February 1927
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
118
of our want of faith in God’s infinite wisdom, power, and care. Why should we fear the lack of clothing, or protection, or deliv erance? “Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.” To enter the kingdom of peace we must “become like little children” and live in happy, simple dependence upon the Parental affection and the Parental supply. All anxious cares as to the future divert our minds and waste our mental and spiritual energies, so that we are not able to pursue the first great object of,the Christian life, which is to “seek the kingdom of God, and his righteousness.” This doing, “all these things shall be added” unto us. Let us take God at His Word and believe that He “Who feeds the orphan rayenlets” will “much more” care for the children of.His love. , F ebruary 11. “Enter . . . . into his courts with praise2’^-Psa. 100:4. IT is good to enter into God’s gates with thanksgiving;: it is far better to enter into His courts with praise. It is well to be a Gate-worshipper, with a keen realization of what God has dpne for u s; but there is almost an infinity of distance between that attitude and the condition of the soul which passes right into the immediate presence;of the Divine and, in wrapt and hushed amazement at what God is in Himself, forgets a’like its needs and its blessings as it falls prostrate before the throne and is “Lost in wonder, love, and praise:”il,: Mere thanksgiving, at best, is founded upon selfishness and tends to degenerate into “a lively sense of favors to come.” The worshipper who stops at.the. “gates” will have but a limited knowledge of God, and his. worship will be apt to wither, should the stream of benefits be temporarily withheld. Our apprecia tion of, not what He has done for. us, but of what He is toj^us,1 is the true measure of our spiritual insight, and without spiritual' insight there can be no depth of spirituality. ’ “So would I love Thee, dearest Lord, And all Thy praises sing; , ■ Solely because Thou art my God, .And my most loving King.” HOW bitter must have been the thoughts of Joseph as he toiled (chained perhaps to some fellow captive) along the róad from Dothan to Egypt. What a wrench from the parental love; what an end to the bright hopes ‘inspired by his dreams; what a dreary prospect of slavery in a foreign land! Hòw the mid night of despair must have gathered round his soul when his honor was impugned and he was flung into the dungeon ! Where was the God of his Fathers? What hope was left for the future? Yet the day comes when he can look back with thanksgiving upon thè bitter experience and say : “God meant it unto good.” How wise is the exhortation : “Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust Him for His grace,” He can overrule the malice of our enemies (“Ye meant it unto evil”) ; He can deliver .us from the deepest and blackest pit of destruction; He can weave out of the darkest threads of trial a “garment of praise” to adorn our lives.. Nay, the only way to the highest blessedness sometimes leads through.the valley: of the shadow of death. All that we have to do is to trust Him, and we shall one day sing : “111 that Thou blèssest turns to good; And unblest good is ill ; And all is right that seems most wrong” in the experience of the saints of God. F ebruary 12. “God meant it unto good.”—Gen. 1:20.
F ebruary 13. “Thy will be done.”?—Matt. 6:10.
WHAT strange ideas men have about the will of God! They clasp their hands, and turn up their eyes, and say with a groan: “God’s will must be done,” as though that will were the destruction of all that is fair and desirable and joyous in their lives. When shall we learn that God’s will is our perfect hap piness? All that is evil, all that is distressing in life, is due to the fact that His will is not done. Our crosses are produced by the human will running at an angle with the Divine will'; our sorrows, our pains, our sicknesses, are the result of sin (not always of our own sin, but of sin nevertheless). Heaven is a place of absolute happiness simply because there the will of God is accomplished, and that perfectly. If we desire to taste the blessedness of heaven below, we . should pray : “Thy will be done.” Some sweet singer has sung: Let us .cease to talk about the will of God as though He were a giant Ogre seeking to torture us, rather than a loving Father longing for our good. w 1F ebruary 14. “Thou, LORD, only makest me to dwell in safety."- — Psa. 4:8. THE emphasis here lies 'on. the word only. A mother once told her little girl that if she had God beside her'bed, she .did not need the light.; the reply was: “Then please Mummie, take God and leave the. candle.” .We smile. at the dear child’s? folly: she trusted in that which had no, capacity of protection, because she icQuld see it, rather than in, the power of real but invisible. But are we not often equally foolish? We do not want the Lord taken away. Of course, we trust in Him as an auxiliary;" but a good deal of our dependence for security rests on defences that ‘are visible. Let uS strive to learn: the lesson of perfect trust. “Thou, LORD, ONLY makest me to dwell'in safety.” No other guardianship is necessary; He is all-sufficient. And none, with out Him, is of any avail: “Except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh hut in vain.” We can erect no,barriers which the enemy Cannot'penetrate; we can set no sentinel whom he cannot elude; we may flee a thousand miles from one danger, only to be overtaken of another. We may tpil all day at building fortifications, and toSs all night in restless wonderings whether we have left a loophole anywhere, and all in vain. God “giveth his beloved sleep”—deep, calm, unbroken—because they have learned to 'say : “Thou, LORD, only makest me; to dwell in 'safety,” ; THE sower and the reaper loom large in the minds of men; the poor ploughman is often forgotten. He Toils alone beneath the leaden sky; no joyous carnival awaits his return from work; he brings no golden sheaves ; he sees no fruit of his labor: yet without the ploughman there could be no Harvest Home. God has Hjs ploughmen ; men who spend their lives in preparing the barren spiritual soil ' for- the sower and the reaper. Not. appar ently successful, they are despised or neglected by their fellows. They see no fruit ; they appear to “labor in vain and spend their strength for nought” ; they are often disheartened, downcast, sad. They are apt (as most men are) to rate themselves at the esti mation of their neighbors. Let the ploughman “plough in hope !” God computes his value at a price widely different from that set F ebruary 13. “He that plougheth.1’—! Cor. 9:10 “Upon God’s will I lay me down, As child upon its mother’s breast; ' No silken couch, nor softest bed, Could ever give me such deep rest.’’
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