"Get thee, behind me, Satan" (Matt. xvi. 23).
When your old self comes back, if you listen to it, fear it, believe it, it will have the same influence upon you as if it were not dead; it will control you and destroy you. But if you will ignore it and say: "You are not I, but Satan trying to make me believe that the old self is not dead; I refuse you, I treat you as a demon power outside of me, I detach myself from you"; if you treat it as a wife would her divorced husband, saying: "You are nothing to me, you have no power over me, I have renounced you, in the name of Jesus I bid you hence,"-lo! the evil thing will disappear, the shadow will vanish, the wand of faith will lay the troubled spirit, and send it back to the abyss, and you will find that Christ is there instead, with His risen life, to back up your confidence and seal your victory.
Satan can stand anything better than neglect. If you ignore him he gets disgusted and disappears. Jesus used to turn His back upon him and say, "Get thee behind Me, Satan." So let us refuse him, and we shall find that he will be compelled to act according to our faith.
OCTOBER 15.
"Faith is the evidence of things not seen" (Heb. xi. 1).
True faith drops its letter in the post-office box, and lets it go.
Distrust holds on to a corner of it, and wonders that the answer never comes.
I have some letters in my desk that have been written for weeks, but there was some slight uncertainty about the address or the contents, so they are yet unmailed. They have not done either me or anybody else any good yet.
They will never accomplish anything until I let them go out of my hands and trust them to the postman and the mail.
This is the case with true faith. It hands its case over to G.o.d, and then He works.
That is a fine verse in the thirty-seventh Psalm: "Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in Him, and He worketh." But He never worketh until we commit.
Faith is a receiving, or still better, a taking of G.o.d"s proffered gifts.
We may believe, and come, and commit, and rest, but we will not fully realize all our blessing until we begin to receive and come into the att.i.tude of abiding and taking.
OCTOBER 16.
"Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated, I will make thee a joy" (Isa.
lx. 15).
G.o.d loves to take the most lost of men, and make them the most magnificent memorials of His redeeming love and power. He loves to take the victims of Satan"s hate, and the lives that have been the most fearful examples of his power to destroy, and to use them to ill.u.s.trate and illuminate the possibilities of Divine mercy and the new creations of the Holy Spirit.
He loves to take the things in our own lives that have been the worst, the hardest and the most hostile to G.o.d, and to transform them so that we shall be the opposites of our former selves.
The sweetest spirits are made out of the most stormy and self-willed, the mightiest faith is created out of a wilderness of doubts and fears, and the Divinest love is transformed out of stony hearts of hate and selfishness.
The grace of G.o.d is equal to the most uncongenial temperaments, to the most unfavorable circ.u.mstances; and its glory is to transform a curse into blessing, and show to men and angels of ages yet to come, that "where sin abounded, there grace did much more abound."
OCTOBER 17.
"Abraham believed G.o.d" (Rom. iv. 3).
Abraham"s faith reposed on G.o.d Himself. He knew the G.o.d he was dealing with. It was a personal confidence in one whom he could utterly trust.
The real secret of Abraham"s whole life was that he was the friend of G.o.d, and knew G.o.d to be his great, good and faithful Friend, and, taking Him at His word, he had stepped out from all that he knew and loved, and gone forth upon an unknown pathway with none but G.o.d.
Beloved, are we trusting not only in the word of G.o.d, but have we learned to lean our whole weight upon Himself, the G.o.d of infinite love and power, our covenant G.o.d and everlasting Friend?
We are told that Abraham glorified G.o.d by this life of faith. The true way to glorify G.o.d is to let the world see what He is, and what He can do. G.o.d does not want us so much to do things, as to let people see what He can do. G.o.d is not looking for extraordinary characters as His instruments, but He is looking for humble instruments through whom He can be honored throughout the ages.
OCTOBER 18.
"All things are naked and open unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do" (Heb. iv. 13).
The literal translation of this phrase is, all things are stripped and stunned. This is the force of the Greek words. The figure is that of an athlete in the Coliseum who has fought his best in the arena, and has at length fallen at the feet of his adversary, disarmed and broken down in helplessness. There he lies, unable to strike a blow, or lift his arm. He is stripped and stunned, disarmed and disabled, and there is nothing left for him but to lie at the feet of his adversary and throw up his arms for mercy.
Now this is the position that G.o.d wants to bring us to, where we shall cease our struggles and our attempts at self-defence or self-improvement, and throw ourselves helplessly upon the mercy of G.o.d. This is the sinner"s only hope, and when he thus lies at the feet of mercy, Jesus is ready to lift him up and give him that free salvation which is waiting for all.
This, too, is the greatest need of the Christian seeking a deeper and higher life, to come to a full realization of his nothingness and helplessness, and to lie down, stripped and stunned at the feet of Jesus.
OCTOBER 19.
"Denying unG.o.dliness" (t.i.tus ii. 12).
Let us say, "No," to the flesh, the world and the love of self, and learn that holy self-denial in which consists so much of the life of obedience.
Make no provision for the flesh; give no recognition to your lower life.
Say "No" to everything earthly and selfish. How very much of the life of faith consists in simply denying ourselves.
We begin with one great "Yes," to G.o.d, and then we conclude with an eternal "No," to ourselves, the world, the flesh and the devil.
If you look at the ten commandments of the Decalogue, you will find that nearly every one of them is a "Thou shalt not." If you read the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, with its beautiful picture of love, you will find that most of the characteristics of love are in the negative, what love "does not, thinks not, says not, is not." And so you will find that the largest part of the life of consecration is really saying, "No."
I am not my own, I belong to Him.
I am His alone, I belong to Him.