MARCH 31
SUGGESTED READING: PSALM 18:24–28
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me (John 10:27).
It is not what a Christian utters in public prayer, preaches from the pulpit, or writes on paper that determines God’s attitude and relation to him; it is what he says in his heart, which God alone can hear. This determines the believer’s relationship with God.
Many people talk glibly about stupendous truths that they believe. But the Lord has never talked to them in the stillness of the dark and lonely moments of solitude, when only His voice gives light to see and understand.
Remember this: The Lord never gives private illumination to favored Christians. God’s way of communication descends from divine illumination through His Word, for the development of spiritual character in His saints. Yet the Lord speaks, definitely and persuasively, to those who care to listen.
At first we may not hear the Lord’s voice because our spiritual ears are untrained to detect it above the tumult and noise of the dark circumstances of our lives. But once we learn His voice, the finest of earth’s voices are never again mistaken for the voice of the Lord.
PRAYER THOUGHT: Lord God, I have heard Your voice many times. It is always a source of strength to me.
SUGGESTED READING: MATTHEW 11:28–30
Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you (John 15:14).
We long for perennial freshness in our Christian lives. It is indeed a blessing to enjoy spiritual freshness at camp meeting, during a revival meeting, and in our prayer meetings; but what we yearn to know is the secret source of abiding freshness.
Friendship with Jesus is the first source of abiding freshness in our Christian lives. What is a friend? A “friend” is one in agreement and attachment to the deepest and most fundamental things of a person’s life. In order to be a friend of Jesus, I must be born again of the Spirit of God. Only then will I have a disposition like His.
It is an experience of perennial delight to any man or woman to know that he or she has a friend “that sticketh closer than a brother”! Jesus is this kind of friend. He understands the heart so thoroughly that He satisfies the last aching abyss of the heart. Jesus is ready to be your friend, if you will but come to Him. This attachment in holy friendship will bring freshness to your heart and life.
PRAYER THOUGHT: Thank You, Jesus, for being my personal friend.
SUGGESTED READING: JOHN 6:22–29
Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed (John 6:27).
Friendship with Christ is only one part of the sources of abiding spiritual freshness. Work is the other. Our Lord labored, and did so easily.
Much of the work done for God and the church today shatters the nervous system and strains the body. This must not continue if we are to have abiding freshness. It is not the work we do for God that keeps us fresh; it is the work we allow God to do through us. With a heart at leisure from itself, through abiding friendship with Jesus, we can have an indefatigable fund of energy for beneficial work.
In spite of all the opposition of the world, the flesh, and the Devil, we can know that God is doing His work through us. His fountain of living water can well up within us to eternal life, so that the thirsty and parched throughout the world may rejoice and be refreshed and uplifted, wherever we go!
PRAYER THOUGHT: O God, forgive me for being self-righteously busy for You. Give me a fresh touch of spiritual blessing and anointing, I pray.
SUGGESTED READING: COLOSSIANS 1:16–29
All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men (John 1:3–4).
We are created the children of God, not the sons and daughters of God; Jesus Christ, through regeneration, makes us sons and daughters of God. The idea of the fatherhood of Jesus is revealed in Isaiah 9:6, where He is called the “everlasting Father.”
Creative power is vested in Jesus Christ in a far more marvelous way than He manifested when He created the world. Jesus is the Being by whom you and I can be re-created into His own image.
In Jesus Christ, we are made new creatures—not merely given a new start. Jesus creates in us the image of God as it is in Himself. What Jesus Christ creates in us, He was and is. He becomes our sanctification. That is what the grand old hymn means,
My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
We are sons and daughters of God by God’s claim in creation; but we become sons and daughters of God in reality only by our choice and our will. Do you willingly choose to hand yourself over to God? Let Jesus Christ make His creation good in you.
PRAYER THOUGHT: O God, may I always reflect Your image as a new creation in Christ.
SUGGESTED READING: 1 JOHN 4:1–17
… Because as he is, so are we in this world (1 John 4:17).
Those of us who are God’s children stand in holy reverence when we read the above verse of Scripture. It can only mean one thing: The image, character, and holiness of Jesus Christ are in His sanctified ones. They are consequences of His sovereign right of creation.
Sanctification means that I am taken into that mystical union which no language can define. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).
