Sound Words for Pilgrims

"For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." Romans 8:2

'Tis only in Thee hiding  We feel ourselves secure;

Only in Thee abiding  The conflict can endure:

Thine arm the victory gaineth  O'er every hateful foe;

Thy love our hearts sustaineth  In all their cares and woe.

(pp. 113-116, Footprints for Pilgrims)

"To will is present with me; but how to perform that which I would not, that I do." (Romans 7:18-19) If souls would be honest, many would confess that this has been their condition for years -- a condition which brings no glory to God and no happiness to themselves.  What is the cause ? Simply the mistake of thinking that all depends upon their own efforts instead of accepting the truth that they are utterly without strength, and that, therefore, everything depends upon God.

You have fought with your foes again and again with undaunted courage, but you have never gained the victory.  Pause, for a moment, and ask this simple question, What am I to learn by this sorrowful experiment ? ... It is that the enemy is too strong for you, that you cannot cope with his power. ... If you continue upon the present line of effort it is only to court defeat in the future as in the past.  Your case is, as far as your own strength is concerned, hopeless.  If, on the other hand, you ... come to the end of your own strength, it will bring rest to your soul, because ... you will understand that your help, strength and succour come from ... Christ and not from yourselves.  Oh, the unspeakable blessedness of such a discovery ! Ceasing henceforward to struggle, you will know what it is to rest in Another, and be able to take up the song of David, "The Lord is my light and my salvation."

"O wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from the body of this death ? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Deliverance is found, just as salvation is found, not through self, and the labours of self, but through Christ.

"My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not." (1 John 2:1)  The believer ... should never for one moment receive the thought that sin cannot be avoided.  If he once admits that sin is a necessary part of his experience, he will soon lose sight of its true character, its hatefulness to God ... and in the end become the prey and sport of the evil one as to his walk through this world.

God is able to keep us from falling (Jude 24).  To doubt this would not only be to disbelieve His own word, but also to forget that He is God.

The Holy Spirit is our only power for a holy walk.  Of ourselves we cannot take a single step in this path.  the utmost human efforts, the most resolute determination, are of no avail either to keep ourselves from evil or to follow after Christ.

If you leave out the truth of the coming of the Lord Jesus you miss a power for holiness that God has given to us.  (see 1 John 3:3).

--- E.D.

"Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth." Colossians 3:2

There has one object been disclosed on earth

That might commend the place; but not 'tis gone --

Jesus is with the Father.

(pp. 109-112, Footprints for Pilgrims)

The world ... to us is nothing now but the empty tomb of Jesus.

What a difference ... between giving up the world and the world giving us up ! We may do the one with comparative ease, but when we feel the world despise us as Christ was despised, we shall discover, unless He fills and satisfies the heart, that we had a value for its esteem that we were not aware of.

Whoever is keeping on terms with the world is not walking with God; for God is not walking with you there.

You ... listen to Satan every day of your lives that you seek a very little bit of the world.

When the world creeps in ... we show that a rejected Christ has little power in our eyes.

If the film of this world has been drawn over our spiritual vision, hiding Christ from us, He alone can remove it.

(Luke 6:20-26) "Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you," etc.  If you can make yourselves happy and comfortable in this world which has rejected Jesus, count not on His blessing.

When there is a deep sense of what is to be lost and saved, the world is a light matter, but when the pressure on the conscience is removed too often nature resumes a sort of place, and then Christ is not all and everything to the saint.

It is not a question of whether a thing be right or wrong, but what savour have the things of Christ in it ?  It may be a very small thing.  If we find the reading of a book makes the manifestation of Christ to become less precious to us, we have got away from God, and we cannot tell where the next step may take us.  Satan often cheats us in this way ... If anything comes in and takes the freshness of Christ from your soul, take heed !

(Luke 12:45) Christendom apostatises by putting off in heart the Lord's coming.  The great stay of heavenly-mindedness is lost thereby, and our peculiar calling and hope.  To expect the Lord detaches from the world.

Nature would say of Moses, Why not stay in Pharoah's court, that the people may be converted, instead of leaving it ? Flesh cannot understand what faith leads to. 

"Take heed, and beware of coveteousness." If love of the world or coveteousness ... slips into the heart it checks the power of Christ over the soul and conscience, and eats out the practical life of the Christian, and his soul is withered, withered, withered, ...  This coveteous care about earthly things is so subtle that while there is nothing on which to lay the hand, the practical power of Christian life in the soul is gone.

Worldly religion, and religious worldliness, is the pest of this day, and ... will never stand in the day which shall try all things.

--- J.N.D.

"He expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning Himself." Luke 24:27

Name of Jesus ! highest name ! Name that earth and heaven adore.

