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.