It is one thing for God to claim me; quite another thing for me to allow Him to make that claim real. It is one thing to realize in speechless wonder that I can be sanctified, that my heart can be turned to worship; but it is another thing to tell God that I want Him to realize His claim in me.
I can hear someone say, “Do you mean to tell me, Brother Chambers, that I—an ordinary human being with ordinary, commonplace work, surrounded by ordinary, commonplace people with no particular education—that I can be a new creation in Christ Jesus?”
Yes, I am saying all of this. Let God realize His claim in you. Let Jesus Christ make His creation good in you.
PRAYER THOUGHT: Create in me the attributes of righteousness, Lord, which will identify me as Your child.
SUGGESTED READING: ISAIAH 45:1–15
Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour (Isa. 45:15).
There is an aspect of God’s nature that can be expounded in no other term than astonishing. It is probably best explained by saying that the sovereign will of God is really His free will; yet this presents a mystery so deep to His children that the Bible must say that we serve “a God that hideth Himself.”
This hiding of God’s face toward us is not on account of our sin or backsliding. God is simply working His sovereign will, trusting that His children will love Him, even when they do not understand His ways—as in the case of Job.
In this respect, one application of the Beatitudes is rarely explained by preachers. In Matthew 5:7, we read, “Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.” As children of God we should, when God is putting us through strange and mysterious circumstances, convey a merciful impression to the minds of others regarding their attitude toward God! It is a real danger, and perilous to their souls, to allow people to sympathize so much with us in our suffering that they have resentful thoughts of God.
PRAYER THOUGHT: I accept what You permit to come into my life, heavenly Father, as Your will for me.
SUGGESTED READING: ISAIAH 63:1–6
And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel! (Isa. 45:3).
“The treasures of darkness” is a remarkable phrase. We can see the stars in our natural world because of the surrounding darkness. And it is because of the mysterious darkness of God’s providences that the deep secrets of God are ever known to us.
The prophet Isaiah greeted God’s message with the question, “Who is this?” (Isa. 63:1). He was plainly astonished and almost staggered with the unfamiliarity of the revelation coming to him from God. Have you ever faced a similar situation?
It is good for us to recall the “horror of the great darkness” that befell Abram, or the statement made by Moses that God “met him in an inn to put him to death.” Or remember David, in the case where Uzzah the high priest put forth his hand and steadied the ark, and God smote him to death. We read that David was so astonished that he was “displeased” with God.
When the sovereign God brings us an astonishing revelation, we are to be a mouthpiece of God Almighty, not a systematic expounder of our own private convictions. The tendency to be true to our own convictions, not to the Lord, is apt to produce a troublesome attitude toward divine revelation.
PRAYER THOUGHT: Lord, I accept Your Word and the circumstances resulting from Your intentions in my life.
SUGGESTED READING: MARK 6:45–50
Be of good cheer: it is I; be not afraid (Mark 6:50b).
A sudden storm arose on the Sea of Galilee. Apparently, Jesus Christ permitted this crisis to enter the lives of His disciples. The uproar of nature threatened to overthrow their boat. They were isolated in the terror of a storm. Why would the Lord God permit such an astonishing set of circumstances?
Whatever the reasons for our trouble, we must not allow our souls to become so overwhelmed that we think we have committed some “unpardonable sin.” For out of all the terror comes the soothing voice of our Lord Himself, “Be of good cheer: it is I; be not afraid.”
Too many disciples have faith in their faith, or in their joy in the Lord; and when a spiritual storm comes, they have neither faith nor joy. Only one thing can endure, and that is love for God. If such love is not there, we will not recognize the loving voice of God when He cries out to us that He is “our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble … be still, and know that I am God …” (Ps. 46:1, 10a).
PRAYER THOUGHT: You are my God, and I seek strength and shelter in Your love and goodness.
SUGGESTED READING: MATTHEW 7:24–29
But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you (John 14:26).
There is a craze these days to hear something new from the Lord; but what we need to hear are those things we have heard all along, but have not listened to. The reason many people do not understand the leadings of God is their ignorance of His revealed Word.
