Church of God, Carmichael, CA
Helps To Holy Living
Charles E. Orr, Original Publishing Unknown
[Original Page Numbers]
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Part One
To get holiness people to live holy lives is an exceedingly great task. To live a strictly holy life, just like our blessed Lord, is grand and glorious, but it is difficult to get people to live that way. It can be done, but it is not being done by very many. There are many who desire to live holy, but they fail to put forth the earnest effort and live it right up to what they know they should. They want to live closer to God, but they do not do it. They do not mean to neglect, and yet they do neglect. They know they should pray more, but they do not pray more. Many of these dear people confess that they talk too much and speak impatiently, but we see little or no improvement. They fret and worry and are anxious, and know they should not be, and yet they continue on in the same life. They are not getting the heavenly joys and holy comforts out of life that they should. The purpose of this little booklet is to help just such people.
Dear saints, we do not mean to censure you or condemn you, but we tell you in plain words with a heart full of love, you must live better. You speak too sharp and harsh in your home, you speak light and idle words, you talk too much, and you pray too little. Is this not true? Well, why do you not live better? You may say that you do want to and you try, but you do not succeed. You improve some for a few days after hearing a stirring sermon and then you are back in the same way. You must try harder, be more determined, more resolute, never give up, take time to pray, guard against talking so much, and ask God to help you. To the man using tobacco you will say, "You must get so decided that you will quit it if it kills you." It is so with your impatient speeches, your fret and worry, your too much talk; you must quit these if it kills you. You need to pray more, meditate more, lift up your soul to God more, have more reverence and holy awe upon your soul, live more in godly fear, have more of the anointing of the Holy Spirit upon you, and more peace and power and glory in your soul. You can have it. It will cost you something, but you can have it if you will. We love you fervently. We want to help you. We promise you and God that by His grace we will live just what we preach to you. If there is one who after reading this little booklet, will get in earnest and walk closer to God, we shall be repaid a thousand fold for our labor. Our hearts are burdened. Too many of God's saints are living beneath their privilege. [2 top]
Part One
Working Out Your Salvation
"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." (Phil. 2:12). What are you here told to do? Work out your salvation. How are you told to do it? With fear and trembling. Are you doing it? You are burdened down with the cares of this life and are not much alarmed over it. Do you not know that it is the cares of this life that choke out the Word of God? Then just a little of the cares of this life ought to alarm you. You thought salvation was by faith and not works. But faith and works go together. There is a work for you to do to keep saved. You must have faith, but if your faith is real it will be attended with works in fear and trembling.
A little girl comes home from school with a fever. The fond mother says to the father, "I fear it is a contagion."
He replies, "I fear it is, and we must do something."
They get in earnest and call mightily on God and the little girl is well in the morning. Thank God. A few evenings later some trouble comes up in the home. The husband speaks in a harsh, cutting tone to the wife. She replies in the same manner. There is a contagion in that home, a terrible contagion. Now is the time to fear and tremble, and to call mightily to God in deep repentance and not to cease until the heavenly winds are wafted down and that contagion is swept out of the heart and out of the home and a sweet peace is shed over all. That is works in fear and trembling.
A man buys a home. He pays cash, all he has. The contract is made out and signed, and now he goes to working out the monthly payments. He moves in, takes possession and goes to work. One day the final payment is [2] made and the warranty deed is given. A man gives all he has to Christ and gets saved. The contract is signed. He takes possession and goes to work in fear and trembling. Some day he will have it all worked out and his heavenly home is forever secured. When the "little foxes" get in, get them out at once. That is part of your work. Another part is to go about helping others all you can. Another work is to do much praying and keep the heart full of blooming flowers for the Master.
Meditating On God and His Word
To meditate on God and His Word is to calmly and quietly fix the mind upon the great fact of God and His Word until that fact has time to enter the mind and pervade it with its influence. Meditation is the quiet thinking, the applying of the mind attentively to the great truths of the Bible and the Author of it. We must meditate on God's law that we might come to know it as we should, and then to love it and then to practice it. No one can live a holy life without serious and frequent reflection of the mind upon the truths of our great salvation and the love of God. You may be able to live a good moral life; you might have an exterior life good enough to hold the confidence of man, but holy living comes from the living Word of God hidden in the heart. Holy living is not only the re¬fraining from doing the wrong and the doing of the right, but it is the refraining from doing the wrong from an inward principle of holy hatred of the wrong inwrought in the heart by the Holy Spirit, and a doing of the right in the life and holiness of God. It is more than the good deeds done by human life; it is good deeds done by the life of God in the human life. There is a vast difference. There is danger, great danger, in holiness professors attending to the outward life to the neglect of the inward life. So long as they do not do anything wrong, and so long as they do things that are right they think themselves safe. We can live good lives and, like the church at Ephesus, lose the love of God out of the soul. Right living may be only man in action; holy living is God in action. Meditation [3] is positively necessary to the keeping of God in the life.
Meditation is the holding of Bible truths in the mind until the virtue is steeped out of them and enters the mind and heart. It means to be in the midst of a matter, to have it in your very center. You need not fear losing yourself in meditation on the law of God. The more fully you lose yourself in meditation on God the more you will be like Him. You cannot love Christ very deeply without meditation. You cannot become strong or pure or deep in God without letting the mind dwell lovingly on Him.
Dear Christian reader, do you meditate? Do you go apart each day and with the mind wholly detached from every thing of earth, fix it quietly, calmly on God and some portion of His Word? Do you become lost to every thing of earth in the loving thought of God?
"There is a blest pavilion,
A sacred inner court,
The place of God's own dwelling,
With all the world shut out.
"Oh, holy resting place!
Oh, calm and pure retreat!
Where God unveils His face,
And life is only sweet."
Do you enter into this holy place with the world shut out and there commune with God, there think of His love and the great plan of salvation until your soul is aflame with heavenly love and light and peace making it the easiest thing in the world to come out and practice the wonderful truths of salvation ? If you will meditate on the theme of salvation as you should, life will become sweet and the truths of salvation will naturally live themselves out in you. But the question is: do you meditate? Very, very few of you do. Oh, how can we help you? Will you not spend fifteen minutes twice a day to deep, profound thought of God? We beg of you to do it. Will you not do it for your soul's sake and for Jesus' sake? If you do not, there will be things get into your life that ought not [4] to be there. There will be a little too much talk, a little restlessness and impatience, a little fret and worry, a burdening of the cares of this life, and perhaps bits of worldliness will get in and you will not know it, and you may go to some places where Jesus really would not go. But O, beloved, if you will practice meditating on God and His law day and night, there will be a holy flame enkindled in your soul and such heavenly sweetness and peace that the cares of this life, and fret and worry will no more light on you than flies on a heated furnace.
There are many preachers and thousands of people professing holiness that talk beautifully about meditation, saying what a blessed and glorious thing it is, and yet they do not practice it. My dear reader, you must do more than talk and more than read this and say it is good and true. You must meditate in all that the word means. Meditation brings God into the soul and causes you to live holy in every act of life.
Christ's Epistle
"Ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ." (2 Cor. 3 :3). "All can see that you are a letter from Christ." (20th Cent.) The Christian is Christ's "Open Letter." His life is a message from Christ to the world. His daily walk is a genuine letter from the Saviour of men. The Christian life is written by the same hand that wrote the New Testament and they read just alike, word for word. If you profess to be a Christian be sure your daily life is the handwriting of Jesus. Your life in your home amid its trials and provocations should read like God's Word. It is very confusing and discouraging to others if your life and the New Testament read differently.
The purpose of a letter is to convey the thoughts and mind of the writer. The Christian is that kind of letter. Men come to know the thoughts of God by reading the Christian's life. He shows Christ's patience in his patience. His life is not his life, but Christ's life in his life. The life of a saint is a letter in which the world can read Christ's gentleness, kindness, humility, sobriety, calmness, sympathy, [6] love, holiness, separateness from the world and hatred of sin. Do not think this standard is too high. If you will take time to pray and seek after this life with determined effort, leaning hard on Christ's helpful arm, it will surprise you what a wonderful and beautiful letter you can get to be.
Mind The Little Things
Take care of the pennies and the dimes, and you will have the dollars. A pin scratch has caused the death of folks. If you begin to think a thing is too small to be given attention, you are entering a dangerous path. Little bricks build a great house, and little sins make a great sinner. You can put more love in doing little things than in great things. There is less danger of self being in doing the little things than in doing great things. By guarding against every little evil and fault, and faithfully doing every little good thing possible, you can build up a beautiful holy life. Guard your thoughts and words. Lift up your soul to God many times a day. Keep the Lord set before your face. Spend your spare moments on your knees in a sweet little talk with Jesus.
Devotion
"She hath wrought a good work on me." (Mark 14 :61. This woman had an emotion in her soul and it swelled and longed for expression. She was charged with wastefulness. No, no it was not waste. Had she not poured out the fragrant ointment then, there would have been waste. Her soul panted for some way to express her devotion, and she took this way and her love was increased and tendered and she was qualified to be a greater blessing to the world. Had she not given expression to her love, she would have lost love and there would have been the waste. Whatever elevates us and serves to make us more capable of doing good is not waste.
She wrought this work on Jesus. "To what purpose was this deed done ?" That should not be the question. "For whose sake was it done?" That is the question that settles the matter. Everything done from the stirring of love in the heart for Jesus makes it a good work. Working a good work on Jesus Christ is the law of Christian devotion.
True devotion is that disposition of heart that moves it to perform with tender affection and burning fervor all its services to God. The bowing of the knees, the prostrating of the body on the ground, the lifting of the eyes heavenward, the wringing of the hands, and the pious sighs and groans are not full proof of a devoted heart. In all acts of true devotion there is a high esteem, a profound respect, a holy adoration for the Divine Majesty; there is an humble acknowledgment of the soul's dependence and duty; there is an intense desire to lavish the heart's love upon Jesus by doing all things for His sake.
No exercising of the soul is so ennobling, so hallowing, so consoling as the performing of humble, sincere acts of devotion. True devotion is attended by self sacrifice. Devotion is more than sentiment. It is a principle fixed in the core of our being. We cannot always be in acts of devotion, but the principle is in the soul and it expresses itself on every fitting occasion.
"I want a principle within
Of jealous godly fear,
A sensitiveness to sin,
A pain to feel it near;
Tender as the apple of the eye,
O God, my conscience make!
Awake my soul when sin is nigh,
And keep it still awake." [7]
Intensity
"As the hart pants after the waterbrooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God." (Psa. 42:1). Here is intensity. By intensity we mean that burning passion of the soul after God. That intense desire to be holy as He is holy, and to glorify Him in all words and acts of life. "I opened my mouth and panted: for I longed for thy commandments" (Psa. 119:131). Here is intensity. Panting after the commandments of God like a thirsty animal for water. The great task of the overseers of God's church today is to keep God's people out of a careless, go easy, indifferent life. How few thirst after God. How few thirst and hunger for the salvation of souls. Preachers may go over the country holding revivals and find entertainment and enjoyment in doing so, but even of those, how few have such a burning passion for souls that they will wrestle with God in the midnight hour or early morning hour or any convenient time for the salvation of the lost. They may think more of what gain they will make. This would be an awful crime, but it may be one of which some are guilty. There are holiness people who act very much as if no one were going to hell. Others act as if they were just as holy as they cared to be. They seem to have no thirsting for greater perfection of life. They act as if there were no improvement to be made.
The need of today is a greater passion for goodness, a more intense longing for greater Christlikeness and a greater burden for those for whom our dear Savior gave His life. "Rivers of water run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy law." (Psa. 119:136). Here is intensity. When did you shed a tear over sinners lost? Do not these words shame you? Dear people, the house is on fire, how can ye keep on sleeping ? [8]
Only One Way
A tourist asked at the service station the way to a certain town. The directions were carefully given. The tourist said, "You think this is the best way, do you?"
The service man replied, "It is not only the best way, but it is the only way."
