My Utmost for His Highest, page 23
"Ye cal me Master and Lord" - but is He? Master and Lord have little place in our vocabulary, we prefer the words Saviour, Sanctifier, Healer. The only word to describe mastership in experience is love and we know very little about love as God reveals it. This is proved by the way we use the word obey. In the Bible obedience is based on the relationship of equals, that of a son with his father. Our Lord was not God's servant, He was His Son. "Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience . . ." If our idea is that we are being mastered, it is a proof that we have no master; if that is our attitude to Jesus, we are far away from the relationship He wants. He wants us in the relationship in which He is easily Master without our conscious knowledge of it, al we know is that we are His to obey.
September 23rd.
THE MISSIONARY'S GOAL
"Behold, we go up to Jerusalem." Luke 18:31
In the natural life our ambitions alter as we develop; in the Christian life the goal is given at the beginning, the beginning and the end are the same, viz., Our Lord Himself. We start with Christ and we end with Him - "until we al attain to the stature of the manhood of Christ Jesus," not to our idea of what the Christian life should be. The aim of the missionary is to do God's wil , not to be useful, not to win the heathen; he is useful and he does win the heathen, but that is not his aim. His aim is to do the wil of his Lord.
In Our Lord's life Jerusalem was the place where He reached the climax of His Father's wil upon the Cross, and unless we go with Jesus there we wil have no companionship with Him. Nothing ever discouraged Our Lord on His way to Jerusalem. He never hurried through certain vil ages where He was persecuted, or lingered in others where He was blessed. Neither gratitude nor ingratitude turned Our Lord one hair's breadth away from His purpose to go up to Jerusalem.
"The disciple is not above his Master." The same things wil happen to us on our way to our Jerusalem. There wil be the works of God manifested through us, people wil get blessed, and one or two wil show gratitude and the rest wil show gross ingratitude, but nothing must deflect us from going up to our Jerusalem.
"There they crucified Him." That is what happened when Our Lord reached Jerusalem, and that happening is the gateway to our salvation. The saints do not end in crucifixion: by the Lord's grace they end in glory. In the meantime our watchword is - I, too, go up to Jerusalem.
September 24th.
THE "GO" OF PREPARATION
"Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there thou rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift." Matthew 5:23, 2
It is easy to imagine that we wil get to a place where we are complete and ready, but preparation is not suddenly accomplished, it is a process steadily maintained. It is dangerous to get into a settled state of experience. It is preparation and preparation.
The sense of sacrifice appeals readily to a young Christian. Humanly speaking, the one thing that attracts to Jesus Christ is our sense of the heroic, and the scrutiny of Our Lord's words suddenly brings this tide of enthusiasm to the test. "First be reconciled to thy brother." The "go" of preparation is to let the word of God scrutinize. The sense of heroic sacrifice is not good enough. The thing the Holy Spirit is detecting in you is the disposition that wil never work in His service. No one but God can detect that disposition in you. Have you anything to hide from God? If you have, then let God search you with His light.
If there is sin, confess it, not admit it. Are you wil ing to obey your Lord and Master whatever the humiliation to your right to yourself may be?
Never discard a conviction. If it is important enough for the Spirit of God to have brought it to your mind, it is that thing He is detecting. You were looking for a great thing to give up. God is tel ing you of some tiny thing; but at the back of it there lies the central citadel of obstinacy: I wil not give up my right to myself - the thing God intends you to give up if ever you are going to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.
September 25th.
THE "GO" OF RELATIONSHIP
"And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain." Matthew 5:41
The summing up of Our Lord's teaching is that the relationship which He demands is an impossible one unless He has done a supernatural work in us.
Jesus Christ demands that there be not the slightest trace of resentment even suppressed in the heart of a disciple when he meets with tyranny and injustice. No enthusiasm wil ever stand the strain that Jesus Christ wil put upon His worker, only one thing wil , and that is a personal relationship to Himself which has gone through the mil of His spring-cleaning until there is only one purpose left - I am here for God to send me where He wil . Every other thing may get fogged, but this relationship to Jesus Christ must never be.
