CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 4
How to Enter In
This blessed life must not be looked upon in any sense as an attainment but as an obtainment. We cannot earn it; we cannot climb up to it; we cannot win it; we can do nothing but ask for it and receive it. It is the gift of God in Christ Jesus. And where a thing is a gift, the only course left for the receiver is to take it and thank the giver. In order, therefore, to enter into a practical experience of this interior life, the soul must be in a receptive attitude, fully recognizing the fact that it is God’s gift in Christ Jesus, and that we cannot gain it by any efforts or works of our own. He can bestow it only upon the fully consecrated soul, and it is received by faith.
I was once trying to explain to a physician who had charge of a large hospital the necessity and meaning of consecration, but he seemed unable to understand. At last I said to him, “Suppose, in going your rounds among your patients, you should meet a man who entreated you earnestly to take his case under your special care in order to cure him. At the same time he refused to tell you all his symptoms or to take all your prescribed remedies. Suppose he should say to you, ‘I am quite willing to follow your directions as to certain things, because they commend themselves to my mind as good, but in other matters I prefer judging for myself and following my own directions.’ What would you do in such a case?” I asked.
“Do?” he replied with indignation. “Do? I would soon leave such a man as that to his own care. For, of course,” he added, “I could do nothing for him unless he would put his whole case into my hands without any reserves and would obey my directions implicitly.”
“It is necessary, then,” I said, “for doctors to be obeyed, if they are to have any chance to cure their patients?”
“Implicitly obeyed!” was his emphatic reply.
“And that is consecration,” I continued. “God must have the whole case put into His hands without any reserves, and His directions must be implicitly followed.”
“I see it,” he exclaimed. “I see it! And I will do it. God shall have His own way with me from now on.”
An entire surrender of the whole being to God means that spirit, soul, and body are placed under His absolute control, for Him to do with us just what He pleases. We mean that the language of our hearts, under all circumstances and in view of every act, is to be “Thy will be done.” We mean the giving up of all liberty of choice. We mean a life of inevitable obedience.
To a soul ignorant of God, this may look hard; but to those who know Him, it is the happiest and most restful of lives. He is our Father, and He loves us, and He knows just what is best, and therefore, of course, His will is the very most blessed thing that can come to us under any circumstances. But it really would seem as if God’s own children were more afraid of His will than of anything else in life—His lovely, lovable will, which only means loving-kindnesses and tender mercies, and blessings unspeakable to their souls! I wish I could only show to everyone the unfathomable sweetness of the will of God. Heaven is a place of infinite bliss because His will is perfectly done there, and our lives share in this bliss just in proportion as His will is perfectly done in them. He loves us—loves us, I say—and the will of love is always blessing for its loved one. Could we but for one moment get a glimpse into the mighty depths of His love, our hearts would spring out to meet His will and embrace it as our richest treasure; and we would abandon ourselves to it with an enthusiasm of gratitude and joy that such a wondrous privilege could be ours.
A great many Christians seem practically to think that all their Father in heaven wants is a chance to make them miserable and to take away all their blessings; and they imagine, poor souls, that if they hold on to things in their own will, they can hinder Him from doing this.
A Christian lady who had this feeling was once expressing to a friend how impossible she found it to say, “Thy will be done,” and how afraid she should be to do it. She was the mother of an only little boy, who was the heir to a great fortune and the idol of her heart.
After she had stated her difficulties fully, her friend said, “Suppose your little Charley should come running to you tomorrow and say, ‘Mother, I have made up my mind to let you have your own way with me from this time forward. I am always going to obey you, and I want you to do just whatever you think best with me. I will trust your love.’ How would you feel toward him? Would you say to yourself, ‘Ah, now I shall have a chance to make Charley miserable. I will take away all his pleasures and fill his life with every hard and disagreeable thing that I can find. I will force him to do just the things that are the most difficult for him to do and will give him all sorts of impossible commands’?”
“Oh no no no!” exclaimed the indignant mother. “You know I would not. You know I would hug him to my heart and cover him with kisses and would hasten to fill his life with all that was sweetest and best.”
“And are you tenderer and more loving than God?” asked her friend.
“Ah no!” was the reply. “I see my mistake. Of course I must not be any more afraid of saying, ‘Thy will be done,’ to my heavenly Father, than I would want Charley to be of saying it to me.”