The Bible is the only way to heaven. Do you live to all it teaches every day? Read the sixth chapter of Matthew over very carefully. Stop at verses 6, 20, 22, 28, and 33.
The Sanctified
Sometimes the word "Sanctification" means that which is set apart, consecrated. In this meaning the vessels in the Temple were holy. But there is a higher sense. It means a state of perfect holiness. Christ perfects them that are sanctified. Holiness means inward likeness to God. Holy living means that the outward life is in full harmony with the will of God. It means very much to be holy as God is holy and to live in harmony with the Divine mind. It can be done, but it is not every one who professes holiness that is doing it. We ought to live in this way for Jesus' sake. He is happiest when we are holiest. He is glorified when we do all things to His glory. In those who live holy lives is His ideal realized. We should not seek holiness that we might be happy, but because it is God's will. Doing the will of God should be our meat and drink. We cannot do God's will except we be holy, therefore seek holiness and holy living. Be careful, oh, be careful about being holy in the little things of life. If people live holy at all it is in the greater things. If they come short of living holy in the little things of everyday home life, they have missed true holy living.[9]
Part One
A Fable With A Lesson
Have you read the story of a traveler whose horse was eaten by a wolf ? The story says that a traveler riding through a lonely district on horseback was attacked by a wolf. The traveler, somewhat heedless of the wolf, went on his way. The wolf from behind began eating on the horse without the traveler's knowledge. He ate and he ate until he had eaten into the horse. He kept on eating until finally he ate to the head and to the feet and the traveler came riding into his town on a wolf instead of a horse. All that was left of the horse was the skin. There was a wolf inside.
Some folks start out for heaven saved and sanctified. They are attracted by the cares of this life, by neglect of prayer, by impatience, by idle words, by the pleasures of the world, by worldly thoughts. To these they do not give much heed. But they eat and they eat and they feed on the spiritual life, and they do it so slowly and so subtly that the traveler is unaware that his spiritual steed is being eaten away. It will be well indeed if he discovers before he reaches his destination that he is riding on an empty profession.
Members One Of Another
"So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another." (Romans 12:5). In these words we have a picture of the oneness of the people of God. They are one body. This is the body of Christ. Saints, God's holy people, constitute His body. He dwells in this body (Eph. 1:23; 2 Cor. 6:16). The apostle illustrates this by the human body (1 Cor. 12:14 24). We can learn many a lesson about the body of Christ—the Church of God—by the study of the human body. Paul here says (v. 26), "And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it." These words, perhaps, express as great depth of this oneness as any other words in this illustration. This experience is true in the real body of Christ. If one [10] saint suffers all the other saints suffer with this suffering one. Let us examine our experience. When one member is honored all the members rejoice with the honored one. We ought not to pass over this indifferently. There is a solemn truth here. We should not say it is true in our life if it is not really true. If the feet of your body are honored with a nice pair of shoes, see how rejoicing the hands go to work to place these shoes upon the feet. It is so in the body of Christ. Suppose you have held a prominent position in the Church. The time comes when you must surrender it to another. Do you do so rejoicingly? Man can say that he does it rejoicingly when in the heart it is not true. We ought not to be satisfied unless it is as true as heaven in our heart. Suppose you were aspiring for a position, but it is given to another. Do you rejoice in your heart? It is that way in the human body, and it is even more so in the Church of God. Suppose you are given $100.00. You rejoice. Why do you rejoice? Do you rejoice because of what use you can make of this money for your own convenience and need? You should rejoice because of what use you can make of it in honoring or glorifying Christ. This should be the sole cause of your rejoicing. Let me tell you how you can discover whether you rejoice in it for this one cause. Suppose the $100 be given to another who will use it to glorify God equally as much as you, do you rejoice just as much as if it had been given to you? If not, you are not measuring fully to 1 Cor. 12:26.
Holy Thoughts for Quiet Hours
1. Anything less than perfect dependence upon God is a denial of Him.
2. Life has a language. To live holy is to have all our words and deeds to say, "Hallowed be Thy name."
3. The rays of light that proceed from the sun are as pure as the sun. The life that flows from God must be as free from imperfections as He.
4. If the human soul would grow in moral stature and moral beauty and fruitfulness, it must keep open to the [11] light of God and absorb that light as it falls upon it.
5. If you are not showing to the world around you that there is something better than wealth, honor, position, earthly pleasure, and the good opinions and praise of men, you are not showing forth the life of Christ.
6. He does not love us truly who does not love us well enough to tell us our faults. To love one another is to have an intense desire to see one another free from faults.
7. The man who fails to give us reproof when needed, but gives us approval instead or holds back deserving rebuke for fear of offending, is more cruel than he who withholds bread from us when we are hungry.
8. He who will listen to any words of levity, jesting, foolishness, tale bearing, tattling, and show no disapproval makes himself a partaker of the sin.
9. It has been arranged in the plan of redemption that God and man can be so absorbed each in the other that they would think alike, will alike, feel and love and work together. This is man at his real self.
10. Man is to be loved because of what he is worth to God. We get some estimate of man's worth to Christ by the terrible woe He pronounces upon those who would injure one of those who believe in Him.
11. The nearer you live like Christ the nearer you live like you ought to live. The more you love Him, and love with Him, and love all things for Him the more you will be like Him.
12. The trouble is not that you do not know what is right; the trouble is that you do not lay hold upon God to help you to live like you know you should.
The Fear of Man
We doubt if there be any other one thing that prevents God's people living unto God as they should so much as the fear of man. It is so very subtle and cunning that many may have it and not be aware of it. There is an independence of man that is wrong and there is an independence that is most Christlike. Holy living is to live [12] unto God though all the world might oppose. Our dearest friend on earth must not be allowed to cause us to deviate one hair's breadth from trueness to God. Here is one of the places in the Christian's life that should be closely watched and guarded. Peter swerved from the true path when he refused to eat with the Gentiles for fear of the Jews. This was after Pentecost. Paul reproved him. This took some courage on the part of Paul, but faithfulness required it.
"The fear of man bringeth a snare." (Prov. 29 :25). Many a one has fallen into this snare. Alas, how many have made compromise with man for man's favor! "Conscious dependence upon God is the spirit of independence toward all men." Perfect love casts out all fear of man. Those who can be influenced by men are not made perfect in love. It is argued by some that we should desire all men to think well of us that we might do them good. This is true, but oh, how careful we need to be that it is solely that we "might do them good." Beware lest there be something of self there. We should desire to have influence with men for Jesus' sake, but for no other purpose. If faithfulness to God causes you to lose influence with men, then it were better for them and you also that you lose it. If you have to step aside from godly living to have influence with men, you are ensnared.
The apostle said, "But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man's judgment." (1 Cor. 4 3). To suppress or modify truth by word or act is coming short of holy living. To give aid, or to abet by word or deed any spirit of levity, worldliness, or untruthfulness through man's influence is unfaithfulness to God.
Lifting Up Jesus
"Lift Him up by living as a Christian ought, Let the world in you the Saviour see."
Is this true in our life all the year through? Is it true all the day through? Is Jesus seen in all you do? When things go wrong in the home and you are tried and tempted, do you lift up Christ in these times? We sing the song [13] heartily, but do we really and truly live it day in and day out? It is dangerous to sing such songs and then pass on and not live them. To know to do a thing and then through neglect or carelessness fail to live it is a very serious matter. Keep self out of sight and set Christ in view. Two men went to hear a preacher preach one Sunday morning. One said to the other after the preaching, "That was an eloquent discourse; he is a wonderful preacher." In the evening they went to hear another preacher. After the services one said to the other, "What a wonderful Saviour is Jesus." People sing about Jesus being lifted up in our lives; preachers preach about it, but what God wants is some people to live it. Live it, dear Christian, in all the details of everyday life. Live it in thought, word, and deed. Have the imprint of Christ's life upon every word and act. You can do it if you associate with Christ as with a loving friend, if you take time to read, pray, and meditate so as to assimilate the life of Christ into your own. Be encouraged and set to work with a determination to win.
I will lift up my Saviour
In everything I do;
I will keep self far out of sight
That Christ may be in view.
Saying and Doing
Pilate said of Jesus, "I find no fault in Him." That was his conception of Christ. He saw before him a faultless Christ. Then he added, "Take Him and crucify Him." These two expressions stand directly one against the other. He spoke correctly about Christ, but he acted wrongly. Many are thinking and talking rightly enough about Jesus, but they do not act rightly.
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Part One
The Church of God
The Church of God is the only institution on earth that is of heavenly origin. It is the only institution on the shores of time that will continue to exist in eternity. All else will pass away with the closing of time. The glory of empires, the magnificence of civilization, the grandeur of monarchies of time will have no reflection amid the glories of heaven. The splendor of earth's fortunes, the pomp and show of earth's glories, the renown of eloquence and oratory, the fame of schools of learning, the enchantments of beautiful forms and ceremonies of creeds will find no imprint, will have no representation in that land beyond the grave. Only the Church of God will shine there. It came down from heaven, and will return to heaven.
The Church of God is God's body, not only on earth, but also through all eternity. The Church is God's habitation now and forever. God will dwell in His people and His people in Him while the cycles of eternity roll on unending. The Church of God on earth is God's incarnation among men. As men read the history of the true Church they will read the biography of God. The life of the Church is His life. The world is God's creation as a Creator, the Church is His creation as a Life Giver. It is His own life. It lives in Him and He in it. The Church is a creation in Christ. The Church is not created in Christ by a mere creative act, but by being born of God. The Church is born of God in Christ and is the offspring of God. God loves the world as His creation. He loves the Church as the life of His life.
The Church of God on earth contains heavenly elements and nothing that is not heavenly. The Church bears God's image. God views His own likeness in His Church. The Church is a mirror which reflects all the Divine perfections. The Church of God is a living thing. It lives upon the life of God. God's life flows through its veins. The life of Jesus circulates freely through His Church, as freely as the blood circulates through the human body— the church is His body. It feeds on heavenly food. It breathes the atmosphere of heaven.
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God and man united in Christ is the Church. In the Church of God is the uniting of all men with God and with each other. The manifold wisdom of God, the mysteries of God, the character of God is revealed through His church. God in His beauty shines out of the Church. She is all fair; there is no spot in her. God made the sun, moon, and all the shining stars, but He does not make them His dwelling place. When He built His Church He said, "This is my rest; here I will dwell and multiply myself; here I have found such beauty and worth as to call out the fullest capacity of my love; here I find the fullest complacency of my being, here I see of the travail of my soul and I am satisfied."
The Church of God is attended by the ministry of angels. It is the only institution on earth that angels desire to look into. They pass every other thing by, but stop at the Church to admire her beauty and to bestow their ministry. It is the only institution on earth that affords joy to the angels. It is the only institution over which they sing, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." All of the conquests of the Church on earth bring joy to the angels.
The Church of God is the only institution on earth that can worship God. God, to be worshipped, must be worshipped in Spirit and truth, and nothing but the Church has the Spirit and the truth. The Church is full of heavenly instincts. God gives instinct to the bird and this instinct teaches it to do things. Heavenly instincts fill the Church, teaching it to do heavenly things. Its life is heavenly life. It lives by heavenly things, and divine things are wrought out by her activities. The Church is Holy Spirit filled and Holy Spirit governed. The Church is in the world, but the world is not in the Church. There is no room for the world in the Church. It is filled with divine things. The fish is in the salty ocean, but the fish is not salty. If you die in the Church you do not go out of it, if you die out of it you can never get in it. There is no sin in the Church. Her law is the law of holiness. All honor in the Church is given to the Holy Trinity. Some day the Church of God is going to be caught up to heaven and receive [16] a faultless presentation into the immediate presence of God's glory and the joys of heaven will be full and complete and be undiminished while eternity rolls on forever.
