I Believe He Has

I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me (Acts 27:25).

I went to America some years ago with the captain of a steamer, who was a very devoted Christian. When off the coast of Newfoundland he said to me, "The last time I crossed here, five weeks ago, something happened which revolutionized the whole of my Christian life. We had George Mueller of Bristol on board. I had been on the bridge twenty-four hours and never left it. George Mueller came to me, and said, 'Captain I have come to tell you that I must be in Quebec Saturday afternoon.' 'It is impossible,' I said. 'Very well, if your ship cannot take me, God will find some other way. I have never broken an engagement for fifty-seven years. Let us go down into the chart-room and pray.'"

"I looked at that man of God, and thought to myself, 'What lunatic asylum can that man have come from? I never heard of such a thing as this.' 'Mr. Mueller,' I said, 'do you know how dense this fog is?' 'No,' he replied, 'my eye is not on the density of the fog, but on the living God, who controls every circumstance of my life.'"

"He knelt down and prayed one of the most simple prayers, and when he had finished I was going to pray; but he put his hand on my shoulder, and told me not to pray. 'First, you do not believe He will answer; and second I BELIEVE HE HAS, and there is no need whatever for you to pray about it.'"

"I looked at him, and he said, 'Captain, I have known my Lord for fifty-seven years, and there has never been a single day that I have failed to get audience with the King. Get up, Captain and open the door, and you will find the fog gone.' I got up, and the fog was indeed gone. On Saturday afternoon, George Mueller was in Quebec for his engagement."
--Selected

If our love were but more simple,
We should take Him at His word;
And our lives would be all sunshine,
In the sweetness of our Lord.

~L. B. Cowman~

Called Unto Holiness # 21

Wrestlers For Christ

That wonderful Epistle to the Ephesians, in which we have the highest truth regarding the mutual relationship between Christ and the Christian, is divided very naturally and easily into three parts, and it follows the divine order:

The Wealth of the Christian
The Walk of the Christian
The Warfare of the Christian

In the first three chapters we have a revelation of the riches of Christ, the riches of His glory, the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ. They are the possession of the one who is in Him. Then, beginning with 4:1, and on through 6:9, we are given a revelation of the seven-fold walk of the Christian, who is to walk worthy of the high calling to which he has been called in Christ Jesus. It is in this part of the epistle that we have the greatest of all commands in the New Testament for the Christian: "Be filled with the Spirit," that experience of the Spirit-filled life, the greatest experience, the deepest experience that one can have this side of heaven.

The Call to Warfare

One would almost thing that that was the place to stop, but God does not think so. In 6:10 there is the word "Finally," and that word "finally" indicates not only the close, but the "climax" of the truth of the epistle. The Christian is not through yet. It is not enough for him to luxuriate in the life that is his as a child of God and an heir of God. It is not enough for him just to walk with the Lord worthily and consistently. The Christian has a task set before him, and that task is nothing short of warfare. When you enter chapter 6 at verse 10 and go on to verse 12, you are immediately on the battlefield; there is a real warfare begin waged. Who is so prepared for the warfare as the one who has entered into the fullness of his inheritance in Christ, as the one who is walking worthily and consistently with God, who has indeed been filled with the Holy Spirit? It is only such a one that God can trust to be a part of that great army under the captain of the host, going forth into this terrible spiritual warfare. So it is inevitable that this Epistle to the Ephesians should end on a battlefield.

We have heard messages revealing to us to clearly what are the unsearchable riches of Christ. I trust it means for every one of us that we have entered more fully and more perfectly into our inheritance in Christ Jesus, and that we shall go from here infinitely richer in Him than when we came. I trust it means, too, that as we have heard these messages from God's Word pointing out to us what is the consistent, upright walk of the Christian, that we have begun to walk more worthily. Then we came up to Thursday, to that day of climax in a way, when in one message after another, the message of the Spirit-filled life, a life lived in the power of the Holy Spirit, was presented in each successive gathering [Ms. Paxson was attending a conference]. The day ended with that glorious meeting where there were many who, for the first time, took the fullness of the Holy Spirit by faith. And others, who had had that fullness, but had lost it, came again into that precious experience.  On Friday and again yesterday there were set before us the great spiritual battlefields of the world, and the far-flung frontiers of the vast mission field. And we have just as big a battlefield here in the homeland; here also a spiritual warfare is going on. To whom will God look? To whom can He entrust this spiritual warfare? Is it not to us who have entered more fully into our wealth in Christ, who are going out to walk more worthy of Him? Are we prepared today to hear His call for spiritual wrestlers, spiritual warriors, for the great conflict of today and tomorrow? We have been witnesses for Him; we have been workers together with Him; but there is something even beyond that.