We can be led through the guidance of the Bible. This is why we must preach and teach the Word by the passion of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
Your success consists in being completely loyal to God. If you are loyal, then God is responsible for the fruitage. Whether the results be gladness (as with the 3,000 converts when Peter preached on the Day of Pentecost) or madness (such as Stephen faced when he was stoned and martyred), one is equally as successful in God’s sight as the other.
God have mercy on the soul who dares to stand for Jesus Christ and teach any other gospel, any other obedience, than the way of the cross of Jesus Christ.
PRAYER THOUGHT: Lord, I am completely open to Your marvelous way and will.
SUGGESTED READING: ISAIAH 30:18–21
… This is the way, walk ye in it … (Isa. 30:21).
We cannot grow into entire sanctification; but after we attain this experience, we must grow into all the fullness of Christ. We are not saved and filled with the Holy Spirit to do any special work, but simply to let God work through us.
Oh, we are so desperately concerned about erecting the scaffolding in our lives to build a great work! When God begins to remove it—the scaffolding of our works, etc.—we begin to totter. And when our scaffolding falls, and we are sitting among the ruins, the Holy Spirit whispers, “That was not my staff, upon which you should rest. So I am removing it. You are the work I am after, not your little works. I want you where I can work through you.”
For God’s sake, let Him do what He likes with you.
PRAYER THOUGHT: Help me, God, never to hesitate to embark on the path of duty You set before me to journey.
SUGGESTED READING: JOHN 15:1–8
If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you (John 15:7).
The only reliable way to be truly guided by God is to assimilate the Word of God to your character. Yet even that spiritual truth will damage instead of help you if the Holy Spirit is not present.
Have you ever noticed that the most hardened people are not the backsliders, but preachers or teachers who thunder out the truth of Scripture, yet make no application of it to themselves? Scripture reveals God’s will only if we allow His Holy Spirit to apply it to our circumstances.
The Bible is not a book that you can open and say, “Now, Lord, put some magic into my soul that will open up the meaning of this book.” There is only one way really to understand the Word, and that is through wrestling with the circumstances and happenings of life. God will take His servants through things no one else seems to endure, because He wants them to understand the deep secrets of His Word.
PRAYER THOUGHT: When I complain, Lord Jesus, about the circumstances of life, allow me to realize that You are sharing the truth with me.
SUGGESTED READING: GALATIANS 3:1–12
But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith (Gal. 3:11).
God uses symbols in His dealings with us human beings in order to get our attention. For example, He used a “pillar of cloud” to lead the children of Israel; study the Book of Exodus to learn more about this.
Yet God will sometimes remove symbols of guidance in our lives. Over and over again, God has removed the symbols whereby He has guided His people. And whenever He has done it, some of His followers proved to be wedded to the symbol instead of to God. As a result, the loss of God’s symbol wrecked their lives.
When Jesus reinterpreted the Law, what did the Pharisees say? They called Jesus “an impostor” and thought He should be “put to death.” They were wedded to their symbols, and not to the Lord.
When you begin to walk with God, He may permit you to walk by sight more than by faith. But after a while, He will begin removing the visible symbols and let you tremble. When that happens, you can be sure that He is about to teach you how to walk by faith.
PRAYER THOUGHT: O Lord, it is easier to walk by sight, but teach me how to walk with You by faith.
SUGGESTED READING: PROVERBS 3:5–6
He made known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel (Ps. 103:7).
A servant of God is taken into God’s counsels. A servant of God is one with whom God counsels, not one who counsels God.
Have you found that God is destroying your little human wisdom and knowledge? The Lord be praised! God wants to wound the pride of your intellect. God does not use the wisdom of this world to express His thoughts; nor should we think our own thoughts and then ask God to bless them. God wants to think His thoughts through us, then make us a blessing to others.
I was but a hell-bound carnal vagabond; now I am saved and entirely sanctified by the sheer might and mercy of God. Who am I that I can bring you face to face with God?
Yet the servant of God should bring people to meet God. Then the servant should sink out of sight and let God “bind up the broken-hearted,” “set at liberty the captive,” and help men and women to make straight paths for their feet. This is the plan of divine guidance.
PRAYER THOUGHT: Lord, You must increase and I decrease in the hearts and minds of those around me.
SUGGESTED READING: PSALM 31:1–3
For thou art my rock and my fortress; therefore for thy name’s sake lead me, and guide me (Ps. 31:3).
