Well, Harry"s mother was right. Mrs. H. W. Smith never said a sweeter thing than when she answered the question-"How do the lilies grow?" by simply adding, "They grow without trying."
Our sweetest spiritual life is the life of self-unconsciousness through which we become so united to Christ, and live continually on His life, nourished, fed and constantly filled with His Spirit and presence and all the fulness of His imparted life.
NOVEMBER 22.
"Cast the beam out of thine own eye" (Matt. vii. 5).
Greater than the fault you condemn and criticise is the sin of criticism and condemnation. There is no place we need such grace as in dealing with an erring one. A lady once called on us on her way to give an erring sister a piece of her mind. We advised her to wait until she could love her a little more. Only He who loved sinners well enough to die for them can deal with the erring. We never see all the heart. He does, and He can convict without condemning, and reprove without discouraging. Oh, for more of the heart of Christ! Take care, brother, how you speak of another"s fault. Ere you know, you may be in the same or deeper condemnation. Very significantly does the Master say that the man that sees a mote in his brother"s eye, usually has a rafter in his own eye! One of the two unpardonable sins of the Bible is unforgiving lovelessness.
"Give me a heart like Thine, Give me a heart like Thine, By Thy wonderful power, By Thy grace every hour, Give me a heart like Thine."
NOVEMBER 23.
"It is high time to awake out of sleep" (Rom. xiii. 11).
One of the greatest enemies to faith is indolence. It is much easier to lie and suffer than to rise and overcome; much easier to go to sleep on a s...o...b..nk and never wake again, than to rouse one"s self and shake off the lethargy and overcome the stupor. Faith is an energetic art; prayer is intense labor; the effectual working prayer of the righteous man availeth much.
Satan tries to put us to sleep, as he did the disciples in the garden; but let us not sleep as do others, but let us wake and be sober, continuing in prayer and watching therein with all perseverance, stirring up ourselves to take hold of His strength, "not slothful, but followers of them, who, through patience, inherit the promise." It is the wind that carries the ship across the waves; but the wind is powerless unless the hand of the boatman is held firmly upon the rudder, and that rudder is set hard against the wind. In like manner we hold the rudder, G.o.d fills the sails.
It is not the rudder that carries the ship; but it is the rudder which catches the wind that carries the ship, so G.o.d keeps us in perfect peace while we are stayed upon Him.
NOVEMBER 24.
"I can do all things through Christ" (Phil. iv. 13).
A dear sister said one day: "I have so much work to do that I have not time to get strength to do it by waiting on the Lord." Surely that was making bricks without straw, and even if it was the name of the Lord and the church, it was the devil"s bondage. G.o.d sends not His servants on their own charges; but "He is able to make all grace abound towards us, that we, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound unto every good work." The old story of the chieftain, fleeing from his foes and almost overtaken, but stopping in the midst of his flight to get a shoe upon his horse that he might fly more successfully is a true type and lesson for Christian workers.
The old Latin motto _festina lente_, "make haste slowly," has a great lesson for us. The more work we have to do, the more frequently we have to drop our head upon our desk and wait a little for heavenly aid and love, and then press on with new strength. One hour baptized in the love of the Holy Ghost is worth ten battling against wind and tide without the heavenly life.
NOVEMBER 25.
"Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come" (I. Cor. iv. 5).
Nothing will more effectually arrest the working of the Spirit in the heart than the spirit of criticism. At the end of a meeting a young minister came forward and told us of the great blessing he had received that afternoon, and the baptism of the Holy Spirit that had come into his heart and being, setting him free from the bondage of years. And then he added, "It all came through your answer to that question, "Will a criticizing spirit hinder the Holy Ghost from filling the heart?" "
As the question was asked and answered, he said, "I was sitting in the church criticizing a good deal that was going on, objecting to this thing and to that thing, finding fault with the expressions, and praises and testimonies, and feeling thoroughly unhappy. The Lord brought the answer home to my heart and convicted me of my sin, and there and then I laid it down and began to see the good instead of the evil. Blessing fell upon me and my soul was filled with joy and praise, and I saw where my error lay, that for years I had been trying to see the truth with my head instead of my heart."
NOVEMBER 26.
"He purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit" (John xv. 2).
One day we pa.s.sed a garden. The gardener had finished his pruning, and the wounds of the knife and saw were beginning to heal, while the warm April sun was gently nourishing the stricken plant into fresh life and energy.
We thought as we looked at that plant how cruel it would be to begin next week and cut it down again. It would bleed to death. Now, the gardener"s business is to revive and nourish into life. Its business is not to die, but to live. So, we thought, it is with the discipline of the soul. It, too, has its dying hour; but it must not be always dying. Rather reckon ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin and alive unto G.o.d through Jesus Christ our Lord Everlasting.
Breathe Thine own breath through all my mortal frame, Help me Thy resurrection life to claim, Which, "mid all changes, still abides the same, And lead me in the way Everlasting.
Give me the heavenly foretaste here, I pray; Let faith foredate the everlasting day, And walking in its glory all the way, O, lead me in the way Everlasting!
NOVEMBER 27.
"And the remnant of the oil ... shall pour upon the head" (Lev. xiv. 18).
In the account of the healing of the Hebrew leper there is a beautiful picture of the touching of his ears, hands and feet, with the redeeming blood and the consecrating oil, as a sign that his powers of understanding, service, and conduct were set apart to G.o.d, and divinely endued for the Master"s work and will.
But after all this, we are significantly told that "the rest of the oil"
was to be poured upon his head.
The former anointing was from the oil in the hand of the priest, but the latter was to be from the log, or vessel of oil itself. It was to be literally emptied over him, until he was bathed with all its contents.
It is a figure of the large and boundless baptism of the Holy Ghost. It speaks of something more even than the ordinary experiences of the consecrated Christian. It tells of the abundant and redundant supply which G.o.d has for us out of His illimitable fulness.
Have we received "the rest oil"? Are we _filled_ with the Spirit, and letting the overflow bless others?
NOVEMBER 28.