Mortify
The word "mortify" is found in Col. 3: "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth." (Col. 3:5). The word "mortify" means to "put to death." The 20th Cent. translation reads, "Therefore destroy all that is earthly in you." It has been believed and taught that every thing earthly about us is put to death when we are sanctified as a second work of grace or a cleansing of the heart from carnality. They think that there is nothing to be put to death or to mortify after we are sanctified. These people to whom Paul was writing were dead and their life was hid with Christ in God. They were dead and yet there is something about them that needs to be put to death. This can be because man is a two fold being. The inner man may be dead to sin and the world—sanctified—yet the outward man has passions, desires, appetites that must be controlled, that must not be allowed to break out beyond their legitimate bounds. Now we will tell you a secret. What we are now going to tell you is the secret principle of holy living. It is the thread that runs through the entire life. It is "sacrifice." Listen, no man can keep the body in perfect control who does not keep that body on the altar of daily sacrifice. If you cease to sacrifice, you cease to control. To sacrifice is to mortify. Habits of virtue cannot be acquired except at the expense of sacrifice. He who is not constantly making sacrifice is not advancing in the Christian life. Sacrifice in the little things of daily life. The secret of living holy is sacrifice in the little things. It is not in being absent from ball rooms, ball games, theatres, political gatherings, and such like worldly things. These things have but little or no temptation to people who are sanctified. It is no sacrifice for them to abstain from such evils. Where the holy need to watch is to not let love of self get in. Holy people have a self, but they must guard against an undue love of self. Keep that self on the [17] altar of sacrifice. Guard against taking too much thought about bodily comforts. It is no sin to give the body some comfort if it is not done at the expense of another's comfort. Then you need to have a care when you are alone not to provide too greatly for the body's comforts, lest you become selfish and find it difficult to sacrifice your comforts for another's comfort.
To indulge the body in late rising, in dainty foods, in luxuries, in ease, in things pleasant to the eye—fine things, in idleness, in the avoidance of hardships, in the shrinking from bearing another's burden, and a disposition to lay your own on another is the way to become selfish. Sacrifice is the law of the Christian life. Sacrificing bodily comforts daily in the home for the comforts of others is helpful to the soul in its upward way. Where there is no sacrifice there is no holiness. Where there is no self denying, there is no love to God. Where the body is not kept under, the soul is enslaved. The beauty of holiness never grows out of bodily indulgence, but out of bodily sacrifice. If you would live holy, destroy that which is earthly, sensual, and lustful in you.
Contentment
"Be content with such things as ye have." What is it to be contented? When we are contented we are not wishing for something we do not have. To be contented with just what you have is to not be wishing for something you do not have. Paul said, "For I have learned, in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content." (Phil. 4:11). If Paul could learn that lesson, we can learn it. A brother was asked what kind of weather he thought it would be for the next few days. He answered, "Just the sort of weather that suits me." The inquirer was eager to know what sort of weather suited him. He replied, "Just what ever kind suits the Lord."
"But godliness with contentment is great gain." (1 Tim. 6:6). There may be some who do not know the true meaning of these words. They do not mean that you have great [18] gain. They mean that if you have godliness and the contentment that always attends it you have great gain. You cannot separate godliness and contentment. If you have godliness you have contentment, and you cannot have contentment without godliness. We come just as far short of true godliness as we come short of contentment. If you do not have perfect contentment, you do not possess God in the fullness. The fullness of God in the soul satisfies the soul. It leaves no void. Such a soul has perfect peace, fullness of joy, rivers of pleasures, and is happy in its lot.
To be contented you must come to know, and know it well, that nothing can happen to you which is not in harmony with the will of God. Without a thorough knowledge of this there will be discontentment. Nothing can disturb the peace of those who know in their heart that God's will is in every thing that comes to them in life. Instead of striving to be rich, strive to be contented with what you have. A contented life is yours, if you will have it. It is a grand way to live.
Then, whatsoever wind cloth blow,
My heart is glad to have it so;
And, blow it east or blow it west,
The wind that blows, that wind is best.
[19]
Part One
Sonship With God
"Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God." (1 John 3:1). "Father" and "son." Blessed relationship; life of life. There is fatherhood in God, but it can be realized by the man only by being born of God. God must come into man's humanity and man must come into God's divinity that he might realize God as his Father and himself as God's son. This is made possible in Christ. God's divinity and man's humanity are united in Christ. God can come to man in Christ's divinity, and man can come to God in Christ's humanity. God's divinity can enter into our humanity and we become partakers of the divine nature. We can come to know God only in Christ. We can [19] not see God only as we see Him in Christ. We can come to be like God only in Christ Jesus. Christ is the image of the invisible God. ( Col. 1:5 ). Christ will show us the Father in Himself. (John 14 :8, 9.) You can become like God only to the extent you see Him in Christ. Suppose you never saw your mother's father. Your mother loved, honored and revered her father. She thought he was the most exemplary man she knew. Her highest ambition was that her son be a man like her father. She knew that to have him grow up to be such a man she must show her father to her son. She imbibed the spirit of her father. His character was inwrought in her being. She taught in word all she could to her boy about his grandfather, and she showed the image of her father to the boy by living the life, and thus the boy saw his grandfather in and through his mother and was fashioned into his image. If we will listen and obey Christ's teaching, look into His holy life and imitate it, we will grow into the likeness of the Father.
God's Law in Man's Mind and Heart
"I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts." (Hebrews 8:10.) To live holy lives we must have God's Word in both mind and heart. The same hand that writes it in the heart also writes it in the mind. Studying the Bible is good, but not sufficient. We must have written in the mind by the Holy Spirit what we read in the book or it will profit us little or nothing. The Holy Spirit never writes God's law in the mind except He writes them in the heart also. When written in the heart, man obeys.
Sensibility
Sensibility includes sensitiveness, and sensitiveness is the power to receive delicate impressions. The soul can be so sensitive that it be made to feel what God feels. It can feel the presence of God everywhere. It can also feel the presence of evil. This is a wonderful safeguard of the soul. It feels the presence of evil in the vagrant thought, in the [20] lightly spoken word, the hasty action and flees to God at once for refuge. It feels the presence of evil in those little worldly things which many say are harmless. The sensitive soul detects evil there and avoids them. It is acquainted with the voice of the Shepherd. It can distinguish between His voice and that of a stranger. The more perfect the manhood. the more perfect the sensibility. The higher we rise into the manhood of Jesus the quicker scented we become, the more easily we detect the presence of God and the presence of sin. This is necessary to all holy living. Many a soul today has lost the sensitiveness they once experienced. Evil things that they once fled away from in horror they are now embracing. It is our privilege to grow more sensitive as we grow in years of service to God. The farther we walk with Him, the closer we can walk with Him. We can keep step with Him more perfectly.
The scriptures tell us that Christ was of such quick understanding that He did not judge by the sight of His eyes or reprove by the hearing of His ears (See Isa. 11:3). In the margin it reads, "scent or smell." Christ was quick to detect an ill odor. He was sensitive to the presence of sin. The more we become like Christ the more sensitive we shall become. Christianity is a life. It is a Divine life. In that life there are senses that can sense Divine things. That life is susceptible to the impulses of the Holy Spirit. The soul can feel God, taste Him, hear Him. It is "alive unto God." The soul, in this Divine life, is not only inwardly sensible to all the movements of the Holy Spirit, but is also sensitive to the feelings of men. The sensitive soul feels, not only what is in God, but is sensible also of what is in man. It is thus that when one member in Christ's body, the Church, suffers, all the other members suffer with it. They feel what the suffering member feels. Is that day past? Not with all. The sensitive soul weeps with Christ over a lost world. It feels what Jesus feels. [21]
The Loss of Soul Sensitiveness
Is it not true that in other days the bond of sympathy between members in the Church of God was stronger than it is today? Did not all the members suffer more keenly with the suffering member? When the soul is quivering with Divine life and all its faculties functioning properly, it suffers with all the suffering members of Christ's body. It does more; it suffers with Christ the sin and suffering of a wicked world. What were the sufferings of Christ while here upon earth? It was not physical, but spiritual. His soul was sorrowful because of the sins of the world. It is in this way that we are to suffer with the Savior. Instead of weeping with Christ over a sinful world, many professors of Christianity are going on in their revelry, feasting, banqueting, in their pomp and show, in their entertainments, amusements, and pleasures, in their lust and pride.
Sensuality dulls the spiritual senses. None but the pure in heart can enter the realm of soul sensitiveness. You may study the art of public speaking, you may receive degrees and honorary titles, you may occupy prominent positions, you may discourse eloquently and enthusiastically, but if you have not transparent purity of soul you cannot feel the delicate promptings of the will of God. The sensual cannot appreciate the beauty of purity. There are delicate lines in it which they never see. They cannot enter into communion with a holy God though they may discourse like an angel about Him. We exhort you, saint of God, keep sensitive to the Holy Spirit. Keep the world out of your eye. Keep in touch with God. Feel with Him, love with Him, suffer with Him, rejoice with Him, sympathize with Him over a lost world, be susceptible to all the feelings of His great heart. Soul, remember that just a little affection for earthly things dulls the soul's senses. The god of this world blinds the eye. As the glass in the camera is sensitive to the light, so keep your soul sensitive to heavenly impressions.
Keep sensitive, O soul of mine,
To God's holy will and Word;
Grow deeper, deeper every day
In the feelings of thy Lord. [22]
Spiritual Mindedness
"But to be carnally minded is death: but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." (Rom. 8:6). We ought to tremble before these words. Can you read them and then pass on in a careless way, taking but little thought about yourself to know whether you are carnally or spiritually minded? You say that you cannot give a dictionary definition. We are not asking for Webster's definition; we want you to give yours from your own experience.
It is in the mind that thoughts are generated. The carnal mind generates carnal thoughts, while the spiritual mind generates spiritual thoughts. Carnal thoughts are thoughts about earthly things, spiritual thoughts are thoughts about heavenly things. Examine your thoughts. What are their trend? Are they mostly worldward? Do worldly thoughts crowd in on your mind even when in the secret place you kneel to pray? If they do, we say that we deeply sympathize with you, but we must tell you in the greatest kindness but seriousness that you are to blame. It ought not to be that way. You can have it better. Our thoughts can be brought into captivity. Christ, by His grace, will help us to control them. You have been allowing them to dwell on temporal things. You do not have to do it. If you have for a long time been allowing your thoughts to dwell on the things of earth and little grooves have been cut in the brain matter like the grooves on a phonograph record, it will take some effort to change their course, but fear not, it can be done and it must be done. The marginal reading of Col. 3:2 is, "Set your mind on things above, and not on things on the earth." That is a plain, comprehensive statement or command. Why do we not all do just what we are here told to do? How can we hope to get on well in the spiritual life and not do what the Bible says? Now let us not make excuses, nor treat this with indifference. There is too much at stake. Death and life are before us. For our mind to dwell on "things on the earth," it means death; but for it to dwell on "things above" it means life and peace. We can have which we will. We are the framers of our destiny. [23]
Col. 3:3 says, "For ye are dead." That is why you set your mind on things above. People who are dead do not set their minds on things to which they are dead. How can your mind be set on earthly things and you be dead to earthly things and your life hid with Christ in God? This is a serious matter and we advise you to take it seriously. We said in our first chapter that we may appear to be some times a little severe. If it takes that to get you to thinking and considering, then it is best to be severe. What we fear is that even severity will not get you in earnest about this matter. We fear you will go on letting your mind float around on earthly things nearly all day long. You are awake from five o'clock in the morning until nine o'clock at night—sixteen hours. Have you given one solid hour out of the sixteen to deep, profound thinking on heavenly things? Now the fact is that a few moments at different times during the day is all that is needed for the proper attending to the things of this life, and to sum up this few moments they would not amount to more than an hour and the other fifteen should be spent in setting your mind on things above. Maybe you are a preacher and you spend considerable time thinking about the Word of the Lord. That is no more proof that you are spiritually minded than it is for the school boy to think much about mathematics. Each is thinking about the work he is engaged in. A spiritual mind does not spend near so much time thinking about the work of God as it does about God. We make far more effectual preachers by praying our messages down from heaven into our souls than we do by study and sermonizing. We would not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax, but we exhort you in all sincerity of heart to attend to the matter of setting your mind on things above. If you spend your days here with your mind mostly on things on earth, how can you enjoy heaven if you were to get there? There will be no earthly things there to think about.