When you are wounded and stricken, seek refuge in God’s abiding presence. Carry your burdens to Him. Pour your heaped-up troubles on Him. He understands, my precious friend, when the heart is apparently gone out of you. God pities you, as a father does his little child. The gentleness of a mother is harsh compared with the gentleness of God.
When perplexities and troubles come, go to Jesus. Listen as He says, “Let not your heart be troubled …” (John 14:1). He will guide you by His sympathy. He will guide!
The prophet Isaiah shared with us a spiritual secret with these comforting words, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee” (Isa. 26:3).
PRAYER THOUGHT: For Your glory and my good, guide me onward, O King Eternal.
SUGGESTED READING: 1 PETER 1:3–9
Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time (1 Pet. 1:5).
Crises reveal character! This is true in the natural and the spiritual worlds. When Jesus Christ was in the wilderness, being tempted of the Devil for forty days and nights with nothing to eat, what do you think kept Him? Divine character, secured by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.
What about your home life in recent weeks and months? How did you behave when things went wrong? Did you have to suppress your real feelings? Be honest.
Unless you meet God at the altar, He will never alter you. The Devil will try to pawn all kinds of emotional defeats on you. After you are sanctified wholly, he will try to convince you that you are not sanctified. Then is the time for you to get out your handcuffs for the Devil and say, “I am crucified with Christ.”
Character, not emotions, will keep and hold you by the power of God when the onslaughts of the Devil are leveled at you.
PRAYER THOUGHT: Lord Jesus, Your security, in the midst of my swirling emotions, is the rock on which I stand.
SUGGESTED READING: MARK 12:28–34
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these (Mark 12:30–31).
After you start to live a holy life, I defy you to tell me how God is going to lead you. I defy you to tell me how God will lead anybody. We fall into great error when we get censorious and vindictive about other people’s Christian experience. By meddling in their matters, we displease God.
Let me raise a hypothetical situation: Suppose that you are entirely sanctified and so am I. God brings us into a crisis. You have a solution, but I have my own idea. I decide that unless you see it my way, as far as I am concerned, you are wrong and not as spiritual as I. This unnecessary encounter is impudence and God will punish me for it.
The standard of holiness is that I love my neighbor as myself. But I am not loving you as myself when I presume to tell you what God wants you to do.
PRAYER THOUGHT: As You have loved me, Lord, help me to love others.
SUGGESTED READING: MARK 14:22–31
But Peter said unto him, although all shall be offended, yet will not I… . I will not deny thee in any wise (Mark 14:29, 31a).
Was Peter being honest? I think he was. Then why did Jesus Christ discourage the very essence of his profession?
Are we called to profess our loyalty to Christ? Never!—no, ten thousand times never—are we to profess our loyalty. We are called to profess whose we are and what God has done. Realizing and acknowledging this, we are to stand upright in the hand of God. If we try to stand on our profession, we will fall as Peter did.
God wants to separate us from our profession. “Away with professions!” is God’s attitude. He wants to possess us. He wants us to be His.
PRAYER THOUGHT: Jesus, strip all self-righteousness from my witness for You.
SUGGESTED READING: PROVERBS 4:23–27
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life (Prov. 4:23).
Every life carries an atmosphere, and this atmosphere blesses or blights.
Have we not met people who enlarge our horizons and loosen the limitations about our hearts? This happens because of the very atmosphere they produce. We seem to grow nobler and purer for having met them and being with them.
On the other hand, have we not met people who make it “winter for our souls”? They create a cold atmosphere in which we shrivel and grow small. Generous thoughts about others do not survive in their presence.
Our personal atmosphere arises from the condition of our hearts, not from our surroundings. Watch the attitudes of your heart, for out of it are the issues of life.
PRAYER THOUGHT: Heavenly Father, allow my life to have a positive, holy influence on others.
SUGGESTED READING: HEBREWS 11:8–10
… And he went out, not knowing whither he went … he sojourned in the land of promise … (Heb. 11:8b – 9a).
God demands separation. Sometimes He wants us to separate ourselves from what we consider a good set of circumstances. That is exactly what He did with Abraham.
