August 29th — SUBLIME INTIMACY
August 29th.SUBLIME INTIMACY
Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?" John 11:40
Every time you venture out in the life of faith, you wil find something in your common-sense circumstances that flatly contradicts your faith. Common sense is not faith, and faith is not common sense; they stand in the relation of the natural and the spiritual. Can you trust Jesus Christ where your common sense cannot trust Him? Can you venture heroical y on Jesus Christ's statements when the facts of your common-sense life shout - "It's a lie?" On the mount it is easy to say - 'Oh, yes, I believe God can do it'; but you have to come down into the demon-possessed val ey and meet with facts that laugh ironical y at the whole of your mount-of-transfiguration belief. Every time my programme of belief is clear to my own mind, I come across something that contradicts it. Let me say I believe God wil supply al my need, and then let me run dry, with no outlook, and see whether I wil go through the trial of faith, or whether I wil sink back to something lower.
Faith must be tested, because it can be turned into a personal possession only through conflict. What is your faith up against just now? The test wil either prove that your faith is right, or it wil kil it. "Blessed is he whosoever shal not be offended in Me." The final thing is confidence in Jesus. Believe steadfastly on Him and al you come up against wil develop your faith. There is continual testing in the life of faith, and the last great test is death. May God keep us in fighting trim! Faith is unutterable trust in God, trust which never dreams that He wil not stand by us.