The Sermon on the Mount is not an ideal, it is a statement of what wil happen in me when Jesus Christ has altered my disposition and put in a disposition like His own. Jesus Christ is the only One Who can fulfil the Sermon on the Mount.
If we are to be disciples of Jesus, we must be made disciples supernatural y; as long as we have the dead set purpose of being disciples we may be sure we are not. "I have chosen you." That is the way the grace of God begins. It is a constraint we cannot get away from; we can disobey it, but we cannot generate it. The drawing is done by the supernatural grace of God, and we never can trace where His work begins. Our Lord's making of a disciple is supernatural. He does not build on any natural capacity at al . God does not ask us to do the things that are easy to us natural y; He only asks us to do the things we are perfectly fitted to do by His grace, and the cross wil come along that line always.
September 26th.
THE UNBLAMEABLE ATTITUDE
"If . . thou rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee. . . ." Matthew 5:23
If when you come to the altar, there you remember that your brother has anything against you, not - If you rake up something by a morbid sensitiveness, but
- "If thou rememberest," that is, if it is brought to your conscious mind by the Spirit of God: "first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift." Never object to the intense sensitiveness of the Spirit of God in you when He is educating you down to the scruple.
"First be reconciled to thy brother . . ." Our Lord's direction is simple, "first be reconciled." Go back the way you came, go the way indicated to you by the conviction given at the altar; have an attitude of mind and a temper of soul to the one who has something against you that makes reconciliation as natural as breathing. Jesus does not mention the other person, He says - you go. There is no question of your rights. The stamp of the saint is that he can waive his own rights and obey the Lord Jesus.
"And then come and offer thy gift." The process is clearly marked. First, the heroic spirit of self-sacrifice, then the sudden checking by the sensitiveness of the Holy Spirit, and the stoppage at the point of conviction, then the way of obedience to the word of God, constructing an unblameable attitude of mind and temper to the one with whom you have been in the wrong; then the glad, simple, unhindered offering of your gift to God.
September 27th.
THE "GO" OF RENUNCIATION
"Lord, I will follow Thee whithersoever Thou goest." Luke 9:57
Our Lord's attitude to this man is one of severe discouragement because He knew what was in man. We would have said - "Fancy losing the opportunity of winning that man!" Fancy bringing about him a north wind that froze him and "turned him away discouraged!" Never apologize for your Lord. The words of the Lord hurt and offend until there is nothing left to hurt or offend. Jesus Christ has no tenderness whatever toward anything that is ultimately going to ruin a man in the service of God. Our Lord's answers are based not on caprice, but on a knowledge of what is in man. If the Spirit of God brings to your mind a word of the Lord that hurts you, you may be sure that there is something He wants to hurt to death.
V. 58. These words knock the heart out of serving Jesus Christ because it is pleasing to me. The rigour of rejection leaves nothing but my Lord, and myself, and a forlorn hope. "Let the hundredfold come or go, your lodestar must be your relationship to Me, and I have nowhere to lay My head."
v. 59. This man did not want to disappoint Jesus, nor to hurt his father. We put sensitive loyalty to relatives in place of loyalty to Jesus Christ and Jesus has to take the last place. In a conflict of loyalty, obey Jesus Christ at al costs.
V. 61. The one who says - "Yes, Lord, but . . ." is the one who is fiercely ready, but never goes. This man had one or two reservations. The exacting cal of Jesus Christ has no margin of good-byes, because good-bye, as it is often used, is pagan, not Christian. When once the cal of God comes, begin to go and never stop going.
September 28th.