Jesus demands that we have freedom in Him by becoming detached from a particular set of opinions, from the way we look at things on the basis of our upbringing, and from our ideals and ambitions. Jesus requires separation from the most sacred of relationships. The most loving eyes that look on you will never understand. The tenderest hand that ever caressed you will not understand. Yet consecration to Christ entails this kind of separation.
Does this mean, then, that I must leave my country, my home, everything, to prove my love to Jesus? No, that is not Christianity. It may mean staying at home in your own country. This may require more sacrifice than leaving.
PRAYER THOUGHT: I am ready to go or ready to stay—ready to do Your will, heavenly Father.
Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall (1 Cor. 10:12).
There is a tendency to take ourselves too seriously, until we really begin to wonder if God can do anything before we get up in the morning. We act as though He cannot do anything without our help. May God have mercy!
God shows us that a servant of His is not a necessary instrument. Remember how God visibly blessed and led in a certain happening in your past? But after a while, a spell of tribulation came. God laid you aside. Slowly you begin to see that an “instrument” is something that God takes up at His sovereign pleasure and puts down at His will. A “servant” is one who voluntarily chooses what God chooses. The servant chooses to do according to God’s sovereign will.
God does the shaking of His servants, not the Devil. Why does He shake them? Because they are backslidden? Dear me, no. He shakes them partly to remove the parasites.
Has God shaken you lately? If so, fear not. He does so because He loves you.
PRAYER THOUGHT: Only You are truly great. Forgive me when I think I am.
SUGGESTED READING: 1 PETER 2:18–25
Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously (1 Pet. 2:23).
Every person who suffers can measure, according to the depths of his own suffering, the sublimity and divinity of our Lord—who, when He suffered, “threatened not.” Jesus did not retaliate or make threats toward the person or group who caused Him to suffer.
Jesus did not suffer because He was a wrongdoer. Oftentimes you and I have. One who suffers as a wrongdoer often responds in rancorous spite and with threats. Suffering, when the heart knows nothing of trust in God nor love for Him, is damning, not saving; it will respond in venomous threats and evil deeds.
Sarcasm, cynicism, slander, murder, war, and lawsuits spring from suffering—which springs from wrongdoing and a wrong temper.
Suffering is the heritage of the bad, the penitent, and the sons of God. All end at the Cross. The bad thief was crucified, the penitent thief was crucified, and the Son of God was crucified. All three represent the widespread history of suffering in our world.
In the cruel fire of sorrow
Cast thy heart, do not faint or wail!
Let thy hand be firm and steady,
Do not let thy spirit quail!
But wait till the trial is over
And take thy heart again;
For as gold is tried in fire,
So a heart must be tried by pain.
PRAYER THOUGHT: When I suffer, Lord, I want to suffer like You—without retaliation or a rancorous spirit.
Yea, they despised the pleasant land, they believed not his word: but murmured in their tents, and hearkened not unto the voice of the LORD (Ps. 106:24–25).
One form of suffering fosters the most dangerous isolation of pride, which produces a kind of human sphinx. Shrouded in mystery, the sufferer feels that his suffering is “profound” in nature. This type of suffering is preeminently cowardly as well as proud.
According to the personality make-up of the individual, this form of suffering may express itself through sullenness or quietism. It may be sullen and gloomy in expression, or mystic and remote in its quietism.
The ultimate result of sullen suffering is hatred toward the saints of God, envy and murmuring toward the messengers of God, and a sullen contempt toward God’s Word. Suffering in the form of quietism produces a quietness that spends one’s life in contemplation and reverie. It was a very common practice in medieval Christianity; but I believe it contradicts the very spirit of Christianity. Quietism is highly esteemed in nearly every religion, but it engenders a pseudo-mysticism that inevitably ends in private illuminations apart from the written Word. It leads to prayers that are actually “strong delusions,” or false beliefs, resulting from a misleading of the mind.
Beware, my friend!
PRAYER THOUGHT: Help me to know the difference, Father, between suffering and sullenness, between praying and pouting.
SUGGESTED READING: 1 PETER 4:12–19
Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator (1 Pet. 4:19).
Have you ever heard of what might be called active, well-doing suffering?
It is commended to us by the apostle Peter (1 Pet. 4:19).
The idea of a saint in the New Testament does not suggest a cloistered sentiment, or an emotion which encircles an individual like a halo of glory.