From the heart of God it came, Leads me to God's heart once more.

Name of Jesus ! living tide ! Days of drought for me are past.

How much more than satisfied, Are the thirsty lips at last.

Only Jesus ! fairest name ! Life and rest, and peace and bliss !

Jesus evermore the same, He is mine, and I am His.

G.T.S.

The Lord Jesus began in a manger and ended on the cross, and along the way He had not where to lay His head.

A Jesus dying on the cross for the vilest meets the wants and burdens of the vilest ... If His sins are a burden to him he may see Christ bearing them, that he may be free and have peace.

The more we see the value of the cross the more precious will Christ be to us.

If Jesus sees perfection in us we need nothing more.

The Holy Spirit is a power that detaches us from everything, and binds us to that which is invisible -- to Christ in heaven, and to the love of the Father.

(Luke 7:36-50) "Her sins are forgiven; for she loves much." The Lord is able to make this pardon known.  He reveals it to the poor woman.  But it was that which she had seen in Jesus Himself which, by grace, melted her heart and produced the love she had to Him -- the seeing what He was for sinners like herself.  She thinks only of Him.  He has taken possession of her heart so as to shut out other influences ... She goes into the house of this proud man without thinking of anything but the fact that Jesus is there ... She saw what He was for a sinner, and that the most wretched and disgraced found a resource in Him ... A Saviour-God being present, of what importance was Simon and his house ?  Jesus causes all else to be forgotten.  Let us remember this.

Whatever enfeebles attachment to Christ destroys power.  It is not gross sin that does it, which of course will be judged; but it is the little things of every-day life which are apt to be chosen before Christ.

If I have that in and about me which distresses the soul, I have that in Him which is unfailing joy and comfort ... Where could one's heart turn for rest if it had not Jesus to rest in ?  With Him let heaven and earth be turned upside down, and still I have a rest.

There is power to attract out of every corruption around, and to gather the soul into the thoughts, and ways of God, by the revelation of Christ Himself.

"That on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience." ... If people have not got Christ they tire.  There will be no enduring unless Christ has possession of the soul; but if He has, there will be an abiding motive, and people will go on, and "bring forth fruit with patience." ... Trouble may come in, in the church; disappointment may arise, even from the brethren; but they go on just the same, because they have got Christ before them; for the word they have heard and keep connects them with Christ, and He is more than anything else.

Much as I love the brethren, my happiness has always been from God, not from them.

--- J.N.D.

"I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase." (1 Cor. 3:6)

Thou shalt tell Me in the glory 

All that thou hast done

Setting forth alone; returning 

Not alone

Thou shalt bring the ransomed with Thee,

They with songs shall come

As the golden sheaves of harvest, 

Gathered home.

T.P.

(pp. 53-56, Footprints for Pilgrims)

Do not attempt to do too much.  Let quality, not quantity, be the desire of your heart as to your service.

The great secret of all blessing is to come from the Lord ... The Lord draw your heart so to Himself that you may come from Him to do every service.

You may find Christians ... who are really thinking more of themselves than of the Lord, exacting love and consideration instead of truly in the fear of the Lord laboring to confer it.  Whenever a soul makes itself the object the Lord is far from it.

Every servant knows the past of our Lord, and many know of the future, but what really helps is knowing Him in the present.

Pleasing God is the highest service.  This was Enoch's service, and "Without faith it is impossible to please God: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him."  Some seem to intimate by their acts that God is a rewarder of those who diligently work for Him  ... It is a healthy sign when saints are zealous of good works, but I believe there is nothing so likely to sap the soul as the satisfaction one derives from feeling that one is useful ... When you have been much in active service you need to go to the "desert to rest awhile" with the Lord.  The soul who does not seek this, and long for it, is the soul that needs it most.

Every servant requires, and as he waits for it receives, preparation for every coming service ... Every service, be it great of small, is in power according as the servant is prepared of God.

If I think more of the subject (on which I should speak) than of the power of Christ, and the unction that can only be acquired in His presence, the word will not be effectual, even if it be the greatest truth and delivered in the most perfect way.

If we cannot overcome where we are, we could not overcome anywhere.

Let not one of you be satisfied with anything but a triumphant Saviour.  Then a better testimony would go abroad from you.  What was it that arrested the elder brother of the prodigal when he approached his father's house ? It was the sound of music and dancing.  And we should wake up many a soul if we gave more the impression of those who have got the greatest thing that God can give.

A Christian ought to draw from the whole range of heaven, from Him through whom he is filled with all divine teaching ... If he is not drawing from the heavenly treasure thus, he is not living in heart luxury.

--- J.B.S.