Now do not get restless, but in a calm, composed, quiet manner set to work thinking about heavenly things. Read your Bible more and keep your thoughts on it while you read. While you are about your work think about heaven [24] and the great truths of salvation which God has given us to guide us to heaven. Think about Christ and what it will be to meet Him face to face. Do you find it a difficult thing to do? How strange! You say you love Him with all your heart, but you find it much easier to think about the things that pertain to your every day comforts and conveniences than you do to think about Jesus. We suggest that you begin now and think more about things above. Take time every day to go into some quiet place and turn your thoughts heavenward and think soberly and seriously about the glories and the wonders of that beautiful world. It you will attend to this, not in a strained way, but calmly and peacefully, you will soon find it easy to fix your thoughts on God and things above. If you will, a joy and gladness will come into your heart that will make it seem that you have gotten saved again. You will soon get to where on the moment of awakening in the night or in the morning your thoughts will soar up to heaven. Your first thought will be on things above, and at the same time your soul will taste a sweetness that is above any sweetness of earth. A fear would come over my soul if my mind gave its first awakening thoughts to earthly things. No, no, no; let my mind dwell a while in heaven before it takes up the duties of the day. There is a brother who never allows a night to pass by, unless there be an occasional night when his slumbers are unbroken, without rising once and twice, and on his knees has an earnest heart to heart talk with God. On awakening in the morning he spends from half an hour to an hour in prayer and holy thought before taking up the duties of the day, and then often through the day takes a few moments for thinking on heavenly things. It is not difficult to get into a life like this, and it is heaven on earth. With all the earnestness of soul we exhort you Christian reader, to get into it and then go forward to walking closer to God every day so that some day you will get so close that you will never come back to earth again. [25]
NEXT
5334 Whitney Ave. Carmichael, CA. 95608
Pastor, Church Telephone (916) 482-7128
Church of God, Carmichael, CA
Helps To Holy Living
Charles E. Orr, Original Publishing Unknown
[Original Page Numbers]
Part One
Holy Thoughts For Quiet Hours
1. You have taken a long step toward holy living when you have learned to do much and say little. Holiness is seen in what you do and not in what you say.
2. Many seek God and find Him not because they seek Him for what He has to give, rather than for what He is Himself. There are those who would like very much to live like God, but are not willing to pay the price to become like God.
3. A man may discourse very beautifully about God, and pray in public with great fervor and enthusiasm, but if he is negligent of secret prayer his religion is toward men and not toward God.
4. We have obtained the true riches only when we have obtained true poverty. We have obtained true honor only when we have come to be despised. We rise to a great height only by being beaten down. We find true comfort in affliction. When you are called a fool for Christ's sake then you have found the true knowledge. You have found true joy and happiness only when you are crucified with Christ.
5. If you want that peace which comes from God, if you want that fullness of joy that Christ gives, see that that seven headed monster of self love has every head beheaded.
6. If thou wouldst have thy soul to be the temple of God, see that it is kept clean of all evil, quiet from all fears, void of all earthly affection, and peaceful amid temptation.
7. A devoted man is one who lives solely to the will of God, who serves God in every thing, who sees God in every thing, who does all in the name of Jesus, and eats and drinks and does all things to God's glory.
8. If a man buys and sells with the sole thought of getting gain and bettering himself in things of this world without any regard for the one from whom he buys or sells, he has a vain religion.
9. The Christian takes interest only in those things outside of Christ which he can use for Christ. If a man [26] engages in any business he can not serve Christ in or can not use to Christ's glory, he lives outside of Christ.
10. You are winging your flight over the narrow stream of time. Know you not that in your flight God holds your hand, then why do you get so restless and flutter so? Why do such little things trouble you?
Jesus
"Oh, the precious music of Jesus' name!
Glory to the Lamb!
Oh, sweetest name in song, the heavens shall prolong
The music of Thy name."
To the Christian soul there is no music so sweet as the music of the name of Jesus. That name catches the attention above all other names. That name is sacred to the Christian's memory. He loves to think on that name. There is an inexpressible sweetness in the thought of that name. A tender delight comes over the soul at the mention of that name. There is no circumstance in life that that name cannot sweeten. If we be in the furnace flame that name quenches the burning.
A mother sits beside a little casket in which lies a child, cold, faded, and dead like a gathered lily. How deep, desperate and blank would be her woe if it were not for the name of Jesus. As she sits looking into the face of the child she bore just three months ago, the tears come streaming from her eyes, but at the thought of Jesus there is a smile through the tears. What beautiful and bright visions come before her mind as she beholds her child with Jesus in the Paradise of God. There is a sorrow at the heart, but there is an indescribable sweetness in the sorrow as she remembers her blessed Saviour.
"Tune your harps, ye ransomed throng, and extol the Christ
Sing the name that opened Mercy's door;
Oh, 'tis music, sweetest music to sinners lost,
Sweetest to the saints forever more." [27]
Salvation
As good old Simeon looked into the face of the Child he said, "Mine eyes have seen Thy Salvation." Who can tell what this meant to him? Who can tell what rapturous delight filled his soul? There he saw salvation in its true meaning. From this scene we look away to an innumerable company in white robes with palms in their hands standing before the throne and before the Lamb and they are singing. "Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb." When the sinner takes Jesus to his heart the song of "Salvation" begins. We hear him singing it all along the journey of life. He may some times be in the furnace fire, but he never loses his song. The storm may be raging but above the howling of the winds you will hear him singing "salvation." He may be misunderstood, misrepresented, despised, and forsaken by men, but on he goes singing his lovely song. He never misses a note. The adversities of life, be what they may, cannot still the song in his soul. Men may deride him, but the angels are listening. The world may sneer and scoff, but his song rolls as a sweet anthem up to the ears of the Great Eternal. One day a company of angels came to bear him away to his home beyond this world of trial, and we behold him in the midst of that great throng singing his song of salvation. That is his theme. It began here when he accepted Jesus and it will never have an end. It is the song that never grows old. The heart can find its fullest expression in but one word and that word is salvation. What does it mean to be saved? It is to be saved from an eternity in the miseries of hell to an eternity of blessedness in heaven.
"Salvation is the sweetest thing
That mortal ever found;
My soul can never cease to sing,
Such love and peace abound.
"Salvation is the theme so grand—
It thrills with joy my soul:
I'll sing it here, and sing it there
While ceaseless ages roll.[28]
Keep Heaven In View
"The traveler does not think of his journey's end every step of the way, but he does have it in mind sufficient to not turn aside out of the way. In all your ways of life keep God in mind. Attend to this with all diligence. Let God be the end you have in view in all your actions. Let me give you a few daily rules to walk by: First, never lie down to your night's sleep without thinking that you are not doing this for your own comfort, but that a servant of God may be refreshed and better fitted for the work God has given him to do. Second, never rise up without the thoughts, 'I arise in the name of the Lord to do all this day that will please Him most.' Third, never set about your daily work without the thought that I am doing this not as my appointed work, but as the work God has appointed and I do it out of love to Him. Fourth, never sit down at your table without thinking, 'I will now eat and drink, not to merely feed my flesh, but to nourish a servant of Christ that he may have strength for God's service.' Examine yourself in the evening to see if you have kept these things in mind. Do better tomorrow than you did today. When you get to doing all things with heaven in view and doing all things for God s sake, you are then enjoying a walk through life with God."—Sel. [29]
Part One
Closing Suggestions
We must bring this writing to a close. We loathe to say the last word. Oh God, is there not one word more we can say that may help some one to a holier life? The writer of these lines is nearing his three score years and ten, and being frail in body has written this little booklet as though it may be his last. For two score years the ambition of his life has been to walk close with God and to help others to this blessed life. He has made some mistakes, but even these have been turned to account in helping him to turn with greater eagerness to ascend higher in the Divine life. He has attained a fuller love for all men [29] and for things holy. He hates sin with a perfect hatred. He has attained to a deeper insight into holiness of life. He sees more clearly how the love of God and true holiness can be brought into all the details of every day life; how every thought and word and act can be stamped all over with the beauty of holiness; how that an act can be done to any creature in the tenderness of love. Before saying the last word he wishes to impress upon all the vast importance of being holy in the performance of the smallest duty of life. It may be needful to reprove or rebuke some one for stepping aside from the holy way of Christ, but do it in the tenderness of heaven's love. You must not assent to that which is evil though it be in your dearest friend. You must not smile or nod the head at any remark that is light or jesty, or contains any strife, malice, or ill will toward another. Let everything be done in the sobriety, the gravity, the holiness, the joyfulness and the love of Christ. We shall give you a few parting counsels.
1. Be prayerful. Take time to bow in the secret place and commune heart to heart with God at least twice every day. See to it that in your prayers your soul is lifted up into the presence of God and that it receives the stamp of His holiness upon it. Guard against lukewarmness in prayer. Be fervent, touch heaven and be touched by heaven.
2. Guard against being burdened with the cares of this life. Keep your life free from fret, worry, and anxiety. Rest calmly, tranquilly in the helpfulness of an ever present heavenly Father. Guard against indifference and slothfulness in the spiritual life. Attend vigorously to all the spiritual duties. Come to your prayers with reverence and holy awe. Enter the place of public worship with reverence and a feeling of devotion. Do not engage in a conversation in the house of God that would interfere with or diminish the profoundness of that feeling of reverence in your soul. The house of God is not the place for conversing upon earthly themes. It is a place appointed for the worship of God, not only during the actual service, but before and after. The good effect produced upon the soul by the sermon can be destroyed before you quit the house by a turning of the mind to earthly things.[30]
3. See to it every day that you are wholly detached from earthly things. Examine the heart often and closely lest there get to be some affection for things on the earth. See that your love for Christ grows warmer and your interest in heaven grows keener. See to it that you are perfectly contented with your lot in life. Be pleased with all God is doing for you, and that you are pleasing Him in all you do. Keep such a realization of God's presence that it enters into and makes holy and heavenly your thoughts, feelings, words, and deeds.
4. Allow nothing to disquiet you nor disturb your peace of soul. Give no place to restlessness or impatience. Keep heaven and eternity in full view. Live under the consciousness that God has set His love upon you and that the least fret, restlessness, anxiety, or impatience grieves Him. Lean upon Him, hard upon Him and be at rest. Keep the line of communication with heaven constantly intact.
5. Be careful to turn every temptation, trial, and trouble to good account. Have them work growth in grace in you, for that is what they have been allowed to come to you for. Trials are the things God works with to fashion more perfectly His image in you. Never chafe under a trial. Count them joy. Thank God for them.
6. Do not be half hearted in your service to God. Be intense, be earnest, be fervent; keep consecrated to God's will. Live under the control of the Holy Spirit. Put first things first. Keep a deep and sublime devotion to God in your soul. Be saintly, be saintly, BE SAINTLY. Do not be content with being just a little better, but be your best.
7. Let your mind dwell much on heaven. It will do you good to think of death if you think of it as you should, if you look upon it as the open door to the glories of heaven.
Remember that it is sure to come. Learn to look upon it as you do a messenger you are expecting to come with glad tidings to you. Do not wait for Death in fear, but wait as you would for a loving friend. It has lost its sting. Jesus removed the sting and placed a blessing in its stead. Be busy while you are waiting. Guard against idleness even in your old days. Keep busy to the last. Let no moments go by unemployed. Do not give place to that inclination [31] to slow down and take life easy because you are growing old. Do not entertain the thought that there is no more now for you to do but to fold your hands and wait the coming of the angels. Let us pray that in our dying hour we may magnify Christ. Always be of good cheer. Never let your heart be troubled. Live holy, live prayerfully, trust God in all things and for all things.