A real saint is a holy person engaged in life with deeds of holiness. Saints live in the world, suffering “according to the will of God” and committing “the keeping of their souls to Him in well doing.”
The saint’s life is not to be reduced to zero through renunciation, but raised to infinity through satisfaction. The essential difference between the stoic and the saint is just the point where they seem most alike. For instance, in overcoming the world and the ills of this life, both seem indifferent. The stoic’s overcoming, however, is through passionlessness. The saint’s overcoming is by passion for Christ. This is godly suffering.
PRAYER THOUGHT: It is easier, Lord Jesus, simply to avoid those who inflict suffering on me; instead of behaving like this, though, I want to “suffer in well doing.”
SUGGESTED READING: 1 PETER 5:6–10
Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you (1 Pet. 5:7).
Suffering according to the will of God is Christ-like. To “be in the will of God” is a state of heart, not an intellectual discernment. The will of God in a sanctified heart is its implicit life, as natural as breath. As a sick person knows what health is intellectually, a sinful person knows what the will of God is intellectually. But only the sanctified heart expresses the will of God.
The motto of the holy heart is: My Father can do what He likes with me; He may bless me to death, or He may give me a bitter cup, or a cup of blessing. I delight to do His will.
Is this your motto? When you suffer according to the will of God, remember you do so under the watchful eye of a sovereign and faithful Creator. The sovereignty of God is of the greatest comfort to the saint. The saint is not responsible for suffering allowed by God and can relax in His care. The sanctified soul of the saint is in rapport with God.
God’s predestinations are the voluntary choosings of the saint who is in the will of God. The eminent mystery in this statement is no more or less than the mysterious nature of love. This truth is discerned by the pure in heart, not by the powerful intellect.
PRAYER THOUGHT: Father, into Your loving care I commit my well-being as Your child in this world.
SUGGESTED READING: JOHN 15:10–17
Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you (John 15:14).
A definition of life, love, or suffering is not possible, for these words refer to the incalculable elements in human experience. Their very essence is implicit, not explicit.
Suffering is grand when the heart is right with God. Through suffering we gain a friendship with God. Oh, unspeakably blessed is the suffering of the sanctified! Lest you should faint or wail, hear our God reassure us, “Fear not … I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward” (Gen. 15:1b). Catch the majesty, the might, the awe, the unspeakable satisfaction of that statement!
My goal is God Himself, not joy, nor peace,
Nor even blessing, but Himself, my God;
’Tis His to lead me there, not mine, but His —
“At any cost, dear Lord, by any road.”
“… In thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16:11). This is ours by the sheer might of the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us to cleanse us and reorient us, to baptize us in the Holy Spirit. That soul, incandescent with the Holy Spirit, then walks and talks with God as friend with friend, and lets God do as He wills with him.
Suffering according to the will of God—not so much for personal perfecting, but for enabling God to express His intentions for our lives—is the sublimity of the suffering of the sanctified!
PRAYER THOUGHT: Thank You, Lord, for expressing Your will through the suffering You permit in my life.
SUGGESTED READING: JUDE 21 – 25
For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps (1 Pet. 2:21).
Do you suffer on account of somebody else or for somebody else? In your agonizing prayers before the Lord on behalf of what you consider a “distressing situation,” are you longing for release because the “distressing situation” hurts and discomforts you? If so, you are not having fellowship with His suffering. But if your soul, out of love, longs and bears in a voluntary and vicarious way for others, then you are having fellowship with Jesus in His sufferings.
When your Christian work seemingly is in ruins and you wail before God, is it because the work of your hands is in ruins? Are you tempted to say, “I thought this was to be my life work; now it is broken and blighted and shattered”? If so, you do not know what fellowship with His sufferings means. But when you see people defiling the work of God, making His house of worship a place for worldly business for the engendering of false affections and pursuits, and you agonize before the Lord with tears, then you are learning to have fellowship with our Lord in His sufferings.
PRAYER THOUGHT: Oh, to be like You—in suffering!
SUGGESTED READING: COLOSSIANS 1:1–18
Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light … In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins (Col. 1:12, 14).
