Sound Words for Pilgrims

"They looked unto Him, and were lightened." Psalm 34:5

O Lord ! we would delight in Thee, And on Thy care depend,

To Thee in every trouble flee, Our safe unfailing Friend.

When human cisterns all are dried, Thy fulness is the same,

May we with this be satisfied, and glory in Thy name.

Ryland

(pp. 17-20 Footprints for Pilgrims)

Which would you rather have, a smooth path, or a path so rough that the Lord is compelled to show His face to you every step of the way ?

Christ wept; but He wept as in the sight of God ... Let us see to it that the sorrows we have flow from Himself, and flow toward Him in God; they will be all the deeper, I am sure, but what is from God and to God is sustained by God, and so we can give thanks always for all things.

"What pleases Thee, Lord, pleases me" is a grand motto for rest and peace and quiet, and for the stopping of all repining about what we have not got.

It is a great thing for each to be ... ready to act on and from his own responsibility, but never going beyond that which he sees to be his own duty, never acting under the light which others have ... I would rather act under God's measure of light vouchsafed to me, or not act, because I had none such, than be the one to carry out the mind of any man, without my being assured his mind was God's mind for me.

More and more does it become clear to me that "I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way thou shouldest go: I will guide thee with mine eye" is the only proper and safe guide for us.

How far is Christ practically formed in our hearts and minds ? ... so that His thoughts are our thoughts, His cares our cares, His subjects of interest our subjects of interest, and none other.

You would not be easily startled by events if you saw all that you have in Christ to enable you to meet everything calmly.

Has the restorative power of the Lord's coming got possession of your hearts ?

No sin the believer brings to God but when it comes to be weighed is not outweighed by the blood.

God would have us to ... count it a peculiar privilege to be whole-hearted for the Son of His love.

Remember that there is no path for us smoother or broader than the path of the Son of man while in the world.

You may have gone through deep waters, and many a furrow grief may have left on your forehead, but as you passed through the trouble which did you find most -- the trial or Christ who passed through it with you ?

I judge that the great thing is to own God and be still.  "I was dumb; thou didst it," said David ... There is rest in this -- giving to God His own place.

I am sure it is better for us ... for divine wisdom and love to sit at the helm and decide for us than for us to have to decide.

As to heaven, all is right, ready for us, and happier they that are there than we that are here.  The good Lord settle for us the times of our going thither, and keep us while here ready and willing to slip in at any moment.

--- G.V.W.

"The grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus" 1 Timothy 1:14

Press on ! Nor pause to look behind, For that which thou hast lost to find,

Be it of earth or heaven

Press on ! and count on God for more, For better than thou hadst before,

Bold enter at the open door.

And treble shall be given.

(pp. 149-152 Footprints for Pilgrims)

Where has there ever been found a single blessing save in the hand of Christ ? Could you wish for any save what He gives ?

Oh, do not be satisfied with ordinary Christianity, but be saying, "If nobody else is heavenly minded, why not I ?  If others are not full of the Holy Ghost, why not I ?"

"Having loved His own... He loved them unto the end." ... Oh, how sweet this experience of Christ's love in this cold world ! When the heart is chilled, and yearning for a little warmth, how sweet to turn to the Lord Jesus and feel the warmth of His love ! Ah, looking up to Him, the heart is always warmed.

If you see any beauty in Christ, and say, "I desire to have that," God will work it in you.

Can you spread out no wants before Christ, the Giver, the Healer ? Believers grieve the Spirit by not using Christ, and then God must compel them to do it.

I think if ... could but make up his mind to leave himself as a dead man in the hands of the Lord, and look up more simply and entirely to the Lord in heaven, he would be more steadily in peace and joy, and perhaps his body less in his way.  I know how the doctor thinks bad things about said body, but doctors know very little about how far the Lord may out of weakness make strong, or how He may make His strength perfect in weakness.

To restore from beyond the grave is to Him easy; to turn back the downward course is to Him a pleasure, who is the resurrection and the life.

I find it confessedly difficult to be sure as to His mind about simple medicinal remedies; but I am sure that those who cast all upon the Lord, and never touch any such supposed and real aids are the happiest; their conduct most in the Spirit ... I dread more than I did getting under the power of things down here, in body or in mind.

I fear ... that ... may be working beyond his strength of body ... but that is the right side, perhaps, to err upon in these days of self-preservation and avoidance of trusting in God.

God is able to deliver us, not only from the world and Satan practically, but from our own selves also, otherwise what and where would be His great salvation ?

Satisfied with God, rejoicing in Christ, full of the Holy Ghost, the weakest believer may be well wondered at by men of the earth ... who feel an incessant craving for something they know not what.

True, death came from the entrance of sin, but, if it should overtake me, I shall be borne upon the crest of the wave right into the presence of the Lord, one leap into the bosom of Christ.

I can give no reason why my heart was wrapped around Christ, save that the grace of God drew me to Him, and has kept me these forty years, because He loved me, and will love me unto the end.

--- G.V.W.

"These all...confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth". (Hebrews 11:13)

Lord since we sing as pilgrims, O give us pilgrims' ways;

Low thoughts of self, befitting Proclaimers of Thy praise;

O make us each more holy, In spirit pure and meek;

More like to heavenly citizens, As more of heaven we speak.

(pp. 121-124 Footprints for Pilgrims)

Directly you know Christ you must follow Him.  He traces out a path for us that does not allow of retreat in any way.

Christ never had a home down here: it was a wilderness to Him, it did not bear the stamp of His Father's heart.  If there is a strange place to me, it ought to be the place where my Lord was crucified.

Ejaculatory (constant) prayer, the lifting up of the eye, and the realizing the eye of God continually upon us, is the great secret of spirituality in social intercourse.  The deeply spiritual mind cannot be a great talker, because such is watching and cherishing the visits of the Spirit, ascending at intervals in all the secret acts of love and praise.

Now is the time to give up self: Christ's presence will be the place to have giving up of self owned in.

Can we say of any when going into their house, "That person brings me Christ" ?  If one had paid a visit to Paul, would not one have come away with a fresh taste of Christ ?  I have oftten come out of the house of a poor bedridden creature feeling, Oh, how I wish my soul were like that !  Oh, that that pulse of Christ were throbbing in every part of the body !  How I want, how I long, to see it so in all who are His.

The early Christians presented in a beautiful way the Nazirite character.  They walked as those whose hearts Christ had taken away with Him into heaven.

So immensely are our lives below the mark as nominal Christians that we have next to no idea of the distance at which we walk from God, and when the soul is turned to seek ... Him only ... we discover with amazement how many false props we have had, and how often we have been leaning on the love and approbation of others and not upon a Father's love alone.

I find more and more the value of that word, "Enoch walked with God."  I daresay in doing it he had his difficulties; but he did it.

That which I desire for you is fellowship with Jesus in that which distinguished Him so pre-eminently above His fellows -- repose of character ....  How blessed and how unearthly the calm, quiet, unruffled composure of the course !  No haste, no hurry, because though on earth yet still in heaven; His mind, His heart, deep buried in His Father's love.  And may we not thus abide in Christ, and Christ in us ?

Are you walking in the light of the affections of that Lord Jesus who loved you and washed you from your sins in His own blood ?  Is that name of Jesus causing a vibration in your heart as you walk along the wilderness ?

--- G.V.W.