Bear with yourself without flattering yourself. Our faults, even those that are the most difficult to bear, will all be of service to us if we make use of them for our humiliation – without relaxing our efforts to correct them. It does no good to be discouraged.
It is a kind of betrayal of simple faith to continually demand to be assured that we are doing well. For it is the will of God that we should be ignorant of such. And to reason and ponder about the way is to waste time trifling along it.
Weak people seek to live by pure faith, yet want to retain all their worldly wisdom; to be a child, yet great in their own eyes. We want to be tested but only while looking on with conscious superiority to the trial. But as Christians, we must give all when God asks it. If we do not have courage to give, at least we can let Him take.
Christians must forsake everything that they have, however innocent. For it we do not forsake it in our hearts, it ceases to be innocent. We use only what God gives us, what He wills us to love and to hold, with the resolve to have a heart that is keeping itself for a more worthy Object.
Since we did not make ourselves, we are not made for ourselves. We soon begin to realize that all our perfection and happiness should be lost in Him who has been pleased to form us. Created things, dazzling though they may be, cannot do this for us – cannot perfect us, or even give us happiness for any length of time. We must prefer God’s glory more than our own happiness, and must refer our happiness to His glory as merely a means to an end – our perfection.
The Lord will perfect that which concerns me (Psalm 138:8).
Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48).
I don’t mean to say I am perfect. I haven’ learned all I should even yet, but I keep working toward that day when I will finally be all that Christ Jesus saved me for and wants me to be (Philippians 3:12 TLB).