I am thinking of heaven tonight,
Of the beautiful place it must be,
Of the glories I there shall behold
When the pearly gates open to me.
Heaven, sweet heaven, home of my soul,
How blessed to be there it will be;
I'll walk streets of gold, and never grow old
When the pearly gates open to me.
My mind and heart are in heaven tonight,
From all things of the world I am free:
That mansion I see where I shall e'er be
When the pearly gates open to me.
Farewell, dear reader, a loving farewell;
On thee I pray heaven's blessings to be:
When you come to go, may you have lived so
That heaven's gates will open to thee.
Part Two
The Christian is a creation in Christ. The virtue of Christ enters into and becomes a part of body, soul, and spirit, sanctifying the whole. His nature is such as binds him to the Infinite. He is given a vision of the beauty of the Lord from its reflection in his own being. He has a sense of Divine realities which loose him from the things of time and woo him to heavenly life. He moves in an infinite halo of joy and gladness. Every thought, word, and deed of his new born life fashions him more into the likeness of God. —C. E. Orr
The Opened Eye
"Open thou mine eyes." Psa. 119:18. Who among us does not need to pray this prayer? Who among us has an eye to see all that belongs to the Christian life? Are there not yet some glorious things lying out beyond the boundary of our vision? Oh, for the open eye to see the wondrous things God has prepared for them that love Him! Out beyond our spiritual horizon there may be blessed realities awaiting us if we would but seek God earnestly for the open eye to discover them. This world has been called a vale of tears, a wilderness of woe, and man's way through it a way of trouble and sorrow, yet there is a way running through it which is a way of pleasantness, and a path which is a pathway of peace. We need the open eye to find this heavenly way. If man would but rise to the fullness of life, he would find many glorious things awaiting him there. Up in the higher realms of close companionship with God there is fullness of joy. If man would come into such intimacy with God as to read His mind and know the loving thoughts He has toward him, his joy would be complete. If man could but see all that lies in the fatherhood of God, he would never have a care. The task of this little book is to help you see more of the good things God has for you. [33]
Looking Upward
"When they had lifted up their eyes they saw no man, save Jesus only." Matt. 17:8. What you see depends on which way you look. Looking around on life's circumstances, you will miss seeing the better things of life. Erect for your soul a spiritual observatory where you can look into the heavens and see some of its wonder. You do not need to wait until you get to heaven to behold some of its glories. Heaven will come down to you with many of its blessed realities. Soul vision of God is necessary to soul likeness to God. The beauty of the Lord is inwrought into the soul as it gazes, with steadfast eye, upon Him. The soul attaches itself to and becomes like that upon which it gazes. Those who see most of God are fullest of Him. There are some rare souls who see every thing full of Him. Every bush is aflame with His presence. They see Him in every event in life. There are no happenings so small as to disclose none of His beauty. They see His love in all the provocations and interruptions. They welcome every annoyance, grievance, and trial because they see His hand of love in everything. When the soul grasps the fact that nothing can come to us without His permission, then we have found heaven on earth.
Heaven Everywhere
"Blessed are the pure in heart. for they shall see God." Matt. 5:8. It matters not, to those who have the open eye, where they are; they see heaven anywhere. They do not live in that little world where they see the old cabin, the open cracks, the bare floors, the empty flour bin, the meatless larder, the scanty clothing, and the hard times, but they live out in a world where they see riches untold. They always have heaped about them a great store of beautiful and wonderful things. They cannot see their poverty because they are ever looking at their riches. They do not see the little old cabin because they are looking at their mansion. They do not see the faded garments because they are looking at the fine linen, so clean and white. They [34] do not see the empty flour bin and meatless larder because their eyes are ever on the promises of God. The apostle John in Patmos was looking into heaven and not at the barren rocks. Paul was not confined to the dungeon and the stocks; he was up in the presence of God singing Him praise. It is what we see with that inner vision that gives to life its blessed fullness and sweet contentment. O ye saints, do not live around among the seen things. Go out and build a mansion for your soul in the heavenly life.
Shut Ins
Beyond doubt the Lord has a few shut ins. The line that bounds their view is only a little way out. They live in a little world of self interest, of petty cares, of wearying anxieties, of vexing circumstances. They see only the seen things. They live in a small enclosure, and we have grave fears that with some the enclosure is growing smaller every day. A cataract of worldliness is growing over their eyes. There is closeness of fellowship with God, intimacy of communion, blessedness of trust, freedom from care, worry, and fret that they have never discovered. They never get up into that upper region where life stretches out in holy contemplation of God and the glorious realities that the Lord has for Christian souls. Listen at their talk. It is almost continually about the things of the little world of which they are acquainted. If they should be induced to say a word about the spiritual blessings in heavenly places, ii is very vague, unreal and incomprehensive. They can talk fluently of the happenings in the neighborhood and of their own affairs, but have no interest in conversing about the beauty of God, of joys unspeakable, of the sweetness of meditation, and the glorious freedom of the soul.
Mary and Martha
"Martha, Martha, thou art troubled about many things" Luke 10 :41, 42. It is the seeing that makes the great difference between one human life and that of an [35] other. Martha saw the seen things, Mary the unseen, hence the difference in their lives. Martha loved the Lord Jesus, but her highest thought was that of ministering to His body's need. Mary saw that her Lord had meat to eat that Martha knew not of. Had Martha come and sat with Mary, she would not have seen what Mary saw. She would have seen the well spread table in the dining room, and Mary saw a table spread in the heavenly kingdom. There are those who assemble for worship in the same building who see vastly different things. Some rise but a little way above the things of time and sense. They have so much of the seen things in their eyes, they cannot see the glorious things of the spiritual life. It is their privilege to see the loving purpose of God in every line of human sorrow and have to build for them greater beauty of soul. They should see the hand of God in all the details of daily life, and have the little annoyances and cares work a delicacy in their soul upon which the Holy Spirit can imprint the colors of the heavenly life, making them more heavenly.
Finding Life
"He that loses his life for my sake shall find it." Matt. 10:39. Not once for all, but the giving of life daily for Christ's sake is the daily finding of life. By losing life you find life. This is an unfailing law in both the lower and higher life. By expending muscle you find muscle, by expending life you find life. A selfish act is a self destroying act. A self denying act is a self developing act. Every act done for Christ's sake identifies you with Christ. You become a part of that for which you do an act and it becomes a part of you. To do things for the world's sake is to become a part of the world. The more love for Christ you put in what you do, the more closely it unites you with Him. O Jesus, intensify our love for Thee! You can put a whole heart full of love in a very small deed, and then the deed has lost its smallness. You can put love for Christ in doing things for yourself as well as in doing things for others. In fact, with a true, sincere Christian there is no such thing as doing for yourself and doing for others.[36] Every act, whether done for yourself or for others, is an act done for Christ. Those who love Jesus do not do one single thing in caring for themselves or others that is not done solely for His sake. This is finding life.
Living by Christ
"As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me." John 6:57. Are you able to grasp the meaning of these words ? Read them over again slowly and prayerfully. We are to live by Christ as Christ lived by the Father. This is life's standard. It is the standard Jesus set up. The life Jesus lived was not His, but the life of the Father. The words He spoke were the Father's words, the deeds He did were the deeds of the Father. To look upon His life was to look upon the life of the Father, for it was the Father that lived in Him. He lived by the Father because He lived upon the Father. In those early morning and all night prayers He was feeding on God the Father, and all through the day He lived by Him. That which He gathered from the Father in those heart to heart prayers He carried out and gave it to the world. In those communings with the Father He enveloped Himself with an heavenly atmosphere, and within this enclosure He kept Himself all the day. That holy awe, that sacred reverence, that spirit of worship, that heavenly unction which He gathered to His soul in those prayers He kept within Him all the day. He gathered fresh food every night and morning. Thus we are to live by Christ. [37]
Part Two
Feeding on Christ
"He that eateth me, even he shall live by me." John 6:57. May God let the reader and the writer into the secret meaning of these words. We live by what we feed on. Herein lies the whole secret of holy living. To live by Christ is to live like Christ. It is to live by His power, His love, His holiness, His life. To thus live we must feed on [37] Him. He is to be our daily food. There are a few rare souls today (would there were many more) who are hungering for more and more of God, and yet they are coming a little short of the fullest satisfaction. There are those who have a craving that is not fully met—a thirst that is not wholly quenched. They come short of living as Godlike as they should. They try to live nearer Christ, but they fail. They need to feed more on Christ. He is the Life Bread of the soul. They live the most holy who assimilate most of Him. We feed on Him by bringing our soul into His presence and absorbing Him. In loving thought of Him, in meditating upon Him, in reading His Word and praying in the Spirit, we feed on Him. Every out going of the heart in love toward Him is supping of Him. By opening its pores and letting the sunlight in, the flower feeds on sunlight. Open your soul to Jesus and let Him shine in.
The Soul's Craving
The soul's cravings will not all be fully met and satisfied while here in the body. It was created for greater freedom, for more perfect vision, for greater knowledge, and for a closer union with Christ. The veil of flesh hangs between the redeemed soul and heavenly realities of which it has a consciousness and for which it longs. The soul in love with Christ finds great delight in thinking about the mansion Jesus has gone to prepare and where it shall look into His face as it cannot here. Redeemed man does not have much to do with earthly things compared with his activities amid heavenly things. While in the body he needs to at tend to some things here, but he lives mostly in eternity. There are no cravings of the soul for the things of the lower life; its cravings are all for things above. Be sure that you distinguish between the two. It is possible to mistake the cravings of the flesh, the intellect, the sentimental for the craving of the spirit. The mind of man may hunger for an intellectual knowledge of God while the soul has no hunger for God. The soul that [38] longs after God finds the hour of communion with God the sweetest of all the life. It has no thirstings for life's pleasures.
Holier in Life
You may be pure in heart as the crystal river of life can make you, and holy of soul as God's throne, yet there is no man living who cannot become holier in life. You can abound more and more in love; go from faith to greater faith; grow in knowledge and grace, and have the beauty of the Lord blooming out more and more in all the words and deeds of life. Though your heart is cleansed from every stain of sin, you can have the sweet, heavenly unction of the Holy Spirit resting more weightily upon your soul. This will affect your outward life, making it deeper, more hallowed and holy. The tree of the garden may be perfect and bear perfect fruit, but by rooting deeper it grows and bears larger and more developed fruit. By letting the mind take hold upon God in holy thought, we root deeper into Him and conform more unto His likeness. Every time the mind fastens upon some truth of God the spirit grows more into the image of God. Put idle thoughts, vain thoughts, far away from you and stay your mind on things above. Open the door of your heart heavenward that the light of God may shine in, imprinting in its depth the beautiful graces of Christ. Look into the face of Jesus and grow to be more like Him.
My Heart Garden
Down in the secret depths of my heart is a wonderful garden. When I open the gate and walk in, God meets me there. We converse together of things that can never be talked about outside this secret place. It is the holy of holiest It may be amid the bustling throng, the crowded street, the chattering of thoughtless friends, or in some solitary place; when I open the gate and walk in, I find [39] Christ waiting for me. He never disappoints me. His voice is sweetest music, and before the light of His beaming face the shadows flee away. The world with its frets and worries, its fears and anxieties, its sorrows and its cares has no place in this wonderful garden. Here life takes on a fuller meaning. I see the things that are worthless and the things worth while. Here I can see and hear things that cannot be seen or heard anywhere outside this secret place. Here the seen things are lost to view and only the unseen things appear. Here the near things are far away and the far away things are near. Here I gather golden grain from the fields of heaven which I am to carry out and scatter in the pathway of others. When I come out from this garden, earth is not like it was before. Things seem changed and I am nearer like my blessed Lord.
