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| "fighting the good fight, finishing the race, keeping the faith" 2 Timothy 4:7 | |||
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With Thee is the Fountain of
Life - Psalms 36:9
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There are times in our spiritual
experience when human counsel or
sympathy, or religious ordinances,
fail to comfort or help us. Why does
our gracious God permit this?
Perhaps it is because we have been
living too much without him, and he
therefore takes away everything upon
which we have been in the habit of
depending, that he may drive us to
himself. It is a blessed thing to
live at the fountain head. While our
skin- bottles are full, we are
content, like Hagar and Ishmael, to
go into the wilderness; but when
those are dry, nothing will serve us
but “Thou God seest me.” We are like
the prodigal, we love the
swine-troughs and forget our
Father’s house. Remember, we can
make swine-troughs and husks even
out of the forms of religion; they
are blessed things, but we may put
them in God’s place, and then they
are of no value. Anything becomes an
idol when it keeps us away from God:
even the brazen serpent is to be
despised as “Nehushtan,” if we
worship it instead of God. The
prodigal was never safer than when
he was driven to his father’s bosom,
because he could find sustenance
nowhere else. Our Lord favours us
with a famine in the land that it
may make us seek after himself the
more. The best position for a
Christian is living wholly and
directly on God’s grace—still
abiding where he stood at
first—“Having nothing, and yet
possessing all things.” Let us never
for a moment think that our standing
is in our sanctification, our
mortification, our graces, or our
feelings, but know that because
Christ offered a full atonement,
therefore we are saved; for we are
complete in him. Having nothing of
our own to trust to, but resting
upon the merits of Jesus—his passion
and holy life furnish us with the
only sure ground of confidence.
Beloved, when we are brought to a
thirsting condition, we are sure to
turn to the fountain of life with
eagerness.