BUILDING
BLOCKS for Christian Poise
By Ralph Bell
N INETY percent of the iceberg is below the surface. This ratio of weight gives the floating glacier its majestic stability. The Lord Jesus was a person of great self-possession. He was never ruffled, unnerved, excited, or worried. He maintained a constant dignity, composure, balance, and stability becoming His high calling as the Son of God. But we want to remember that this poise we see in Him was because He built His life upon the solid foundation of the great eternal truths in God’s Word. This buoyant poise of the Saviour can be ours by faith. We can have it •by incorporating into our lives that heritage of truth He passed on to us. Entering into this inheritance, made ours by the redemption He paid for with His own blood, we are of all men most blessed. Then, like the great icebergs supported by a massive under girding, we can ride out life’s storms without being overwhelmed. The death of Christ for our sins opens the gates of eternity to us, but that is not all. It is the greatest social leveler of all time. With one grand sweep it gathers all peoples into a single group and calls them guilty sinners. Taking no consideration of class or race, it points the whole sinning world to the cross. Under its protecting shadow there is no room for inferior or superior people. Here, at last, is equality and fellowship. Leaving this place with redemptive joy, we can go forth knowing that all we meet are one with us in a redemptive need. We have laid the first building block in the structure of Christian poise when we have appraised self and others in the light of the cross of Christ. The love of God is the greatest force in the universe and it is ours! Being personal, each of us can say, “ It is mine.” A superintendent of public schools said in a testimony meeting, “ I am the richest man in the world. God loves me and I am His child.” Knowing that God our Father loves us is an important building block in the structure we seek to erect. To know that He loves us, that each of us is important to Him, that each of us has a J U L Y , 1 9 5 0
place in His councils, is to experience an ecstasy shared only by Heaven’s inhabitants. There is nothing more certain in its operation than the grinding mill of God’s moral universe. The Book puts it this way, “God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting” (Gal. 6:7, 8). Taking a lesson from the law of cause and effect and from the warnings in God’s Word, we know assuredly there is no exception to the law of sowing and reaping. If there is a tendency to recoil at this stern aspect of the divine administration, it can be seen upon consideration that it is a law geared for godly living. Then we can not only rejoice in His salvation, but we can say with the psalmist, “ Fret not thyself because of evildoers . . . For they shall soon be cut down” (Psa. 37:1, 2). The acceptance of authority is another building block we must use. There is an urgent need for faith in this world of intangibles. We can safely trust in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ because it is backed up by an empty tomb and a glorious resurrection from the dead. We can leave behind the surging crowds who are pursuing the vain theories of the world’s “ great thinkers.” George Mueller, the Englishman who learned to trust God in a most remarkable way, said, “How blessed it is to trust in God, and in Him alone.” Trusting Him wholly, we can walk sure-footed in a dizzy world not minding the Babel of conflicting voices. And the block of inward confidence we must not forget. Here it is, “ The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God” (Rom. 8:16). This is to say that salvation is known in the same way as is anything else—in the consciousness. What the Bible says about sin, guilt, and judgment are constantly echoed in the human heart. That there is a perfect agreement before both these bars of judgment is good reason to trust both. Accepting Christ’s salvation, God’s remedy Page Fifteen
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