◄ ►

The Danger of Blessings

From the fullness of His grace we have all received one blessing after another. (John 1:16 NIV)

When the Lord has blessed and prospered, how many people have not themselves become something? Here is a successful movement! Here is my chance! There is a laying hold of that work, and a turning of it to personal account. That is the history of things. The most dangerous time for the work of God is the time of blessing. You will always find people coming in when there is blessing, not because they have God's end in view, but because a realm of blessing means personal good.... The Lord is calling us on to the fullness of Christ, and sometimes on the way He may let us see the working of His power, that He is with us. The world may be against us, the devil may be withstanding, and the Lord lets us see in some little way that He is with us. And then alongside of that there comes the most awful peril, in that we snap our fingers at everything and everybody, and at the devil himself. We are supported by the Lord in the position we have taken! We are vindicated! That is a perilous position. The Lord may have to say, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven! Do not find any personal gratification in the fact that the demons are subject unto you!" It is all in the same realm as glorying in a wrong way in the blessings of the Lord. We have to go on steadily, and take our encouragements when they come, thank the Lord quietly for them, and get on with the main business, not staying to gloat over the fruits of the Lord's blessing in a personal way.

There is a great deal of ground covered by that. It is often a source of so much gratification if only you can tell people of the success that is coming to you in the work of the Lord, how many people are coming, how many souls are being saved, how you are being used, how the Lord's seal is upon you. All unconsciously we take hold of the honor for our own flesh. The Lord has to hide so much from us, because it is dangerous for us; our flesh makes it dangerous. We shall be tried by blessing as well as by adversity. The keenest fires of trial are often those of success or prosperity. Such tests discover whether our hearts are fixed upon the Lord or upon things.

We shall be satisfied with the goodness of Your house.

One thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. § He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty.

He satisfies the longing soul, and fills the hungry soul with goodness. § I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.

How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God! Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Your wings. They are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of Your house, and You give them drink from the river of Your pleasures. For with You is the fountain of life; in Your light we see light.

Ps. 65:4;  Ps. 27:4;  Matt. 5:6;  Luke 1:53;  Ps. 107:9;  John 6:35;  Ps. 36:7;   Ps. 36:8;   Ps. 36:9

Do you now believe?

What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? … Faith … , if it does not have works, is dead.

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son … concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead. § Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? … You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.

He who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.

By their fruits you will know them. Not everyone who says to Me, “Lord, Lord,” shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. § If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.

John 16:31;  James 2:14,17;  Heb. 11:17,19;  James 2:21,24;  James 1:25;  Matt. 7:20,21;  John 13:17

Harvest Conditions

The God of all grace, who hath called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after ye have suffered awhile, make you mature, establish, strengthen, settle you" (1 Pet. 5:10).

The type of plow employed has much to do with the resultant harvest. The primitive stick-plow places quite a limitation upon what will be harvested - if anything. But if the Husbandman's plow is cutting deep into our lives, we can expect a rich harvest. As Samuel Rutherford said, "Why should I start at the plow of my Lord, that maketh deep furrows on my soul? He purposeth a crop!"

"Doth he that ploweth to sow plow continually? Doth he continually open and harrow his ground?' (Isa. 28:24). No, of course not! It is a job that has got to be done - the breaking up, the turning over, the exposing to the elements, the harrowing. The Lord is speaking to His faithful people who are feeling that they are under the plow; furrows are being cut deep into their souls; they are being turned up and turned over, laid bare, exposed, broken, harrowed. The Father says, even to faithful people, This is necessary, we are looking ahead to a harvest, to real values; this is an essential aspect of the work. But. . . take comfort - this is not going on forever.'"

"No matter what we may encounter in this life, we who belong to the Lord Jesus have this definite knowledge - our Father will use it all in love as an instrument in the carrying out of the glorious purpose to which He has destined us. If that purpose is to be wrought by delivering us from a trial, He will do so. But if it is to be accomplished by means of the trial, He, in His perfect love, will not free us from it but strengthen us to go through it and be victorious over it." -A.M.

"Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time" (1 Pet. 5:6).

Listen and Love

A Rightly Divided INHERITANCE