Home of My Soul
The home I am building for my soul today will be its home tomorrow and forever. My soul needs a little more spacious home today than that which it occupied yesterday. It longs to soar up a little higher, to go down a little deeper. The home of yesterday is too narrow for today. It seeks for a clearer vision of heaven, it longs for greater nearness to God, it would feel a little more sensibly the impulse of His will, and come nearer the gates of glory and hear more distinctly the sweet music of heaven. I must not cramp or stint this soul of mine. It must have the fullest and freest range. My soul must have perfect liberty to roam about amid the unseen heavenly things regardless of the sacrifice of the house of clay. This house of flesh must not hold it in or interrupt its flight upward. Its wings must be free to fly upward to the presence of God to hold sweet communion with Him. There are yet many new discoveries for my soul to make in the spiritual life, and it must not be hindered by the desires of the flesh. The flesh with its affections and lusts must be crucified that my soul may have fullest liberty today. What I build for my soul today will be its home throughout eternity. I must build a larger home for my soul each day.[40]
Love
"He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." 1 John 4 :16. The fish is in its element when dwelling in the sea. Man's proper element is love. Man out of love is out of his native element. Love is the greatest thing in life. The worth of a deed is estimated, not by the deed itself, but by the amount of love there is in it. Love associates the object loved with every thing in life. Labor is the essential property of love. "And labor of love." 1 Thess. 1:3. Love is the must of life. "I must work the works of Him that sent me." The labor of love is expressed in giving or in putting forth effort to obtain something to give. Love lives to give. It must give that it might live. Love is not in the word, but in the deed. "Let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth." 1 John 3:18. The tongue may talk of love, but the deed talks loudest. "God so loved the world that He gave." You love an object when you love it so that you give yourself for it. Less than this is not love. Love gives itself. We must cut the roses from the rose bush on our lawn or it will cease giving us roses. It must give its roses that it may produce more roses. Love must give that it may keep on loving.
Love to Christ
"Whom having not seen, ye love." 1 Peter 1:8. "Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity." Eph. 6:24. Sincere love is love wholly free from self-interest. Sincere love to Christ is not to love Him for what He gives us, but for what He is in himself. A young lady may love a man because he saved her life, but she loves her husband because of what he is. Christ is the lovely and the lovable One. Christ, not the blessing, is to be loved. He is to be loved with or without blessings. There is great need of more intense love to Christ in the hearts of His saints. Few, indeed, that love Jesus as they should. If they loved Christ as they should, it would make a great [41] change in their life. "Is it I?" When Christ is loved in sincerity, He is associated with every thing in life. Every thing brings thoughts of Him. Present a man, who loves his wife, with a basket of nice, ripe fruit and he will at once think of her. When you receive your monthly salary, you will think of Jesus before yourself, if you love Him more than yourself. You have greater joy in the thing received because of how much of it you can give to Christ, rather than how much you can have for yourself. Increase and abound in love. [42]
Part Two
Hallowing Life
The secret of a hallowed life is the hallowing of God in the heart. A hallowed life stands out in the world as a witness to things that belong to the heavenly life. Hold your body as a sacred thing dedicated to God for His indwelling. He will hallow His temple. Keep the body sanctified wholly, so that in your eating and drinking or in whatsoever you do all reflects honor and glory to God. A hallowed life speaks to men of things spiritual, divine, eternal. Beware, O beware, lest you profane things hallowed to God! There is a vast difference between a cultivated dignity and a life hallowed by the holy presence of God. A man's acquired dignity points men to himself and they call him magnanimous. A hallowed life points men to God and they magnify Him. The holy contemplation of God awes the soul and this holy awe is the spring of a hallowed life. Deep thoughts of God beget a reverence, a veneration of God that hallows the words and deeds of a man's life so that he speaks and acts not as other men. Go, dear child of God, often into that place of quiet communion with God, that you might take on a hallowedness by which you may hallow the world.
Familiarity
Familiarity with an object has a tendency to lessen interest and delight in the object. It requires but little [42] effort to have interest in new things, but it does require effort to keep up the interest as the object grows older. It is possible to lose your love to God when very busy about the work of God. It is easier to keep up the works than it is to keep up the love. Saints at Ephesus lost love to God yet maintained the works. You can become so familiar with preaching that it becomes more of an occupation than something done in intense love to Christ. You can keep on working for souls long after you have lost heart burden for souls. It is not always those who work the hardest that love God most. One of the most subtle and dangerous things in the Christian experience is the deadening effect of familiarity. People can word a beautiful testimony for years on a past experience. Men practice the art of talking beautifully about holy things after they have lost the art of living holy. You can be very familiar with the way of truth, and yet having lost the way out of your soul. The only possible way to keep from being deadened by familiarity with spiritual things is to keep gaining greater spiritual things.
The Holy Anointing
"But the anointing which ye have received of Him abideth in you." 1 John 2:27. This anointing is the freshening of the soul with spiritual life. It is like the morning dew upon the rose. It awakens the heart into beauty and strength. It lifts the soul up in holy awe and reverence to God. It is that which separates you from the things of the lower life. You go among men, but this holy anointing keeps you above them. The fruits of the Spirit are growing luxuriously in your life. Your heart is the garden of the Lord. There He comes to gather lilies, to scent the sweet fragrance and to eat His pleasant fruits. It is as real as anything in the lower life. The Holy Spirit anoints the soul with the life of Christ which quickens it and makes it life of its life, and gives it such sweet assurance of the abiding presence of God. It enables man to live amid heavenly things. He is not confined to the things of this material world. He lives out among the realities of the spiritual [43] life. He talks with Christ as with a personal friend. He does all things in the thought of Him. It is the taking of the sweet heavenly essences and distilling them upon the heart until it is saturated through and through with heavenly life.
The Mystery of Godliness
"Great is the mystery of godliness." 1 Timothy 3:16. Christ was made flesh and dwelt among us. In Him we had God with us. In Him humanity and divinity were united into a oneness. In Him the human and the divine were never separated. He performed no act, thought no thought, spoke no word that necessitated the leaving out of divinity. God was in every word and deed of His life. Is this too high a life for man to live? We are to measure to the stature of the fullness of Christ. All our words are to be spoken, and our deeds done in Jesus' name. Col. 3:17. This is nothing more or less than having Christ in every word and deed. We cannot live it, but Christ will come into our humanity and live it in us. We have no excuse. Christ will do it for us. Get out of yourself and let Christ in. He will live in you to the thinking of every thought, the speaking of every word and the doing of every act. We are commanded to live godly in this present world, and that is not godly that does not have God in it. If you are failing to live godly in every word, you need to feed on Christ more. Get more of His strength in your life. Draw more heavily at the Divine breasts. Drink deep and full of the life of Christ.
Dead With Christ
"If ye be dead with Him" 2 Tim. 2:11. Think deeply on these words. Dead with Him. What does it mean ? There is no thought of death on the wooden cross, but death to all living to fleshly lusts. To be dead with Him is to be dead to all He was dead to. It cannot mean less. He lived after the Spirit and not after the flesh. He lived [44] humanly but never fleshly. To live after the Spirit is to do all things in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is to be the energy in the speaking of every word and doing of every deed. We are not to speak and act of ourselves, but in the Spirit. Adam acted to the flesh which separated him from divine life. We can live in the flesh, do things in the flesh, and not do them for the sake of the flesh. We can do every thing for Jesus' sake. When we do things for the sake of the flesh, we are living to the flesh and this is not holy living. Do not be too hasty to conclude that you are not a Christian because you do some things almost daily that is done to the flesh. You may speak too idly, or too sharply, eat too much, indulge in the flesh in too great an ease, and yet do it carelessly and thoughtlessly and not altogether forfeit Divine life. Read the next paragraph.
Living With Christ
"If we be dead with Him, we shall also live with Him." 2 Tim. 2:11. Not only when we get to heaven, but here on earth. If we do not live with Him here, we shall not live with Him in heaven. You cannot speak idly, impatiently, eat intemperately, willfully and premeditatively and be a Christian. And to do those things thoughtlessly and carelessly is to become a very weak Christian, and will finally end in the utter loss of spiritual life. Many, many saints are living too carelessly, thoughtlessly. They may pray the Lord to help that every word they speak may be seasoned with grace, but oh, how careless they are about their words when they come from prayer. They seem to give such little heed to help God answer their prayers. They will chatter along for an hour about earthly things without once thinking of God or whether their words are pleasing unto Him. They will talk about things that ought not to be spoken by those professing to be saints. They seem to enjoy talking about the unholy deeds of others. To live with Jesus is to have but few words, and them well chosen. To live with Christ is to have Him live with us. He is to be in all we do. It is not for us to live but Him to live in us. Christ liveth in me. [45]
Part Two
Baptized Into His Death
"Baptized into His death." Rom. 6:3. Many saints fail to walk in that blessed fellowship and intimate communion that their souls crave. They long to have Christ more real in their life. They yearn for a greater consciousness of His presence. They come short of their soul's cravings because they are not baptized fully into Christ's death. They live too much to the flesh. They live too much for earthly things. They have too great an admiration for earthly things, a fine home, fine furniture. fine automobile. Look closely into the life of Christ. Not once did He ever manifest an admiration of the fine things of the world. He admired God in nature, but never admired nature of itself. If He admired the works of man, it was not what man had done, but what God had helped him do. In all His sight seeing He never lost sight of God. This is a precious secret in the Christian life. See God everywhere and in everything. Admire God, adore Him, and not the thing He has created. Alas, how many think more, admire more, talk more about, seek more after the thing created than they do the Creator. Jesus saw this world and all the fine things in it under condemnation and ready for the burning, and so will you when baptized into His death.
Dying With Christ
"Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus." 2 Cor. 4:10. Do not think of Christ being dead to the extent that He had no temptation. He was tempted all through His life as any sanctified person is tempted. Read Heb. 4:15. His death was that of an everyday dying. He had temptation to resist and overcome. He had a human will which He kept in subjection to the Divine will just as Christians have to do. The same power that enabled Him to do this will enable the Christian to do likewise. This is holy living. Just as Jesus kept dead to every suggestion of the flesh, so are we to keep dead.[46] This is bearing about in our body the dying of the Lord Jesus. One brother inquires, "How can a man marry and raise a family and not live to the flesh?" Just the same as he can do any thing in the flesh and not live to the flesh. Jesus did not refuse to marry because it was sinful or fleshly. It was not His calling. Paul said, "Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he is called," and he was talking on this very subject. Marrying belongs to pure humanity as much as eating, drinking, sleeping, etc. though not as necessary to the life of the person, but is to the life of the race.
Raising a family was not the sin of Eden. God told Adam and his wife to be fruitful, to multiply and replenish the earth before their transgression. When man and woman marry simply for the gratification of the flesh, they transgress a higher law of their being. They are living on the plane of the flesh. This is true of every thing in life. To build a house, or remodel one, to buy home furniture or an automobile to the gratifying of the flesh is sowing to the flesh. There are to be fasts, by mutual consent for the soul's good in the married life, the same as abstaining from food and drink. ( 1 Cor. 7 :5 ) . Dying with Jesus means the refusing to do anything in life purely for fleshly gratification. This is holy living. This is where many a saint is coming short of the perfect life. They are too careless. Their soul is not stirred up to realization of the great importance of sowing to the Spirit. Listening to the suggestion of the flesh has caused many a one to fail to obey the Spirit. They sowed to the flesh instead of to the Spirit, and they will have to pay the penalty. They absent themselves from the prayer meeting, from the closet, fail to give of their means at the suggestion of the flesh. They are missing the joy of God.[47]
Living to Our Ability
"He that is able to receive it, let him receive it." Matt. 19:12. God requires no one to receive that of which they are not capable. Jesus withheld some truths from His disciples because they were not able to receive them. Some are capable of receiving more than others. God does not require one man to live to the capability of another, but does require each one to live to the fullest of his own capability. Have you done this ? Are you doing it ? If you had lived to the fullest of your capability in the past, it may be that you would be more capable today. Begin now! Lose no more time! Jesus does not condemn all who do not live to the full standard of life. He does condemn all who do not live to the full light they have been given of that standard; you to yours and me to mine. The question is, are you living to your full light? The soul has wonderful capabilities. If we will only live up to our full capabilities, we will be brought into a very close life with God. We greatly fear that many are careless. They are not putting their soul out to its fullest capability. They are not reaching out with all the energy of their being for things that are before. They could be better Christians if they would.
