SAFE WALKING

Psalms 25:10 All the paths of the LORD are mercy and truth unto such as keep His covenant and His testimonies.

The paths of the Lord! My soul! never follow your own paths. 

If you do, you will be in danger often of following sight rather than faith--choosing the evil, and refusing the good.

But "commit your way unto the Lord and He shall bring it to pass."

Let this be your prayer, "Show me Your ways, O Lord; teach me Your paths."

Oh! for Caleb's spirit, "to wholly follow the Lord my God"--to follow Him when self must be sacrificed, and hardship must be borne, and trials await me. 

To "walk with God"--to ask in simple faith, What would You have me to do?

To have no will of my own but this, that God's will is to be my will. Here is safety here is happiness! 

Fearlessly follow the Guiding Pillar. He will lead you by a right way, though it may be by a way of hardship, and crosses, and losses, and privations--to the city of God. 

Oh! the blessedness of thus lying passive in the hands of God, saying "Undertake for me God!" 

Oh! the blessedness of dwelling with holy gratitude on past mercies and interpositions; trusting these as pledges of future faithfulness and love; and hearing His voice behind us, amid life's many perplexities, exclaiming, "This is the way walk in it!"

Happy, surely, are every people who are in such a case!

It will be for you, Reader, if you can form the resolve in a strength greater than your own: This God shall be my God forever and ever; He shall be my Guide even unto death! 

~John Macduff~

Do We Love A Taking God As Well As A Giving God?

By knocking upon a barrel, we see whether it is full or empty, cracked or sound. 

Just so, by the knocks of providence given us in affliction, we are revealed for what we really are.   

Not only does affliction thus try our characters but prosperity does the same.

When we are afflicted, it is wise to watch the result upon ourselves.
 
Can our faith bear trial or is it a mere counterfeit?
 
Do we love a taking God as well as a giving God?
 
Do we cleave to Christ when under a cloud or is our religion only a fair-weather amusement?

Heart-searching may thus be greatly helped, and we shall run less danger of self-deception.

It will be an awful thing to be mere empty barrels, and never know it until death deals a blow with his rod of iron, and we answer to it with hollow sounds of despair!

~Charles Spurgeon~

OBEY The VOICE Of The LORD!

1Sa 28:18  Because thou obeyedst not the voice of the LORD, nor executedst his fierce wrath upon Amalek, therefore hath the LORD done this thing unto thee this day.  

Thus unforgiven sin comes back to a man. 

We cannot explain the mysteries that lie around this incident; but it is clear that in that supreme hour of Saul's fate, that early sin, which had never been confessed and put away, came surging back on the mind and heart of the terror stricken monarch. 

Because thou obeyedst not the voice of the Lord, and didst not execute his fierce wrath upon Amalek, therefore hath the Lord done this thing unto thee This day. 

Moreover the Lord will deliver Israel also with thee into the hands of the Philistines

But Saul did not realize that even then the gates of God's love stood open to him, if only he would pass through them by humble penitence and faith. 

If instead of applying to the witch, he had sought God's mercy, light would have burst on his darkened path, and he had never perished by his own hand on Mount Gilboa.

In strong contrast with this, let us put the assurance of the new covenant: "Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more." 

When God forgives, He blots out from the book of his remembrance. The sin is gone as a pebble in the ocean; as a cloud in the blue of a summer's sky.

Saul's was a sin of omission. The question was not what evil he had done, but the good be had failed to do. 

Let us remember that we need pardon for the sad lapses and failures of our lives, equally as for the positive transgressions. 

And if such things are not forgiven, they will lie heavy on our consciences when the shadows of death begin to gather around us. 

The New Testament especially judges those who knew and did not do, the slothful servant, the virgin without the oil, the priest that passed by on the other side.

~F. B. Meyer~

Sing Praise Unto The LORD!

2Ch 20:22  And when they began to sing and to praise, the LORD set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and mount Seir, which were come against Judah; and they were smitten.
 
Oh, that we could reason less about our troubles, and sing and praise more!

There are thousands of things that we wear as shackles which we might use as instruments with music in them, if we only knew how.

Those men that ponder, and meditate, and weigh the affairs of life, and study the mysterious developments of God's providence, and wonder why they should be burdened and thwarted and hampered....

How different and how much more joyful would be their lives, if, instead of forever indulging in self-revolving and inward thinking, they would take their experiences, day by day, and lift them up, and praise God for them.

We can sing our cares away easier than we can reason them away. 

Sing in the morning. The birds are the earliest to sing, and birds are more without care than anything else that I know of.

Sing at evening. Singing is the last thing that robins do. When they have done their daily work; when they have flown their last flight, and picked up their last morsel of food, then on a topmost twig, they sing one song of praise.

Oh, that we might sing morning and evening, and let song touch song all the way through.

~Selected~

Don't let the song go out of your life
Though it chance sometimes to flow
In a minor strain; it will blend again
With the major tone you know.

