God is love; to do his will is to scatter
love in handfuls of blessing on a weary world. God is light;
to do his will is to tread a path that shines more and more unto the
perfect day. God is life; to do his will is to eat of the
Tree of Life, and live forever, and to drink deep draughts of the more
abundant life which Jesus gives. God is the God of hope; to
do his will is to be full of all joy and peace, and to abound in hope.
God is the God of all comfort; to do his will is to be comforted
in all our tribulation by the tender love of a mother. God is the
God of peace; to do his will is to learn the secret inner
calm, which no storm can reach, no tempest ruffle. God is the God
of truth; to do his will is to be on the winning side, and to be
assured of the time when he will bring out our righteousness as the light,
and our judgment as the noonday.
Why will you not, my readers, who have followed
these chapters thus far to the last, resolve from this moment that your
will shall henceforth say "Yes"to God's will, and that you will live out
what be wills and works within? Probably, at the very outset, you will
be tested by your attitude to some one thing. Do not try to answer all
the suggestions or inquiries that may be raised tumultuously within, but
deal immediately and decisively with that single item. Dare to say, with
respect to it, "I will thy will, 0 my God." And immediately the gate will
open into the rapture of a new life. But remember that his will must be
done in every work to which you put your hands; and then
every work will be good.
We cannot tell how the mysterious promptings of
our will are able to express themselves in our limbs and members. We only
know that what we will in ourselves is instantly wrought out through the
wonderful machinery of nerve and muscle. And we are quick to perceive when,
through some injury or dislocation, the mandate of the will fails to be
instantly and completely fulfilled. Nor do we rest content until the complete
communication is restored.
But in all this there is a deep spiritual analogy.
We are members, through grace, of the body of Christ. The will lies with
him; and if we were living as we ought, we should be incessantly conscious
of its holy impulses, withdrawing us from this, or prompting us to that.
Our will would not be obliterated, but would elect to work in perpetual
obedience and subordination to the will of its King. Alas! this is not
our case. We are too little sensible of those holy impulses. On rare occasions
we realize and yield to them. But how many of them fail to reach or move
us, because we are out of joint! What prayer could better befit our lips
than that the God of peace, the true surgeon of souls, would put us in
joint, to do his will, with unerring accuracy, promptitude, and completeness!
MARK THE GUARANTEES THAT THIS PRAYER SHALL BE REALIZED.
The appeal is made to the God of peace. He whose nature is
never swept by the storms of desire or unrest; whose one aim is to introduce
peace into the heart and life; whose love to us will not brook disappointment
in achieving our highest blessedness, he must undertake this office; he
will do it most tenderly and delicately; nor will he rest until the obstruction
to the inflow of his nature is removed, and there is perfect harmony between
the promptings of his will and our immediate and joyous response.
He brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus,
that great Shepherd of the sheep. To have given us a Shepherd
was much; but to have given us so great a Shepherd is marvelous. He is
the great Shepherd who died, just as he is the good
Shepherd who knows his flock, and the chief Shepherd
who is coming again. He is great, because of the intrinsic dignity of his
nature; because of his personal qualifications to save and bless us; because
of the greatness of his unknown sufferings; and because of the height of
glory to which the Father hath exalted him. The words "brought again" are
very expressive. They contain the idea of "brought up." More is meant than
the reanimation of the dead body of Christ. There is included, also, his
exaltation by the right hand of God, to be a Prince and a Saviour. And,
surely, if our God has given us such a Shepherd, and raised him to such
a glory, that he may help us the more efficiently, there is every reason
why we should confidently count on his doing all that may needed in
us, as he has done all that was needed for us.
He will certainly respect the everlasting
covenant, which has been sealed with blood. God
has entered into an eternal covenant with us to be our God and Friend.
That covenant, which does not depend on anything in us, but rests on his
own unchanging nature, has been ratified by the precious blood of his Son.
As the first covenant was sealed by the sprinkled blood of slain beasts,
so the second was sealed by the precious blood of Christ. "This is my blood
of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins."
Thus spoke our Saviour on the eve of his death, with a weight of meaning
which this Epistle was needed to explain. And is it likely that he who
has entered into such a covenant with our souls-a covenant so everlasting,
so divine, so solemn-will ever go back from it, or allow anything to remain
undone which may be needed to secure its perfect and efficient operation?