The Joys of Heaven
The Lord said to his faithful servant, "Enter into the joy of thy Lord." By this Jesus means to tell us that if we be faithful servants of God, some day we shall be admitted into higher joys than we ever knew here. The little child that has been taught that Santa will bring it many pretty things on Christmas will think a great deal about these nice things, and can scarcely wait until Christmas comes. Why should we not think much about the joys of heaven ? Maybe some of us do not keep that heavenly country enough in our thoughts. The more you contemplate the joys of heaven, the lighter will be the sorrows of earth. The joy that Jesus looked forward unto helped Him [48] to endure the cross. We can bear a great deal today if we have bright anticipations of tomorrow. What if there be a few tears here, there will be none over there, and this thought helps us to bear up a little longer. Thinking of the joys of heaven will let the light through the darkest clouds that can hang over our heads. Earthly pleasures fail to charm us as we think about the pleasures at God's right hand. Though there is no flour in the bin, nor meat in the larder, we grow happy as we think of heaven.
Tune Your Harp
David calls up his soul and tunes it to the great heart of God. Keeping in tune with heaven is the secret of holy living. We must catch daily messages from the sky that we might keep in harmony with the mind of God. We must hear the voice of God, we must feel His life playing on the tender cords of our soul, we need to be moved by the impulses of His loving heartbeats to live as holy as we should. Let there be no discordant notes in the music of your soul. You can keep tuned in with the sweet harmony of heaven in the very face of strife and sin in the world. Peter slept like a child with the chopping block only a few hours ahead; Paul kept the music of heaven in his heart while fast in the stocks; Daniel kept tuned in with the world of glory at the entrance to the lions' den; the furnace cast no fear over the life of the three Hebrews; Habakkuk rejoiced in the God of his salvation with empty fields, storehouses and stalls before him; Job kept the proper wave length in his soul amid all his adversities. Beware, oh beware, lest something of earth gets your harps out of tune. Why will mortal man allow the poor, weak things of earth disturb the music of his soul! [49]
Part Two
Faith
"For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus." Gal. 3:26. Faith is that which brings the soul in contact with God in Christ, and Christ is formed in man.[49]
Faith in Christ identifies man with God. Heart faith works by love. By faith we love the unseen Christ. Faith is the faculty of spiritual touch. Faith is that energy by which the soul is attached in a vital union with God. It is by faith that the unseen is realized. It is by faith that the soul is brought in touch with the Infinite. Faith receives into itself that which is in Christ and mingles His life with its own. Faith brings virtue out of Him into our body or soul. It is just according to what faith has been exercised for. Faith is more than a chain that binds us to God; it unites God to us so that we are one. Faith fills the soul with God, and the soul filled with God finds every thing full of Him. Every event, every circumstance is a bush aflame with His glory. Faith associates God with every moment of time and every event of life. Faith puts the world with its vanities and vexations under our feet. Faith regards every foe as conquered. It refuses to look on circumstances. It will not be drawn aside from looking into the face of God.
Living by Faith
"The just shall live by faith." Gal. 3:11. The sinner lives by sight; the saint lives by faith. This puts them into two different spheres of life. One lives in the world of seen things, while the other lives in the unseen world. One sees only the circumstances of every day life, while the other sees the hand of Providence in all circumstances. It makes a vast difference. By faith man lives above all earthly circumstances. He is not affected by "hard times." He lives up where all times are good times. The most abject poverty has no influence over his life. If he has no place to lay his head, he has a place to lay his heart and he is perfectly contented. Mountains of gold have no more influence over his life than the kingdoms of the world had over Jesus. He makes no more obeisance to the world at its offers of riches, honor, and pleasure than Jesus made to the devil at his offers of all the glory of the kingdoms of earth. Those who live by faith do not look around on material things. They live amid eternal things. They understand [50] that they are to use every thing that comes to them in life to help them on in the spiritual life. Those living by faith live under the influence of the unseen and not the seen.
Man's Worth
"What is man, that thou art mindful of him?" Heb. 2:6. Man is of infinite worth. Not only is he of infinite worth to God, but he is of infinite worth to himself. When a man loses himself, he has lost all. When he finds himself, he finds all. Christ was not only the Son of God, but also the Son of man. He was born of the Holy Spirit and of woman. God finds Himself (we say it with profound reverence) when He finds man, and man finds himself when he finds God. The father finds himself in the child, and the child finds himself in the father. God has children in His loins, and in those that are born of Him He sees of the travail of His soul and is satisfied—He finds His completeness. There is something in God that yearns for man, and something in man that yearns for God. When they find one the other, they have found their fullness of joy, their fullness of fellowship, their fullness of glory. The greatest gift to man is God, and the greatest gift to God is man. You can give God no greater gift than the giving of yourself. God gave Himself to man that He might receive the gift of man to Himself. The cross of Christ is the measurement of man's worth to God. Man being crucified with Christ is the measure of God's worth to him.
The Christian
"The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch." Acts 11:26. The Christian is man in his completeness. He is not something more than man, neither is he something less, but man in his perfect manhood. "Ye are complete in Him." The Christian is not an addition to man's manhood, but he is the true type of manhood. To not be a Christian is to be something less than man. Such are below the [51] standard. They are rejected. When man measures to the stature of the fullness of Christ, he also measures to the fullness of himself. He who does not measure to the fullness of Christ has not risen to the fullness of manhood. When we say, "Be a man," it means in the full sense, "Be a Christian." There is no difference between the laws of Christ written in the Gospel and those written in the heart and mind of man. The one answers to the other. Do you ever check up? When the Christian transgresses the law of the Gospel, he transgresses the law of his being. The life of a Christian is not the outflowing of the laws of the Gospel, but the outflowing of the laws of his own being, and since these are identically the same, the Christian life is an outward expression of Gospel law. Holy living is Gospel living.
Man's Kinship With God
"I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters." 2 Cor. 6:18. It is the kinship of father and son. It is God coming into humanity and the taking of humanity up into Himself. He stamps Himself with humanity and stamps humanity with Himself. Look at humanity in Christ and you will see what humanity ought to be. Look at Christ in humanity and you will see what Christ is. This may be a hard saying, but it is what man is in Christ. Christ is the Revealer of man, and saved man is the revealer of Christ. The Christian is the revealer of Christ not only on special or extraordinary occasions, but also in the smallest detail of life. Whether he speaks or acts, he does all in the name (life, character) of Christ. Look on the footprints Christ made through this world and you will see the pathway for the redeemed. Look on the pathway of the redeemed and you will see the footprints of the Savior. The redeemed "walk even as He walked." Jesus was filled with divinity and humanity, and man in Christ is fulfilled with humanity and divinity. Jesus was the fullness of man, and man in Him is the fullness of God. God and man are so united in Christ as to work together, walk together, suffer and rejoice together. This is holiness.[52]
God's Eternal Purpose
"According to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord." Eph. 3:11. From the dawn of eternity God had a purpose in mind, and that purpose was to have a being that He could love to the fullest capacity of His love and with whom He could have perfect fellowship and most intimate communion. You, dear reader, are that being. This purpose was wrought out through Christ. That God might have His purpose realized He must bring man up to a perfect likeness of Himself. God loved man in his sins, but did not love him for what he then was, but for what he could become in Christ Jesus. The likeness of God was in Christ. The great task of God is the bringing of man up to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. To do this Christ Himself must be formed in man. Man becomes the likeness of God in Christ. God looks on the man in Christ and sees the fullest realization of His purpose. Christ Jesus came to save man. This is what salvation is— fellowship, likeness, communion with God. Salvation is in being like God. This is accomplished by Christ coming into the life of man and taking that life up into His own and making them one life. Christ and saved man are not two, they are one. This is the new creation.
Salvation
"Mine eyes have seen thy salvation." Luke 2:30. Jesus is God's salvation for man—Jesus and none other. Salvation is more than saving man from all that is unlike Christ; it is also imparting to him all that is like Christ. It is Christ's and man's nature inwrought one in the other, making them of like nature. It is the transforming of man into the likeness of God. It is man attaining his true manhood. Salvation is manhood regained. Look at Christ and you will see what you ought to be and can be. Jesus became the Savior of men by giving Himself for men. Men are saved by giving themselves to the Savior. A saved man is one to whom the Savior has been given and one who has given himself to the Savior. They are of like nature. They [53] have perfect fellowship, blessed communion, and share everything in common. Each has what the other has. That which the man has belongs to Christ, and that which Christ has belongs to the man. Christ sups with the man and the man with Christ. Wherever you find the saved man you will also find Jesus there. They think, they speak they act together. They are one life. Christ is the life of the man, and the man's life is lived in by Christ. This is holy living—this is salvation.
Character
"The express image of His person." Heb. 1:3. We do not have the word "character" in the King James' Version of the Bible, but had we got a direct rendering of the above text, it would have been "character" instead of "image." Christ was in the express character of the Father. Man can not serve two masters, but the fact is, he is serving one of two. There is none good but One; neither is there any that doeth good. All good that man does is done by the power of God. There is a spirit that works in the children of disobedience to the doing of wrong. Man is not free to do what he wills. He may will to do good and find he is not able to do it. He may sometimes will to do evil and find himself hindered. The only freedom man has is the power to choose which power shall work in him—the power of Christ, or the power of Satan. If man will yield his life to Christ, He will come in, dethroning the power of sin, and be the power in man to the doing of good. Character is not what we are by reason of what we do, but what we are by reason of what power is working in us. We do not build a Christian character by our own doing, but by accepting Christ and letting Him work in and through us to His own pleasure.[54]
Part Two
Our Book
"And the books were opened." Rev. 20:12. God gives a book to every one. You have yours and I have mine. It is the book of possibilities. In our text we are told that [54] we are going to be judged out of the books according to our works We are all writing a book. We are writing in our own book. I cannot write in yours, nor you in mine. You are responsible for what is in your book. We are tracing out our own record every moment on the book of our possibilities. What we think, what we say, and what we do are all being recorded. If you do nothing, then that is what is recorded. It is not just according to what we have done, but according to what we might have done. There will be no false entries in your book. The record is self recording. Every deed records itself. Every idle moment records itself. If you do not want an idle moment or an idle word recorded against you, do not spend it, do not speak it. Our record is being written in our own hearts. What we think, say, and do become a part of us. All is being registered indelibly in our character. Every thought, word, and deed makes us better or worse. You are what you are because of what you have been thinking, saying, and doing. Each one is a child of his own doings.
Influence
"Be thou an example." 1 Tim. 4:12. The book of our life is not the making of our own character and destiny only, but it is also helping to make that of another. It is a serious thing to live. There is a wondrous power in personal influence. Your life is helping to mold some other life, and often the one that is dearest to you. What we are goes to help make another what they are. What we are engraves itself upon the life of our friend or brother. The conduct of the parents is being written in the lives of the children. We are contributing to the world's good or bad. A bad man is a dangerous man. We have no right to live as we please. Our children, our friend, our neighbor has a right to demand a good life of us for their own sake. The boy has a right to say, "Father, for my sake I demand you to live a pure life." It will be a bitter thing to start a child wrong in life by some unholy conduct. It is not an easy thing to heal the wound our wrong conduct has made in the life of another. We may, by repentance and begging [55] forgiveness, heal the wound, but it will be hard to remove the scar. A deed can be forgiven, but it cannot be changed. It is in your power now under grace to make your future record clean and pure. Will you do it?