"Serving the Lord with all lowliness" Acts 20:19 (New Trans)

Oh, to be but emptier, lowlier  Mean, unnoticed and unknown,

And to God a vessel holier, Filled with Christ, and Christ alone;

Naught of earth to cloud the glory,

Naught of self the light to dim,

Telling forth the wondrous story,

Emptied -- to be filled with Him !

P.G.

Every one of us that has been called of God finds more or less that he is isolated unto Him that called Him  ... Christ was apart to God.

Surely in our Father's house not those who have gone on well in this world, as you might have done ... but those who have been called on service, will have most joy in their retrospect.

If one could but be nothing, He might use us more.  The carpenter can use his saw, or file, or hammer without fear of its boasting of the work being its own.  If God used His children without a good deal of discipline to them accompanying they would be spoilt and boast in what was wrought as being theirs and not His.  He loves us too much for that.

The eye that is most anointed will not be the first to see failure in others, and the soul that knows most of walking under the yoke with the Master will not be the first to undertake the putting right, according to its own mind, of what halts and limps in others.

Prayer is sure work and the harbinger of blessing ... and often what sets us a praying for more is a first dropping of His rich love and grace.

Through evil report and through good report Paul had to pass, and so far as any accusation against me is known to me as not true ... I do not think one need to be unhappy about it ... But there is a reward for our bearing false accusations.  (Matthew 5:11, 12)

We are but leaden pipes to let the water down from the cistern above --- dry till it flows in above and dry if it ceases to flow in .  It is good to remember this at all times and to walk humbly in the truth of it ...  I found it useful (the remembrance of it) in praying before speaking.  Oft not a word seemed with me to give, and the spreading out before the Lord His estimate of the worthiness of His Son to be spoken about, and His will that He should be announced, has been followed by a full fresh flow of water of the word of life.

Believe me, you can only plead with God as you know Christ. He alone is the channel by which God can bless ... The power of intercession is a great thing to the servant of God.

It ennobles a Christian immensely to know and to feel that he is a channel through which the life of Christ is to flow out.

Happy the person who has an empty vessel and God ever ready to fill.  Unhappy they who have no empty vessel ... I doubt whether many know the sweetness of going into the presence of God as a channel or pipe to be filled in order to bring out what is wanted for others, saying, "I have got the ear and heart of Christ".

Which is most worthy to occupy our thoughts --- the littleness of our love or the fulness of that love which passes knowledge ?

--- G.V.W.

"If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be." (John 12:26)

Take Thou our hearts, and let them be 

For ever closed to all but Thee;

Thy willing servants let us wear  The seal of love for ever there.

Ah, Lord ! enlarge our scanty thought, 

To know the wonders Thou hast wrought;

Unloose our stammering tongues to tell  Thy love, immense, unsearchable.

DESZLER

I AM learning that no servant can lead another beyond the measure of his own grace ... The Spirit honors the word spoken where it has been effectual in the speaker.

Surely if I propound grave things --- the gravest --- and am not deeply affected myself, I cannot expect my word to produce in my hearers a greater effect than it has produced on myself.

I believe that in conversion it is a great thing to have a good beginning; and a good beginning is always marked with deep repentance.  If repentance does not mark the beginning, there is not depth in the conversion.

There are no people so hard to teach as those who imagine that they are more advanced than they are.

It is within the power of the feeblest and humblest to take such an interest in one another as to give the sense of Christ's love ... But then, to serve one another truly, we must get rid of self.

If in the world no man of ability surrenders because of the difficulties to be encountered --- be he soldier or lawyer --- how much less should the man of God surrender because of difficulties.  Difficulties to faith are God's opportunities.

Whatever God is most set for, Satan is most set against.

I believe every one ought to help, as far as in him or her lies, to rescue souls, and I think the more you are in concert with the heart of Christ, the more you will do so.  I often say, If I were very near Him I could not get alongside a sinner without telling him of a Saviour, or a saint without telling him of Christ his life in heaven.

I know very well that a servant has to go through much in order that he might be fit for his Master's use.  No real servant graduates early.

I find that it was easier to get Israel out of Egypt than to get them into Canaan.  Each step in advance evokes more opposition than the previous step; but then God is more and more to us as we advance, and this is everything to the devoted heart. 

"When I am weak, then am I strong"  It must ever be a losing on man's side when it is gaining on Christ's side.

I desire that the Lord may give you a higher line of service, and that you may be assured by Him that He wants you to be more His "friend".  It is not great acts which convey the assurance of the greatest love.  The greatest love of all can say, "The very hairs of your head are all numbered".  The more minute the attention the greater the true love and interest.

--- J.B.S.

"Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved ?" Song of Solomon 8:5

Ah, me, I'm never well  But when I on my Best Beloved lean,

And then I'm never ill: 

Crosses and trials all are right, And pain is sweet and trouble light,

When Christ my heart doth fill.