Faith is an absolutely necessary element in the reception of any gift. Let our friends give a thing to us wholeheartedly; it is not really ours until we believe it has been given and claim it as our own. Above all, this is true in gifts that are purely mental or spiritual. Love may be lavished upon us by another without stint or measure, but until we believe that we are loved, it never really becomes ours.
I suppose most Christians understand this principle in reference to the matter of their forgiveness. They know that the forgiveness of sins through Jesus might have been preached to them forever, but it would never really have become theirs until they believed this preaching and claimed the forgiveness as their own. But when it comes to living the Christian life, they lose sight of this principle and think that, having been saved by faith, they are now to live by works and efforts. Instead of continuing to receive, they now begin to do. This makes our declaration that the life hid with Christ in God is entered into by faith seem perfectly unintelligible to them. And yet it is plainly declared that “as ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him.” We received Him by faith, and by faith alone; therefore we are to walk in Him by faith and by faith alone. Then we believed that Jesus was our Savior from the guilt of sin, and according to our faith it was unto us. Now we must believe that He is our Savior from the power of sin, and according to our faith it shall be unto us. Then we trusted Him for forgiveness, and it became ours; now we must trust Him for righteousness, and it shall become ours also. Then we took Him as a Savior in the future from the penalties of our sins; now we must take Him as a Savior in the present from the bondage of our sins. Then He was our Redeemer; now He is our Life. Then He lifted us out of the pit; now He is to seat us in heavenly places with Himself.
God “hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ,” but until we set the foot of faith upon them, they do not practically become ours. “According to our faith” is always the limit and the rule.
But this faith of which I am speaking must be a present faith. No faith that is exercised in the future tense amounts to anything. No faith that looks for a future deliverance from the power of sin will ever lead a soul into the life we are describing. Perhaps no four words in the language have more meaning in them than the following, which I would have you repeat over and over with your voice and with your soul, emphasizing each time a different word:
Jesus saves me now—It is He.
Jesus saves me now—It is His work to save.
Jesus saves me now—I am the one to be saved.
Jesus saves me now—He is doing it every moment.
To sum up, then: In order to enter into this blessed interior life of rest and triumph, you have two steps to take—first, entire abandonment, and second, absolute faith. No matter what may be the complications of your peculiar experience, no matter what your difficulties or your surroundings or your “peculiar temperament,” these two steps, definitely taken and unwaveringly persevered in, will certainly bring you out sooner or later into the green pastures and still waters of this life hid with Christ in God. If you will let every other consideration go and simply devote your attention to these two points and be very clear and definite about them, your progress will be rapid, and your soul will reach its desired haven far sooner than you can now think possible.
A lady, now very eminent in this life of trust, when she was seeking in great darkness and perplexity to enter in, said to the friend who was trying to help her, “You all say, ‘Abandon yourself and trust, abandon yourself and trust’; but I do not know how. I wish you would just do it out loud, so that I may see how you do it.”
Shall I do it out loud for you?
“Lord Jesus, I believe You are able and willing to deliver me from all the care and unrest and bondage of my Christian life. I believe You died to set me free, not only in the future, but now and here. I believe You are stronger than sin, and that You canst keep me, even me, in my extreme of weakness, from falling into its snares or yielding obedience to its commands. And, Lord, I am going to trust You to keep me. I have tried keeping myself and have failed most grievously. I am absolutely helpless. So now I will trust You. I give myself to You. I keep back no reserves. Body, soul, and spirit, I present myself to You as a piece of clay to be fashioned into anything Your love and Your wisdom shall choose. And now I am Yours. I believe You accept that which I present to You; I believe that this poor, weak, foolish heart has been taken possession of by You, and that You have even at this very moment begun to work in me to will and to do of Your good pleasure. I trust You utterly, and I trust You now.“
Are you afraid to take this step? Does it seem too sudden, too much like a leap in the dark? Do you not know that the step of faith always “falls on the seeming void, but finds the rock beneath”? If ever you are to enter this glorious land, flowing with milk and honey, you must sooner or later step into the brimming waters, for there is no other path; and to do it now may save you months and even years of disappointment and grief. Hear the word of the Lord: “Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.”