THE "GO" OF UNCONDITIONAL IDENTIFICATION
"One thing thou lackest: . . come, take up the cross, and follow Me." Mark 10:21
The rich young ruler had the master passion to be perfect. When he saw Jesus Christ, he wanted to be like Him. Our Lord never puts personal holiness to the fore when He cal s a disciple; He puts absolute annihilation of my right to myself and identification with Himself - a relationship with Himself in which there is no other relationship. Luke 14:26 has nothing to do with salvation or sanctification, but with unconditional identification with Jesus Christ. Very few of us know the absolute "go" of abandonment to Jesus.
"Then Jesus beholding him loved him." The look of Jesus wil mean a heart broken for ever from al egiance to any other person or thing. Has Jesus ever looked at you? The look of Jesus transforms and transfixes. Where you are "soft" with God is where the Lord has looked at you. If you are hard and vindictive, insistent on your own way, certain that the other person is more likely to be in the wrong than you are, it is an indication that there are whole tracts of your nature that have never been transformed by His gaze.
"One thing thou lackest . . ." The only "good thing" from Jesus Christ's point of view is union with Himself and nothing in between.
"Sel whatsoever thou hast . ." I must reduce myself until I am a mere conscious man, I must fundamental y renounce possessions of al kinds, not to save my soul (only one thing saves a man - absolute reliance upon Jesus Christ) - but in order to fol ow Jesus. "Come, and fol ow Me." And the road is the way He went.
September 29th.
THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE CALL
"For necessity is laid upon me: yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!" 1 Corinthians 9:16
We are apt to forget the mystical, supernatural touch of God. If you can tel where you got the cal of God and al about it, I question whether you have ever had a cal . The cal of God does not come like that, it is much more supernatural. The realization of it in a man's life may come with a sudden thunder-clap or with a gradual dawning, but in whatever way it comes, it comes with the undercurrent of the supernatural, something that cannot be put into words, it is always accompanied with a glow. At any moment there may break the sudden consciousness of this incalculable, supernatural, surprising cal that has taken hold of your life - "I have chosen you." The cal of God has nothing to do with salvation and sanctification. It is not because you are sanctified that you are therefore cal ed to preach the gospel; the cal to preach the gospel is infinitely different. Paul describes it as a necessity laid upon him.
If you have been obliterating the great super natural cal of God in your life, take a review of your circumstances and see where God has not been first, but your ideas of service, or your temperamental abilities. Paul said - "Woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!" He had realized the cal of God, and there was no competitor for his strength.
If a man or woman is cal ed of God, it does not matter how untoward circumstances are, every force that has been at work wil tel for God's purpose in the end. If you agree with God's purpose He wil bring not only your conscious life, but al the deeper regions of your life which you cannot get at, into harmony.
September 30th.
THE COMMISSION OF THE CALL
"Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His body's sake." Colossians 1:24
We make cal s out of our own spiritual consecration, but when we get right with God He brushes al these aside, and rivets us with a pain that is terrific to one thing we never dreamed of, and for one radiant flashing moment we see what He is after, and we say - "Here am I, send me."
This cal has nothing to do with personal sanctification, but with being made broken bread and poured-out wine. God can never make us wine if we object to the fingers He uses to crush us with. If God would only use His own fingers, and make me broken bread and poured-out wine in a special way! But when He uses someone whom we dislike, or some set of circumstances to which we said we would never submit, and makes those the crushers, we object. We must never choose the scene of our own martyrdom. If ever we are going to be made into wine, we wil have to be crushed; you cannot drink grapes. Grapes become wine only when they have been squeezed.
I wonder what kind of finger and thumb God has been using to squeeze you, and you have been like a marble and escaped? You are not ripe yet, and if God had squeezed you, the wine would have been remarkably bitter. To be a sacramental personality means that the elements of the natural life are presenced by God as they are broken providential y in His service. We have to be adjusted into God before we can be broken bread in His hands. Keep right with God and let Him do what He likes, and you wil find that He is producing the kind of bread and wine that wil benefit His other children.