ANON

(pp. 25-28, Footprints for Pilgrims)

God sends rain and fruitful seasons, but though they come, they never come in the same way in any one year, and I find that, as a rule, when I need anything, that it comes from a quarter that I never expected, and that from the quarter where it had come before it does not now.  Thus God keeps the eye on Himself and not on the donor.

The tendency is to lose dependence when we are enjoying the results of dependence.

I consider self-vindication unworthy of any one standing for the Lord and for His truth, and I never saw a case of it where the one in the right did not suffer loss.

You ought to begin your day with this confidence, that you have enough in Christ to meet every difficulty that may befall you.

I have One who loves me ten thousand times better than I love myself, and I am in His sphere. I belong to His house, and He cares for me.

How little we realize the magnitude of the fact that God is our Father.  If a man had an emperor for his father he would not go to a peasant to ask for help.  We cannot naturally bear the delay and suspense to which we are subjected in turning to God.  But the delay is simply to test our faith.  He that believeth shall not make haste.

The soul once truly habituated to wait on God learns so to value it that it never can again do without it.

Every hour is an hour of difficulty with us while we are here, and if we do not keep our eye on Him in the little difficulties we shall not be able to find Him in the great ones.

I do not think your timidity is a real hindrance.  I believe that it will only make you have more sense of dependence and the need of it.

I am interested in seeing that it is no doing of mine, but of God's, to fit me to be a witness !

It is not wickedness to be harassed by bad thoughts if you resist them.  It is Satan's effort to get you to adopt them, and thus you are sifted.  You will find, if you keep near the Lord, that you are more established after an assault of the kind than you were before; and the only way to combat Satan's attacks is by the word ... If Satan can lead you to become indifferent to these assaults, then they will lead you to great damage; but if, on, the contrary, they urge you to be more dependent on the Lord Himself and on His word, they will eventually cease, and you will be "settled".  "After you have suffered awhile make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you."

There is a depth of love which we cannot easily take in the Lord's desire that we should know His support.  Blessed be His name ! He likes to be indispensable to us.  It is a marvelous time ... when one has nothing to cling to, no support, but His mighty hand reaching down from "higher than the heavens."

--- J.B.S.

"He woundeth, and His hands make whole" Job 5:18

Dear Lord, I thankfully kiss the hand That gently stripped me bare,

And laid me on Thy tender breast, To lose my sorrow there.

Twas anguish when earth's cup was spilled, But now with Thee tis overfilled;

For, Jesus, Thou are MORE to me Than all earth's brimming cups could be.

ANON

(pp.5-8, Footprints for Pilgrims)

I can only say to you as I say to myself, "Keep your eye on the One gone up." ... "He, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus." ... AS you feel the dearth and weariness of everything here, simply turn your eye upward; all power and comfort must now come from above.  As your eye becomes educated in the exaltation of Jesus, so will your heart be invigorated to endure for Him down here in everything, like the first martyr, though in comparison it may be a very small measure.

I very willingly suffer with you in your suffering, and I am glad that you can have a sympathy greater than I could render, from Him who not only supports you under the suffering but raises the sufferer to His own side, to His own company.  This to me is the force of "For such an High Priest became us...made higher than the heavens."  He lifts me up to Himself.  His arm comes down to me, but it lifts me up to Himself.

Death threatens all ties when it rudely breaks one, and that one of the dearest; but this is the moment for you to find a light in the darkness, and to know the companionship of the Man of sorrows.

You hide your head in sorrow, the whole sky is darkened ... yet this is the moment for your heart to find in Jesus a resource and satisfaction never known before ... No one else can come near enough to you.  The dignity of sorrow forbids the intrusion of any but the One who can truly sympathize.

The horror of great darkness is the gateway into the most blessed unfoldings of His love.

The Lord leads you to see how much He values your heart.  "My son, give me thine heart"; and the heart occupied with Christ commands every blessing from God, as it is said, "Because ye have loved me".

It is not always that there is much food where is much ministry.  Food is that which feeds, and you know that often the Lord's crumb is more than a long discourse.

You must take care not to live on your enjoyment of divine things ... I think you judge yourself, or rather your state, by the amount of your joy.  This I believe is unwise.  I judge myself as to whether Christ is enough for me, and I do not raise the question of my joy at all; but I find that when He is enough my joy is full.  I am rejoicing in the Lord, for He fills my cup.

Press on saints as much as you can how Christ loves them, and that they have to continue in His love; then you will have a practical company, for continuing in the happy sense of His love is everything.  You need not then trouble your soul about how much you obey, for if you continue in His love you must obey, and the more you continue in the love the better you will obey.

--- J.B.S.