What an honor to suffer like Jesus; what an honor to be like Jesus

"When God conquers us and takes all the flint out of our nature, and we get deep visions into the Spirit of Jesus, we then see as never before the great rarity of gentleness of spirit in this dark and unheavenly world.

. . . So few are willing to undergo the suffering out of which thorough gentleness comes. We must die before we are turned into gentleness, and crucifixion involves suffering; it is a real breaking and crushing of self, which wrings the heart and conquers the mind.

There is a good deal of mere mental and logical sanctification nowadays, which is only a religious fiction. It consists of mentally putting one's self on the altar, and then mentally saying the altar sanctifies the gift, and then logically concluding therefore one is sanctified; and such an one goes forth with a gay, flippant, theological prattle about the deep things of God.

But the natural heartstrings have not been snapped, and the Adamic flint has not been ground to powder, and the bosom has not throbbed with the lonely, surging sighs of Gethsemane; and not having the real death marks of Calvary, there cannot be that soft, sweet, gentle, floating, victorious, overflowing, triumphant life that flows like a spring morning from an empty tomb.--G. D. W.

Come what may

1 Tim. 6.11: (Conybeare) But thou, O man of God, follow . . . steadfastness (and the note to the word steadfastness is "steadfast endurance under persecution").

I have been thinking of the persecution of circumstances. The body can be persecuted by pain, weariness, lack of strength to do, and so on. The spirit can be persecuted by disappointment, rending of many kinds, such as the particular kind our Lord described in Matt. 7.6. ["Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces."] Those who have given their pearls--pearls of love, every kind of pearl they had to give--and have then met ingratitude and perhaps untruth, know what these words mean. But come what may, "O man of God [O woman of God], follow steadfastness". No persecution, whether it be of body or of spirit, need ever conquer us. We are called to fight the good fight of faith. If we saw the victorious issue of the fight, it would not be a fight of faith. If we saw the end of the road clearly and the reason why we are being led along this particular road, we would not walk by faith, but by sight. Again and again the emphasis is on faith.

Lord, increase our faith that we may follow steadfastness--even unto the end. --Edges of His Ways, Amy Carmichael

"To the death? I accept."

He said, " I will forget the dying faces;

The empty places,

They shall be filled again.

O voices moaning deep with me, cease."

But vain the word; vain, vain:

Not in forgetting lieth peace.

He said, "I will crowd action upon action,

The strife of faction

Shall stir me and sustain;

O tears that drown the fire of manhood cease."

But vain the word; vain, vain:

Not in endeavor lieth peace.

He said, "I will withdraw me and be quiet,

Why meddle in life's riot?

Shut be my door to pain,

Desire, thou dost befool me, thou shalt cease."

But vain the word; vain, vain:

Not in aloofness lieth peace.

He said, "I will submit; I am defeated.

God hath depleted

My life of its rich gain.

O futile murmurings, why will ye not cease?"

But vain the word; vain, vain:

Not in submission lieth peace.

He said, "I will accept the breaking sorrow

Which God to-morrow

Will to His son explain."

Then did the turmoil deep within him cease.

Not vain the word, not vain;

For in Acceptance lieth peace.

-Amy Carmichael, Toward Jerusalem

Consider Christ Jesus...

Heb. 3.1: (Weymouth) Fix your thoughts on Jesus.

To read slowly and ponder Hebrews 2. 18 and 3. 1 is an immense help towards this kind of thinking and this kind of praying. All the versions are beautiful:

"For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted. Wherefore consider Christ Jesus."

"For inasmuch as He has Himself felt the pain of temptation and trial, He is also able instantly to help those who are tempted and tried. Therefore fix your thoughts on Jesus . . . Whose followers we profess to be."

It is the "For" and the "Inasmuch" that lifts us up here. Apart altogether from the comfort that lies on the surface of these wonderful words about our dear Lord and his power instantly to help us, because He knows all there is to know of the pain of temptation and trial, there is this: if we are His followers we, too, shall find that every experience of temptation and trial will turn to power to help others. Therefore "count it all joy", and that it may be so, "Fix your thoughts on Jesus . . . Whose followers we profess to be."
--Edges of His Ways, Amy Carmichael

Note: Amy Carmichael wrote these words during the last twenty years of her life; the majority of these years she was bedridden. "Count it all joy."