October 1st.
THE SPHERE OF EXALTATION
"Jesus leadeth them up into a high mountain apart by themselves." Mark 9:2
We have al had times on the mount, when we have seen things from God's standpoint and have wanted to stay there; but God wil never al ow us to stay there. The test of our spiritual life is the power to descend; if we have power to rise only, something is wrong. It is a great thing to be on the mount with God, but a man only gets there in order that afterwards he may get down among the devil-possessed and lift them up. We are not built for the mountains and the dawns and aesthetic affinities, those are for moments of inspiration, that is al . We are built for the val ey, for the ordinary stuff we are in, and that is where we have to prove our mettle. Spiritual selfishness always wants repeated moments on the mount. We feel we could talk like angels and live like angels, if only we could stay on the mount. The times of exaltation are exceptional, they have their meaning in our life with God, but we must beware lest our spiritual selfishness wants to make them the only time.
We are apt to think that everything that happens is to be turned into useful teaching, it is to be turned into something better than teaching, viz., into character. The mount is not meant to teach us anything, it is meant to make us something. There is a great snare in asking - What is the use of it? In spiritual matters we can never calculate on that line. The moments on the mountain tops are rare moments, and they are meant for something in God's purpose.
October 2nd.
THE SPHERE OF HUMILIATION
"If Thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us." Mark 9:22
After every time of exaltation we are brought down with a sudden rush into things as they are where it is neither beautiful nor poetic nor thril ing. The height of the mountain top is measured by the drab drudgery of the val ey; but it is in the val ey that we have to live for the glory of God. We see His glory on the mount, but we never live for His glory there. It is in the sphere of humiliation that we find our true worth to God, that is where our faithfulness is revealed.
Most of us can do things if we are always at the heroic pitch because of the natural selfishness of our hearts, but God wants us at the drab commonplace pitch, where we live in the val ey according to our personal relationship to Him. Peter thought it would be a fine thing for them to remain on the mount, but Jesus Christ took the disciples down from the mount into the val ey, the place where the meaning of the vision is explained.
"If Thou canst do any thing . . ." It takes the val ey of humiliation to root the scepticism out of us. Look back at your own experience, and you wil find that until you learned Who Jesus was, you were a cunning sceptic about His power. When you were on the mount, you could believe anything, but what about the time when you were up against facts in the val ey? You may be able to give a testimony to sanctification, but what about the thing that is a humiliation to you just now? The last time you were on the mount with God, you saw that al power in heaven and in earth belonged to Jesus - wil you be sceptical now in the val ey of humiliation?
October 3rd.
THE SPHERE OF MINISTRATION
"This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting." Mark 9:29
"Why could not we cast him out?" The answer lies in a personal relationship to Jesus Christ. This kind can come forth by nothing but by concentration and redoubled concentration on Him. We can ever remain powerless, as were the disciples, by trying to do God's work not in concentration on His power, but by ideas drawn from our own temperament. We slander God by our very eagerness to work for Him without knowing Him.
You are brought face to face with a difficult case and nothing happens external y, and yet you know that emancipation wil be given because you are concentrated on Jesus Christ. This is your line of service - to see that there is nothing between Jesus and yourself. Is there? If there is, you must get through it, not by ignoring it in irritation, or by mounting up, but by facing it and getting through it into the presence of Jesus Christ, then that very thing, and al you have been through in connection with it, wil glorify Jesus Christ in a way you wil never know til you see Him face to face.
We must be able to mount up with wings as eagles; but we must also know how to come down. The power of the saint lies in the coming down and the living down. "I can do al things through Christ which strengtheneth me," said Paul, and the things he referred to were mostly humiliating things. It is in our power to refuse to be humiliated and to say - "No, thank you, I much prefer to be on the mountain top with God." Can I face things as they actual y are in the light of the reality of Jesus Christ, or do things as they are efface altogether my faith in Him, and put me into a panic?