It cannot be! We may count, without the slightest hesitation, on the God
of peace doing all that is required to perfect us in every good work to
do his will.
THE DIVINE METHOD will be to work in us. It is necessary
first that we should be adjusted so that there may be no waste or diversion
of the divine energy. When that is done, then it will begin to pass into
and through us in mighty tides of power. "God working in you." It is a
marvelous expression! We know how steam works mightily within the cylinder,
forcing up and down the ponderous piston. We know how sap works mightily
within the branches, forcing itself out in bud and leaf and blossom. We
read of a time when men and women were so possessed of devils that they
spoke and acted as the inward promptings led them. These are approximations
to the conception of the text, which towers infinitely beyond.
Have we not all been conscious of some of these
workings? They do not work in us mightily as they did in the Apostle Paul,
because we have not yielded to them as he did. Still, we have known them
when the breath of holy resolution has Swept through our natures; or we
have conceived some noble purpose; or have been impelled to some deed of
self-sacrifice for others. These are the workings of God within the heart,
not in the tornado only, but in the zephyr; not in the thunder alone, but
in the still small voice. Every sigh for the better life, every strong
and earnest resolution, every determination to leave the nets and fishing-boats
to follow Jesus, every appetite for fellowship, every aspiration heavenward-all
these are the result of God's in-working.
How careful we should be to gather up every divine
impulse, and translate it into action! We must work out what he works in.
We must labor according to his working, which works in us mightily. We
must be swift to seize the fugitive and transient expression, embodying
it in the permanent act.
It does not seem so difficult to live and work for
God when it is realized that the eternal God is energizing within. You
cannot be sufficiently patient to that querulous invalid, your patience
is exhausted; but God is working his patience within you: let it come out
through you. You cannot muster strength for that obvious Christian duty;
but God is working that fruit in your innermost nature; be content to let
it manifest itself by you. You are incompetent to sustain that Christian
work, with its manifold demands; but stand aside, and let the eternal God
work in and through you, to do by his strength what you in your weakness
cannot do.
The Christian is the workshop of God. In that mortal
but renewed nature the divine Artisan is at work, elaborating products
of exquisite beauty and marvelous skill. Would that we might be less eager
to give the world ourselves, and more determined that there should be a
manifestation through all the gateways of our being of the wondrous in-working
of the God of peace! Then we might say, with some approach to the words
of our Lord, to such as demand evidences of his resurrection and life,
"How sayest thou, Prove to me the resurrection of Jesus? the words which
I speak, I speak not of myself; but my Saviour, who dwelleth in me, he
doeth the works."
THE RESULT will be that we shall be well-pleasing
in his sight, through Jesus Christ. Our good works can never be the ground
of our acceptance or justification. The very best of them can only please
God through Jesus Christ. Our purest tears need washing again
in his blood. Our holiest actions need to be cleansed ere they can be viewed
by a holy God. Our best prayers and gifts need to be laid on the altar
which sanctifies all it touches. We could not stand before God for a moment,
save by that one sufficient substitutionary sacrifice, once offered by
Jesus on the cross, and now pleaded by him before the throne.
At the same time, our Father is pleased with our
obedient loyalty to his will. He gives us this testimony, that we please
him; as Enoch did, who walked with him before the flood. And it should
be the constant ambition of our lives so to walk as to please him, and
to obtain from him a faint echo of those memorable words which greeted
our Saviour as he stepped upon the waters of Baptism: "This is my beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased."
To him be glory forever and ever!
Directly the soul is right with God, it becomes a vehicle for God; and
thus a revenue of glory begins to accrue to God, which ceases not, but
augments as the years roll by. And the time will never come when the spirit
shall not still pour forth its glad rejoicings to the glory of him to whom
is due the praise of all.
If your life is not bringing glory to God, see to
it that at once you set to work to ascertain the cause. Learning it, let
it be dealt with forthwith. Hand yourself over to God to make you and keep
you right. And thus begin a song of love and praise, which shall rise through
all coming ages, to the Father who chose you in Christ, to the Saviour
who bought you with his blood, and to the Spirit who sanctifies the heart;
one adorable Trinity, to whom be the glory forever and ever, Amen.