Your life and mine

"I endure all things for the sake of God's own people; so that they also may obtain salvation . . . and with it eternal glory." (2 Tim. 2:10.) (Weymouth.)

If Job could have known as he sat there in the ashes, bruising his heart on this problem of Providence--that in the trouble that had come upon him he was doing what one man may do to work out the problem for the world, he might again have taken courage. No man lives to himself. Job's life is but your life and mine written in larger text. . . . So, then, though we may not know what trials wait on any of us, we can believe that, as the days in which Job wrestled with his dark maladies are the only days that make him worth remembrance, and but for which his name had never been written in the book of life, so the days through which we struggle, finding no way, but never losing the light, will be the most significant we are called to live.--Robert Collyer.

"Father, I need you to guide my sword..."

Phil 2.13: For it is God Which worketh in you both to will and to do His good pleasure.

Do any of you feel the need of renewing will-power? Satan loves to attack our wills. This is a great word for that--it came with fresh force this morning: this is Dr. Way's rendering: "You have not to do it in your unaided strength: it is God Who is all the while supplying the impulse, giving you the power to resolve, the strength to perform, the execution of His good-pleasure."

With Heavenly power endue us,
With Heavenly love fulfil,
Perform in us Thy pleasure,
Teach us to do Thy will.
-from Edges of His Ways, by Amy Carmichael

If only we receive His gifts of myrrh

"Shall I refuse to drink the cup of sorrow which the Father has given me to drink?" (John 18:11.) (Weymouth.)

God takes a thousand times more pains with us than the artist with his picture, by many touches of sorrow, and by many colors of circumstance, to bring us into the form which is the highest and noblest in His sight, if only we receive His gifts of myrrh in the right spirit.

But when the cup is put away, and these feelings are stifled or unheeded, a greater injury is done to the soul that can never be amended. For no heart can conceive in what surpassing love God giveth us this myrrh; yet this which we ought to receive to our souls' good we suffer to pass by us in our sleepy indifference, and nothing comes of it.

Then we come and complain: "Alas, Lord! I am so dry, and it is so dark within me!" I tell thee, dear child, open thy heart to the pain, and it will do thee more good than if thou wert full of feeling and devoutness.--Tauler.

Dear God, make me a bird, so I can fly far--far, far away from here

"Look from the top." (Song of Solomon 4:8.)

Crushing weights give the Christian wings. It seems like a contradiction in terms, but it is a blessed truth. David out of some bitter experience cried: "Oh, that I had wings like a dove! Then I would fly away, and be at rest" (Psa. 55:6). But before he finished this meditation he seems to have realized that his wish for wings was a realizable one. For he says, "Cast thy burden upon Jehovah, and he will sustain thee."

The word "burden" is translated in the Bible margin, "what he (Jehovah) hath given thee." The saints' burdens are God-given; they lead him to "wait upon Jehovah," and when that is done, in the magic of trust, the "burden" is metamorphosed into a pair of wings, and the weighted one "mounts up with wings as eagles."--Sunday School Times

Through Christ, Our Comfort

The God of All Comfort

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort." (2 Cor 1:3-7.)

It is far better for us to learn to trust God than to enjoy life

"We are troubled on every side." (2 Cor. 7:5.)

Why should God have to lead us thus, and allow the pressure to be so hard and constant? Well, in the first place, it shows His all-sufficient strength and grace much better than if we were exempt from pressure and trial. "The treasure is in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us."

It makes us more conscious of our dependence upon Him. God is constantly trying to teach us our dependence, and to hold us absolutely in His hand and hanging upon His care. This was the place where Jesus Himself stood and where He wants us to stand, not with self-constituted strength, but with a hand ever leaning upon His, and a trust that dare not take one step alone. It teaches us trust.

There is no way of learning faith except by trial. It is God's school of faith, and it is far better for us to learn to trust God than to enjoy life.
The lesson of faith once learned, is an everlasting acquisition and an eternal fortune made; and without the trust even riches will leave us poor.-Days of Heaven upon Earth.