~Ruth Paxson~

(continued with # 22)

I Waited for the Lord

In waiting, I waited, for the Lord (Psalms 40:1-6, margin).

Waiting is much more difficult than walking. Waiting requires patience, and patience is a rare virtue. It is fine to know that God builds hedges around His people--when the hedge is looked at from the viewpoint of protection. But when the hedge is kept around one until it grows so high that he cannot see over the top, and wonders whether he is ever to get out of the little sphere of influence and service in which he is pent up, it is hard for him sometimes to understand why he may not have a larger environment--hard for him to "brighten the corner" where he is. But God has a purpose in all HIS holdups. "The steps of a good man are ordered of the Lord," reads Psalm 37:23.

On the margin of his Bible at this verse George Mueller had a notation, "And the stops also." It is a sad mistake for men to break through God's hedges. It is a vital principle of guidance for a Christian never to move out of the place in which he is sure God has placed him, until the Pillar of Cloud moves.
--Sunday School Times

When we learn to wait for our Lord's lead in everything, we shall know the strength that finds its climax in an even, steady walk. Many of us are lacking in the strength we so covet. But God gives full power for every task He appoints. Waiting, holding oneself true to His lead--this is the secret of strength. And anything that falls out of the line of obedience is a waste of time and strength. Watch for His leading.
--S. D. Gordon

Must life be a failure for one compelled to stand still in enforced inaction and see the great throbbing tides of life go by? No; victory is then to be gotten by standing still, by quiet waiting. It is a thousand times harder to do this than it was in the active days to rush on in the columns of stirring life. It requires a grander heroism to stand and wait and not lose heart and not lose hope, to submit to the will of God, to give up work and honors to others, to be quiet, confident and rejoicing, while the happy, busy multitude go on and away.

It is the grandest life "having done all, to stand."
--J. R. Miller

~L. B. Cowman~

Called Unto Holiness # 20

Fullness of Christ

How May the Fullness be Obtained? (continued)

"Drink". This is an act. Aspiration becomes acquisition by appropriation. Thirst is desire; I want water. To drink is an act; I take water. Just here is where many earnest, seeking souls fall short of this glorious experience. They thirst but they do not drink.

After a meeting where this message was given, a very sad-faced woman stopped to shake hands and said, "Oh, Miss Paxson, I thirst!" I waited to hear the rest of our Lord's blessed invitation and to know she had acted upon it. But she went out still sad-faced. But she returned to the afternoon meeting where we went further into the way of obtaining this fullness. Again she stopped and with a radiant light in her face said, "Oh I thirst and I drink." A letter came from her later in which she said, "I keep on thirsting and drinking and He keeps on satisfying." [Yes! That's what happens!]

In these words is the secret not only of obtaining the fullness of the Holy Spirit but of having that fullness maintained continuously in the life.

"Be not drunk with wine ... but be filled with the Spirit" (Ephesians 5:18).

How does one get drunk? By drinking. How does he stay drunk? By continuing to drink. How is one filled with the Holy Spirit? Our Lord says by drinking of that living water. How does one stay filled? By continuing to drink day by day. Is that not simple for each one of us? May we bow in silence to face a few questions in the presence of the Lord, and answer by a definite yes or no.

Have you ever been filled with the Holy Spirit?

Are you filled with the Spirit now?

Will you be filled today?

Do you purpose to live the Spirit-filled life from now on?

If you thirst and will drink just now, will yo offer to God this simple prayer: "Lord, I thirst; Lord, I come and drink; Lord, I take the gift Thou offerest, the fullness of the Holy Spirit, and thank Thee for it."

~Ruth Paxson~

(continued with # 21 - "Wrestlers for Christ")

The Cross of Christ: Power to Deliver from Sin

May I never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of that cross, my interest in this world has been crucified, and the world's interest in me has also died. (Galatians 6:14 NLT)

You can have Christian law just as much as you can have Mosaic law; you can be in bondage in Christianity just as much as men were in Judaism. Christianity can be made into an imposed system just as much as Mosaic law was, and there are many Christians today who live under the fear of the "Thou shalt" and the "Thou shalt not" of a legalistic conception of the Christian life. You can take the Bible as God's standard for your life and try to fulfill it and yet still be burdened with a sense of constant failure. It is God's standard, and it is a very exhaustive one which leaves no part of the practical life untouched, but those who make the effort to try to live up to it only end in disillusion. No, it is not just a matter of a Book but of a Person, the Person who did live up to that standard, absolutely fulfilling every least demand with the most perfect success, so satisfying God to the full. By His death He has delivered us from the bond age of legal demands. This same Person now lives in us by His Holy Spirit, seeking to work out that perfect will of God not on the basis of some binding instructions from without but as a living force within. We have the law written in our hearts. To be in Christ is a matter of Life and not of legalism.