The Cup of Cold Water
Read Matt. 10 :42; Mark 9:41. Nothing is too small to do out of purest fervent love for Christ. Love is keeneyed and will find many little things to do for Jesus in the busiest days of life. Every act of our life leads to God or from God. The least act done in love will be rewarded. Even saints, many of them, do not realize this fact as they should. They do not stop to think that their acts, one by one, day after day are making an eternal destiny for them. Every act goes toward building that house not made with hands eternal in the heavens. Your soul, dear saint, is going to inhabit forever the home you are building out of the little acts of everyday life. The more love we put into the small deed, the greater will be the reward. We must have a care, however, not to do these deeds for reward's sake, but for love's sake. Little sacrifices of the flesh for Christ's sake makes the act beautiful in His sight. Doing things for humanity's sake is commendable, but doing them for Christ's sake is infinitely more so. Many of us need greater love for Christ; love that will move us to please the Lord in all we think and say and do throughout the whole of the day; love that will cause us to eat and drink to His glory.
The Value of Truth
"Buy the truth, and sell it not." Prov. 23:23. It costs something to gain possession of truth, but it is well worth all it costs. It is the most valuable treasure of which man can gain possession. What is truth? It is the way to true happiness, the way to perfect manhood, the way to Christ and heaven. It is the "pearl of great price." What does it cost? It costs all that a man has. It costs him the world, [56] all earthly possessions, earthly ties, and his own life. When truth is gained it brings to us all that was given for it. It gives a new world, it gives earthly ties purified and made dearer, it gives earthly possessions sanctified, and life now and forever. "Sell it not." Truth is a precious treasure, and where treasures are thieves will come. These thieves will come in their most deceptive and cunning devices. They will come as an angel of light. They will come as if sent from heaven. Many a man who gave all he had to purchase truth has bartered it away for a trifle. For a bit of worldliness, for some fleshly gratification, truth has been lost in a few moments of time. It has been sacrificed for gold. Men have exchanged truth for a false thing called "New Truth," which they have gone courting all their days.
God's Fatherhood
He lives holiest who can say, "My Father" with the deepest heart realization. It is positively impossible to live wholly free from care, anxiety, fret, trouble, and fear without a conception of God's Fatherhood, and soul consciousness that He is your Father. Except the Spirit is lisping in your heart, "Abbe Father," you will not live as a child of God should. Listen now, you cannot feel in your heart the great, loving, fatherly care of God and have Him real as life to your soul without deep and holy contemplation of Him. This brings us to where we have been before. We tell you with the strongest emphasis that without meditation, feeding on Christ and assimilating His power and life and love, you will fail again and again to live as your heart tells you that you should. You have tried to be more patient in your home, but you have failed again and again. You have tried to not speak so idly. Cease your trying and go to meditating on the loving fatherhood of God, feed on His life, His love, His joy, assimilate His grace, and ere you are aware the impatient speech, the idle word has taken wing and flown away. The peace of God will keep your heart. It is not so much by trying as by feeding. Get stronger inward life. [57]
Indebtedness
"Owe no man anything, but to love one another." Rom. 13:8. These words are simple, plain, and understandable. Why try to make them mean anything more or less than what they plainly say? These words do not forbid borrowing. Jesus encouraged borrowing. You do not owe a borrowed thing until the date agreed upon for its return. Return it, if it be a penny, a book, or $100.00, on or before the date agreed upon for its return. If you do not, you transgress God's Word. One says, "I am unable." If the man borrowed from will willingly extend the time, then you do not owe it until the date of the new agreement. If the man wants it, you are to pay it. Your being unable does not pay the bill. He is as unable to do without as you are to pay it. It is not holy living. Far better to do without than to borrow and not be able to return. Thousands have misstepped because they were not willing to do without. They were reaching out for a little more of some earthly thing. Better be satisfied with the little cabin clear of debt than a fine home under mortgage. It is more Christlike. It will be better for your soul. Oh, the souls that have been dwarfed because man was not contented with the scarcity of earthly things. Look on Christ.
The Smile of God
"Who will show us any good?" Psa. 4:6. The world is asking this question of the saint. The saint finds the answer in the words of the remainder of the text. "Lord lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us." The smile of God is the chief good. Nothing in all this world is good except it has God's good pleasure upon it. Let that alone, dear soul, upon which God will not smile. It is heaven upon earth to stand continually in the smile of God. That is the essential good. Pluck no rose that does not have the radiance of light from the countenance of God upon it. It will prick you if you do. Nothing will take God's place in man's life. Men have tried to manufacture [58] artificial sunlight, but they have not yet succeeded in inventing something that will melt the snows of winter, paint the flowers with beautiful colors, mantle the fields with coverings of green, and shoot life through all nature. It is only God that can bring light, peace, and health to the soul. The pleasures and riches of the world will never do it. You may have the applause of the world, its riches, and its pleasures if you wish them, but let me stand in the light of God's countenance. God's smile will bring a bright spot into life's darkest hours.
The Troubled Heart
"Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me." John 14:1. Faith is the remedy for heart trouble. See John 14:27. By faith the heart lives up in the mountain region above the fear and trouble line. When faith is strong and feeds freely upon Christ, then the heart is full of life and vivacity. When faith is weak the heart languisheth for want of nourishment. Faith that works by love to God will wing the soul up "beyond the reach of trouble, ever joyful in the Lord." If you are having fears, troubles, anxieties, worries, and frettings, you need to mount up into a clearer and healthier atmosphere. Your faith is too slothful and languid. The heart action is not good and strong. The breathing after Christ is not deep and full enough. The soul does not lay at its full length on Christ that its absorption may be perfect. There is not sufficient pressure of the heart upon Christ. Real, true heart faith is no lazy something. It is ever up and ardent. Faith works and it works with greatest diligence. Beware of indolence. Many times effort is required. As the new born babe receives nourishment from the mother's breast, so the soul by faith receives nourishment from the fullness of God. [59]
Part Two
Poor Yet Rich
"I know thy works, and thy tribulation, and poverty, but thou art rich." Rev. 2:9. Faith makes rich in the midst of poverty. "Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith?" James 2:5. The Christian lives by faith and not by sight. If he lived by sight, he would see his poverty, but since he lives by faith he sees only his riches. Those who live by sight look out upon circumstances and are troubled. Those living by faith look up to God and are happy. Their riches far exceed the riches of the world. What are their riches? They are those things that lie in the fatherhood of God. There is love, comfort, consolation, care, protection, supplying of all need for soul and body; all these and more are in the fatherhood of God and constitute the Christian's riches. He sees these things and lives by them. Faith makes those riches so real to the saint that he does not feel his poverty. He feels his riches. He does not go through this world dejected and crest fallen under the feeling of poverty, but he goes through the world feeling his riches and proves it by his free, joyous, contented, happy life. By faith, the Christian sees every thing bringing good to him, and it is impossible to discourage him.
Faith and Sin
"Whatsoever is not of faith is sin." Rom. 14:23. This is one of Paul's hard sayings. It goes deep into the meaning of life. While these words were spoken with reference to the eating of meat it contains a principle which covers the whole of the Christian life. This is an excellent direction in the way of holy living. It means that if you engage in anything in life that cannot be done with implicit faith and confidence in God, it is sin. In the building and furnishing of a home, the buying of any property, the clothing of the body, the feeding of the body, the conversations, the recreations, amusements, entertainments, social gatherings, if there be not innocent, child like, heart felt [60] faith in God, you are trespassing on forbidden ground. There must be detachment from earthly things that there may be attachment to God. You must be dead with Christ to live with Him. The will must be wholly surrendered to God. There is no wishing for this or that. There are no choosings of what we shall do or what we shall have. The Lord is always set before the face. Do not do one thing except you can see the light on His countenance while you are doing it. If there be a self seeking, self love, self desire, self will, the heart famishes.
Marks of Slavery
"I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Gal. 6:17. "I bear the marks of Jesus branded on my body." 20th Cent. Paul was Christ's bond servant. There are two theories as to what were these "marks." One is that they were the scars on his body left from the gashes made by the whippings and stonings. The other is that they were his living for Christ. We accept this latter view. Scars on the body are no certain evidence of belonging to Christ, while we as saints are to give unmistakable evidence in our life that we are the bond servant of Jesus—His exclusive property. This means that we are to live solely in His interest. As we go about among men, it is plain to be seen by all that we belong to Christ. We are epistles of Christ, slaves of Christ. We take interest in ourselves not for ourselves, but only as the Lord's possession. This is holy living. When the Lord gives us something that is good for the body—which He is daily doing—we thank Him not just for our body's sake, but that we have the privilege of caring for this body for His dear sake. You may need to think here a moment and pray. The bond that makes the saint the slave of Christ is the bond of love. This is man's truest freedom. Christ makes us free by making us His bond servant in love. [61]
"Stigmata"
The word "marks" in Gal. 6:17 is from "stigmata," and means the brand which the slave bore on his body which showed that he was the property of a certain slaveowner. It was usually the initial letters of the owner's name or his name in full. You read the name of the owner on the body of the slave. What lies in this metaphor is this, that the Christian as belonging to Christ has the name of God written upon him. "I will write upon him the name of my God." Rev. 3:12. You can read Christ in the life of a saint. The name he bears in this life is "Christ." That is his brand—his stigmata. The saint glories in bearing this stigmata. The very passion of his life is to see that nothing obliterates this brand. He is thoroughly decided that the world, nor sin, nor the devil, nor the years of time will be able to have these marks overgrown. They must stand out clear and distinct so that all may read. For him to live is Christ. Christ is to be seen in every word and deed. The intensity, the passion, the fixed resolution of the true saint is to bear these marks in life and in death, so that Jesus shall be magnified in the body while living and when dying. Phil. 1:20.
Waiting on God
"My soul, wait thou only upon God." Psa. 62:5. There is no soul exercise so strengthening. It is what will develop wings. See Isa. 40:31. It enables the saint to live in the mountain heights. He lives in the upper realm where the sun shines. While the storm and tempest are raging below, the wings of his soul are beating the air where the sunlight gleams. You may judge such a one, but he is too high to be reached by man's judgment. Nothing you can do to him that will trouble him. He will love you and do you good, however much you may mistreat him. You can not turn him aside from loyalty to God. He is up where he is in tune with the Infinite. He is up where no earthly thing intercepts the messages from heaven to his soul. No [62] earthly circumstances or condition can break the harmony he has with God. He sails on an unruffled sea. Waves of glory roll around him like a sea of light. While among men he is above men. While in the furnace he walks with God and there no obnoxious odor of the earthly circumstance gets on his garments. He is surrounded with a pure and heavenly atmosphere. The great secret of a holy and happy life while living in the world is to live above it. "My soul, wait thou only upon God." Put the emphasis on "only."
Conclusion
We have come to say the parting word. Oh, Jesus, what shall it be! Will there be those who read this booklet, pronounce it good, yet will allow the trifling things of earth to hinder them from living to its teachings? After all that has been said, will they still be careless, indifferent, and live at too great a distance from God? Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O saint; put on thy beautiful garments, O child of heaven; that there be nothing dull, stupid, morose, morbid, slothful in your soul, but all be full of life and vigor from God and aflame with His glory. We charge you in the sight of God and the Lord Jesus, allow nothing in your life that is thoughtless or indifferent toward heavenly things. Do not allow your prayers to be dull and lifeless. Call mightily on God to send an angel with a live coal from off the altar and touch your soul that you might flame up into the strength, holiness, and beauty of the Lord. Pray, pray more, pray in the Spirit. Beware of that listless prayer! We do not mean loud praying, but that prayer that presses the soul hard against God and receives His imprint. Surround yourself with the presence of God and allow nothing of the world to surprise you or woo you out of it. We commit you to God.
Do not think the standard held up in this booklet too high. If you give as earnest attention and put forth as great an effort to live to this standard as you do for things [63] in the secular life, you will be successful. Ought we need feel a deep sense of shame for taking more thought, time, and making greater effort to gain earthly things than we do heavenly things, and then think to excuse ourselves by saying the standard is too high?
Take time, dear saint, we beseech you by the mercies of God, take time to feed your soul on heavenly food. [64]
—END—
The Purpose of the Church of God is to spread and
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Justification, Sanctification, Unity
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