A saint is one, who, discovering himself at Calvary, lies in despair with the nature of sin uncloaked to him. Then, rising in the glamour of amazement and discerning Jesus Christ as a substitute for sin, calls out, “Jesus, I should be there.” To his astonished spirit, he receives justification from all his sinfulness through the atonement at Calvary. Standing in the light of the atonement and placing, as it were, his hands over his Savior’s crucified hands and his feet over His crucified feet, the saint has crucified forever his right to himself. The Lord Himself baptizes him in the Holy Spirit, giving him a new principle of life in which a new personality of holiness reflects an unmistakable likeness to Jesus Christ.
To be a friend of God, walking in communion with the Lord in suffering, and abiding with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as daily and hourly companions—this truly enables the human soul to look into the depths of pain that our Savior and Sanctifier endured. This gives us a key to understanding the shame, the agony, the mock trial, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, and Pentecost.
PRAYER THOUGHT: Master, I know I can trust in Your shed blood for full salvation.
SUGGESTED READING: MATTHEW 18:7–14
For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost (Matt. 18:11).
Have people scathed and shamed you because of your passionate devotion to the Lord of all suffering? If so, has your love of Jesus Christ prevailed? Have your own self-culture and education impeded your walk with the Lord, or has your love for Him been so passionate that you “love not your own life”?
John Wesley said, “To abandon all, to strip one’s self of all, in order to seek and follow Jesus Christ to Bethlehem where He was born, to the hall where He was scourged, to Calvary where He died on the cross, is so great a mercy toward us, that the blessing of salvation and redemption is given but through faith in the Son of God.”
The Cross of Jesus stands unique and alone. It is not our cross. Our cross is what is manifested before the world—the fact that we are sanctified to do nothing but the will of God. Our cross becomes our divinely appointed privilege by means of His Cross.
PRAYER THOUGHT: To bear my cross for You, Jesus, is my desire in every circumstance of life.
SUGGESTED READING: ROMANS 8:9–18
And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together (Rom. 8:17).
Spiritual freedom fulfills all the law of God and transfigures that fulfillment into loving devotion. Oh, the sublimity of that freedom where, “sharing in the suffering of our Saviour,” we are released from being dupes of ourselves, our convictions, our temperaments, and we realize with John that “… our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3).
Let it be said with all reverence and in the deepest humility that suffering according to the will of God raises us to a freedom in God that baffles all language to express it to others. Do you know the unspeakable bliss of God abiding with you, making you one with Him? This is the sublime height of suffering according to the will of God.
When we are filled by the Spirit of the living God, we can be one in holiness, one in love, and one forever with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
PRAYER THOUGHT: Lord of all holiness, I seek to think, act, and respond in the beauty of holiness in every happening of life.
SUGGESTED READING: 1 CORINTHIANS 1:17–22
For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God (1 Cor. 1:18).
The Holy Spirit will not allow us to forget the significance of the Cross of Christ. The burden of the apostle Paul was always the Cross of Jesus Christ. Whenever he spoke or wrote about the resurrection or the majesty of entire sanctification, he went back to the Cross.
The message of the Cross is not only that the vilest man or woman may be saved, or the foulest wretch on this earth be presented before the Throne of God whiter than snow; but it is that God may have His way through every one who will let Him.
Jesus Christ encountered self-seeking scholars who never understood what He meant by His Cross. You will find even today some souls who do not understand the Cross of Christ.
Do you? If you are ignorant about God’s intentions through the Cross concerning you, you are to blame. It is not a question of intelligence or education, but a question of knowing the Bible; and the only interpreter of the Word of God is the Holy Spirit.
PRAYER THOUGHT: Father, teach me the true significance and message of the Cross of Christ.
SUGGESTED READING: LUKE 18:31–34
And they understood none of these things: and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken (Luke 18:34).
As you enter the marvelous experience of entire sanctification, God will lead you directly to do His will. At this crisis point in your walk of faith, you will be face to face with God. Many people are so overwhelmed at this rushing out of God’s power that they stagger.
The only persons who can bear the truth of the Cross are the ones who are sanctified. Nothing need to defeat the sanctified because their whole heart, soul, and spirit are devoted to the Lord Jesus Christ. God grant that we will leave our ignorance behind us! We have no right to be ignorant concerning the things of God.
PRAYER THOUGHT: Yes, dear Lord Jesus, I want to be a true servant and saint of God. Lead me on, O King Eternal!