Christ, and Christ crucified, is the power of God to bring deliverance from sin, from the flesh, from the law and from the world. "God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world" (Galatians 6:14). Paul was not glorying that he could enjoy so much of the world and yet have a clear conscience, but was enthusiastic about having been delivered from the world. For believers the only possible way of staying in this world is to know that they no longer belong to it.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

Called Unto Holiness # 19

Fullness of Christ

How May the Fullness by Obtained?

The way is so simple but man sometimes makes it so complex. Some think it requires long fastings, praying all night, seeking with agonizing, constantly praying for the infilling but never receiving it, earnestly seeking but never finding it. In one institution where the message of the Spirit-filled life was given at a meeting of Christian workers, we were told afterward that every week for a whole year they had prayed for the fullness of the Spirit but had not yet received this blessing.  A missionary told me she had prayed every day for this fullness but had no answer. Then is God not willing or not able or ready to bestow the fullness upon His children? Yet He commands them to be filled. In what an unreasonable, unkind position this places God.

What is God's way? It is so simple and so clearly stated. Listen to His words:

"Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him" (John 4:14).

It is the active appropriation of a gift.

"Jesus ... cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink" (John 7:37).

Could anything be more simple? One does not have to get down a big lexicon or commentary to understand the meaning of one of these words. They are part of your everyday vocabulary. We miss the way because it is so simple.

"Any man." There are no favorites with God. When God says "any man" it is as though He wrote in your own name there. Only it is far, far better just as it is. A few years ago I received a letter from a young girl who signed herself "Ruth Paxson." So if it read, "If Ruth Paxson thirsts" how would I know that it did not mean her instead of me? But when God says, "If any man" then it means the one who meets the conditions stated. And what are they?

"Thirst." This is not mere desire for something I vaguely feel I ought to have which I do not possess, or a longing born of jealousy or envy, possibly, for a power which is seen in some Spirit-filled life. Thirst is an intense desire for holiness for Christ' sake that must be satisfied. It is an intense craving for power to witness for Him and to win souls to Him that must be quenched. Even more than this is enfolded in that word "thirst". It is an insatiable longing for God Himself. It is that inward heart cry of the psalmist of old.

"As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God" (Psalm 42:1-2).

It was expressed in a letter received just yesterday. "I am unquenchably athirst for Him and His holiness." Do you have this kind of thirst? It is the first condition for obtaining the fullness. Then what?

"Come." Where and to whom? To a "tarrying meeting"? To a conference? To some human leader? "Come unto me" - the only One who can bestow this gift, the Giver of this living water in all its fullness. Have you come to Him? Perhaps you have come and asked for the gift. But that is not His condition. He states it clearly The asking is bound up with the thirsting. But aspiration, even expressed in asking, is not enough. There is something more for us to do.

~Ruth Paxson~

(continued with # 20)

The Priestly Gift of Sympathy

Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God (Acts 14:22).

The best things of life come out of wounding. Wheat is crushed before it becomes bread. Incense must be cast upon the fire before its odors are set free. The ground must be broken with the sharp plough before it is ready to receive the seed. It is the broken heart that pleases God.

The sweetest joys in life are the fruits of sorrow. Human nature seems to need suffering to fit it for being a blessing to the world.

Beside my cottage door it grows,
The loveliest, daintiest flower that blows,
A sweetbriar rose.

At dewy morn or twilight's close,
The rarest perfume from it flows,
This strange wild rose.

"But when the rain-drops on it beat,
Ah, then, its odors grow more sweet,
About my feet.
Ofttimes with loving tenderness,
Its soft green leaves I gently press,
In sweet caress.

A still more wondrous fragrance flows
The more my fingers close
And crush the rose.

Dear Lord, oh, let my life be so
Its perfume when tempests blow,
The sweeter flow.

And should it be Thy blessed will,
With crushing grief my soul to fill,
Press harder still.

And while its dying fragrance flows
I'll whisper low, "He loves and knows
His crushed briar rose."

If you aspire to be a son of consolation; if you would partake of the priestly gift of sympathy; if you would pour something beyond commonplace consolation into a tempted heart; if you would pass through the intercourse of daily life with the delicate tact that never inflicts pain; you must be content to pay the price of a costly education--like Him, you must suffer.

~L. B. Cowman~