At the end of the best day that we ever spent, when we are not aware of having consciously sinned in act, or speech, or thought, we shall still have need of the precious blood. We may know nothing against ourselves, yet we shall not be thereby justified; because He that judges us is our holy Lord, and the standard by which we are judged is his own perfect character. A piece of cambric looks extremely fine to the eye, but how coarse to the microscope! Sheep look white against the dark ground of the early spring; but how dark if there should be a fall of snow! Our characters seem stainless, only because we compare ourselves with ourselves, or with others.
But, when our eyes are opened to see God, to behold the whiteness of the great white throne, and we stand in the searching light of heaven, we are as those who have just emerged from a ditch. I heard the other day of a woman being proud of having lived without sin for ten years! So we deceive ourselves. No, at the best we are sinful men and women, needing constant cleansing; even though we may be kept from known sin by the grace of Christ. It was at an advanced period in the life of the great Apostle, and when he lived nearest God, that he realized himself to be the chief of sinners.
We can only give God what is His. And yet, though a wife has nothing of her own, she can make presents to her husband of what he gave her, and which she might have legitimately used for herself, but which she has saved until it grew into a worthy gift for her spouse. Love must give of that which costs her something. There are no gifts so precious in the eyes of the loved one as those which mean planning and self-sacrifice. And think you not that it delights the heart of our Lord to receive at our hands love tokens; precious ornaments and jewels; alabaster boxes, reserved once for self-adornment, but now gladly surrendered; articles of beauty and value, which we had hidden from the light of day, but which we present to Him, to show that our love is strong, personal and self-forgetting? “He is worthy to receive riches.” And the chief zest of such gifts is in their secrecy from all human eyes; a personal transaction between the Master and the loving heart. “That thine alms may be in secret.”
Few of us realize how much our character owes to the stern discipline to which God subjects us. The only way to keep us healthy and vigorous is to send us many a nipping frost, many a keen northern blast. The bleak hillside breeds stronger natures than the warm sheltered valley. The difference between lands is largely wrought by temperature and soil. The campaign, with its strain on every power of endurance, trains better soldiers than the barracks. As David was a stronger, better man, when hunted like a coney in the rocks of Engedi, so are we braced to a nobler life, when all things seem against us.
There is only one way of becoming holy, as God is: and it is the obvious one of opening the entire being to the all pervading presence of the Holy One. None of us can acquire holiness apart from God. It dwells in God alone. Holiness is only possible as much as the soul’s possession of God; no, better still, as God’s possession of the soul. It never can be inherent, or possessed apart from the Divine fullness, any more than a river can flow on if it is cut off from its fountain head. We are holy up to the measure in which we are God-possessed. The least holy man is he who shuts God up to the strictest confinement, and the narrowest limits of His inner being; partitioning Him off from daily life by heavy curtains of neglect and unbelief. He is holier who more carefully denies self, and who seeks a large measure of Divine indwelling. The holiest is the man who yields himself completely to be influenced, swayed, possessed, and inspired by that Spirit who longs to make us the fullest extent partakers of the Divine nature.
2 Kings 2:2 Elijah said to Elisha, “Stay here; the LORD has sent me to Bethel.” But Elisha said, “As surely as the LORD lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So they went down to Bethel.
The Philistines were in full flight. The Israelites followed hard at their heels through the wood. It was there that the honey dropped in rich abundance on the ground, and there Jonathan tasted a little, dipping the end of his rod into it. It made all the difference to him, warding off the excessive exhaustion which paralysed the rest of the army.
Go about the world seeking the good of people. It does not always mean that you should give them a tract, or a little book. It is much easier to do this than to sacrifice your own good in order to seek theirs. You may be quite sure that some little act of self-sacrifice or thoughtfulness for a weary mother, or crying child, for a sick friend, or for some person who is always maligning and injuring you, would do a great deal in the way of preparing an entrance for the Gospel message. It is thus that the genial spring loosens the earth and prepares the way for the germination of multitudinous life. Count the day lost in which you have not sought to promote the good of some one. Adopt as your own the pious motto, “Do all the good you can, to all the people you can, in all the ways you can.”