STRENGTH continued
er, the true lawkeeper. He can, he will, he must work for God. He has come into contact with that part of God’s character which warms his c o l d heart. Forgiving love con strains him. He cannot but work for Him who has removed his sins from him as far as the east is from the west. Forgiveness has made him a free man and given him a new and most loving Master. Forgive ness received freely from the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ acts as a spring, an impulse, a stim ulus of divine potency. It is more irresistible than law or terror or threat. A half forgiveness, an uncertain justification, a changeable peace may lead to careless living and more careless working, may slacken the energy and f r e e z e up the springs of action (for it shuts out that aspect of God’s character which gladdens and quickens), but a com plete and assured pardon can have no such effect. This is “ . . . the truth which is after godliness” (Titus 1:1). Its tendencies towards holiness and consistency of life are marvelous in their power and cer tainty. Irrepressible we may truly call the momentum thus imparted to the soul, a momentum which owes its intensity to the entireness and sureness of the pardon, a mo mentum on which some in their ig norance of .Scripture as well as of the true deep springs of human action would fasten their drag of doubt and uncertainty lest what they call the interests of morality should be compromised. As if men could be made unholy by knowing certainly with what a holy love they have been freely loved or made holy by being kept in sus pense as to their own personal rec onciliation with God. As if pardon doled out in crumbs or drops and even these so cautiously held back that a man can hardly ever be sure of having them, were more likely to be fruitful in good works than a pardon given at once and given in such a way as to be sure even to the chief of sinners, a pardon worthy, both in its greatness and its freeness, of the boundless generos ity of God. END.
Comfortable or Comforted ? S pelling out the word “ joy” to the tune of “ Jingle Bells,” tiny tots sometimes sing: J-O-Y, J-O-Y! This spiritual truth is applicable to all Christians today. Jesus said, “ I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you” (John 14:18). “ And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever” (John 14:16). Thus He sent the Holy Spirit (the Comforter), not to make us comfortable but to comfort us as we put Jesus first, others next, and self last. Comfortable Christians are not consecrated Christians. Com fortable Christians are not God-made Christians; they are not militant Christians. Nowhere in God’s Word is the Christian promised a comfortable life. Paul was not comfortable. He said: “ Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered ship wreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; In joumeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in penis by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils ,in the sea, in perils among false brethren; In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness” (2 r£pr. 11:24-27). No, Paul was not comfortable. Ten thousand times, no! But he was comforted. There are too many comfortable Christians in the Church today. When Livingstone went to Africa, Hudson Taylor to China and Fenton Hall to South America, they were not com fortable. No Christian has the right to be comfortable so long as one soul lives without God. Consecrated Christians are found in the thick of battle. As good soldiers of Jesus Christ, they endure hardship. True, they are not comfortless. They have the Holy Spirit with them — the Comforter. And they know Lasting joy in the service of the King — Jesus first, others next and self last. Comfortable or comforted — which? Every born-again, blood- washed believer, needs to search his heart and ask himself this questibri today. — Arthur H. Townsend Surely this does mean Jesus first, yourself last, And others in between.
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THE KING'S BUSINESS
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