the answer is found in our text: "have no anxiety."
DS Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they: (Mt 6:26)
This illustration cannot be misunderstood. The birds are before us continually, as living examples of what real trust is.
With them of course it is unconscious trust, but with us it must be an intelligent and conscious act. One who had learned this lesson, thus writes concerning it: "Long years ago I was in the act of kneeling down before the Lord my God, when a little bird in the lightest, freest humor, came and perched near my window, and thus preached to me, all the while hopping from spray to spray, 'Oh thou grave man, look on me and learn something. Thy
God made me, and if thou canst conceive it, he loves me, and cares for me. Thou studiest him in great problems which oppress and confound thee, and thou losest sight of one-half of his ways. Learn to see thy God, not in great mysteries only, but in me also. His burden on me is light, his yoke on me is easy, for! have only to submit to him and trust. But thou makest yokes and burdens for thyself, which are grievous to be borne, because
166 / Daily He Leads Me thou wilt neither submit nor trust. I advise thee to follow my example, as thy Master commanded thee to do. Consider that the bird and the flower are as really from God as thou art; and that their lives are figures of something which he wants to see in thee also. Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them." be) Fear not, for 1 am with you, / be not dismayed, for I am your God;/I will strengthen you, I will help you,/1 will uphold you with my victorious right hand. {Is 41:10)
The One upon whom our cares are to be cast, is able to bear them, no matter how great they may be. Yet we, who often entrust our most valuable possessions to other human beings and feel no fear, are afraid to trust our Lord.
Think of the blessed confidence with which children cast their cares upon their parents, and recall how the parents love to _
( ' have it so. How often a mother, when her child is tempted to be \\ anxious or worried over something will say, "There, darling,
/ ~ / don't worry; leave it all to me, and I will attend to it. Only trust \ \ me, and do as] say, and all will come right." The only thing that a _ mother asks of her child is that it will yield to her care and obey
_ her voice, and then she will take charge of all the rest. It is the same with us and our God.
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. (Jn 14:27)
Here the Master commands us not to be troubled or afraid.
Every time we yield to anxiety or fear we are disobeying him.
Three_instances are recorded in which our Lord rebuked his response. Similar circumstances would cause great anxiety in many Christian hearts today.
September / 167 First it was in a storm at sea. A furious storm arose and the disciples feared for their lives. Yet Jesus was aboard and he calmed the waves and told them that they had no reason to be fearful.
The second instance was when Peter found himself sinking in the waters. Jesus reached out to him and held him up but then asked him why he doubted.
The third was when the disciples were troubled because they had no bread to feed the five thousand. Jesus reminds them of past experiences, when he supplied all their needs. Why should they trust him any less now? I am sure he was grieved by the doubts of his disciples, just as we are grieved when those whom we love and whom we are trying to serve are anxious and fearful about the things w we have promised them.
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October Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, / and he delivered them from their distress. {Ps 107:6)
We are tempted to think that trouble shuts God's ears. In times of prosperity we rejoice to believe he hears us, but when the dark days come, we moan and complain because our prayers do not reach him. Which cry catches the mother's ear the soonest, the cry of joy or the cry of sorrow? There can be but one answer to this. Every mother knows that the happy noises of her children in the nursery often pass by unnoticed, but the slightest cry of pain or trouble reaches her ear at once. Is a mother more alert to the suffering of her children than God?
The eternal God is your dwelling place, / and underneath are the everlasting arms. (Dt 33:27) Do we not act sometimes as though we thought we were carrying the Lord, rather than that he was carrying us? And do
170 / Daily He Leads Me we not go bowed down under this fancied burden, when we ought to be resting peacefully in his arms? A baby, safe in its mother's arms, will sometimes make little clutches of fright, as though its safety depended upon the strength of its tiny grasp of the mother's neck. But the mother knows how useless these are, and that it is her grasp, and not the baby's, that secures its safety.
Surely this is true of us in the arms of God.
Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, / that flutters over its young, / spreading out its wings, catching them, / bearing them on its pinions. (Dt 32:11) Even the eagle knows this secret of mother love. When the little eagles are old enough to learn to fly, she stirs up the nest and thrusts them out, that they may be driven to find the use of their wings. But she floats in the air under them, and watches them with eyes of love, and when she sees any little eaglet showing signs of weariness, she flies beneath it and spreads out her great strong mother wings to bear it up until it is rested and ready to fly again. And so the Lord.
By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. (1 Jn 3:16)
All nature teaches us this law of the self-sacrifice of motherhood. Even the wild tiger-mother yields to its power. One writer has said concerning this: "It is a tiger's impulse to resent an injury. Pluck her by the hair, smite her on the flank, she will leap upon and rend you. But to resent an injury is not her strongest impulse. Watch those impotent kitten creatures playing with her. They are so weak, a careless movement of her giant paw would destroy them; but she makes no careless movement.
They have caused her a hundredfold the pain your blow produced; yet she does not render evil for evil. These puny mites of helpless impotence she strokes, with love's light in her eyes;