What though shadows rise to obscure life's skies,
And hide for a time the sun,
The sooner they'll lift and reveal the rift,
If you let the melody run.

Don't let the song go out of your life;
Though the voice may have lost its trill,
Though the tremulous note may die in your throat,
Let it sing in your spirit still.

Don't let the song go out of your life,
Let it ring in the soul while here;
And when you go hence, 'twill follow you thence,
And live on in another sphere."

Somewhere Outwardly Or Inwardly A Link To The World?

I was asking the question, why it is that the Church is so ineffective? which is only saying, why is it that so many Christians are so spiritually weak and unfruitful and ineffective?

Somewhere there is a link with the world; outwardly or inwardly, there is a link with the world - that is, the kingdom of darkness, the authority of darkness.

I am not talking about our being here on the earth and having to work here in this world. 

You know the difference between being in it and of it, between being here and having heart relationships, voluntary relationships, choices, interests, desires, ambitions and so on; to be a part of this world in its acceptance, its recognition, and many other things.

The way out and the way in is the way of death and that death, while it is all-inclusive in His own - for He has comprehended all that it means - He says for us it is a crisis and then a daily thing. 

"Take up his cross daily" (Luke 9:23), which means, I die daily to the call of this world, to the call of that kingdom where Satan has rights and authority, a call to my heart to be something here in this world as in itself.

Oh, how subtly Satan uses that with many, seeking to argue that the realization of an ambition would give even greater opportunity for the Lord. That is very nice to the flesh.

The Cross has to be brought to all those subtle arguments of the angel of light;

And while I would not say to anybody, Be careless, be slipshod, be second-rate in what you are and what you are doing on this earth, never let your Christianity make you less than the best amongst men and women and the most efficient in your job: 

At the same time, examine your motive, your object, your ambition. 

Examine your hearts in the light of the Cross, and see whether it is self-gratification, self-glory, or any form of self as the goal that is influencing the argument. 

It is a deep heart matter, this matter of the Cross daily, dying to much, perhaps, that the flesh would like, dying to the cravings of this natural life, and oh, they are so strong!

It is so difficult to let this self go altogether and be nothing as amongst men.

When we come to think of the deliverer of souls, we shall find that Moses and Christ started in this world with no place of acceptance. 

Moses came into the world and found that the door was shut to him in this world and he had to be hidden three months.

His life was a prey from his birth.

And Christ came into this world on exactly the same conditions. 

Herod's edict was at work and there was no place for Him, and it is very difficult to take up a life which is like that from the very inception. 

What you are as the Lord's, what you represent, you as a child of God, as a Christian man or woman, you are not wanted.

If you will only just compromise a bit, you will be accepted. 

If only you will hide it a bit, nothing will be said, the way will be open for you.

But if you are going to stand on that ground of Christ, then the door is shut to you, you are not wanted. 

This is what it means that the Cross stands there right at the beginning of this life. 

You remember Exodus 12 - "This month shall be unto you the beginning of months... they shall take to them every man a lamb". The beginning was with death, death to self, as to this kingdom.

Well now, we know that this is very practical in its application, and it does work out like this, that, inasmuch as there is anything that belongs to that realm in ourselves, inasmuch as it is here and we are actuated by it, influenced by it, governed in any way by it, spiritual weakness, spiritual defeat, spiritual paralysis, unfruitfulness is the result.

Somewhere there is a bridge, a link, a connection with the realm the Lord cannot have, His rights are not ceded.

Out of the authority, not only the realm, but the right of Satan, into the Kingdom of the Son of His love.

You notice the Mount of Transfiguration. "There are some of them that stand here, who shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God" (Luke 9:27). 

Then eight days afterward a, significant number, resurrection, new ground, the old world gone, the Son of Man glorified 

Eight days afterward He taketh Peter, John and James up into the mountain, a heavenly position, and prayed. 

There came a voice out of the cloud, "This is my beloved Son; hear ye him". 

Peter, recounting it in his letter, says, "He received from the Father honor and glory, when there was borne such a voice to him by the Majestic Glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: and this voice we ourselves heard borne out of heaven, when we were with him in the holy mount" (2 Pet. 1:17-18). 

Into the kingdom of the son of his love. In whom I am well pleased. 

That very Kingdom of the Lord's pleasure, the Lord's delight, lies on the other side of the exodus. 

~T. Austin Sparks~

Satan's Rights Destroyed

Col 1:13  Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: 

"Who delivered". What a tremendous amount there is in that word, what a history!

We shall see that eighty years of the life of Moses were taken up by God with the formation of one who could deliver; deliverance is such a tremendous thing. 

"Who delivered us out of the authority" - the word 'power' is in our version, but it is that word which means authority or right, and here it has a double meaning. It refers to the person. 

You notice that it is translated in the plural in Eph. 6:12 - "Our wrestling is... against the principalities, against the powers..." - the same word, 'authorities'. These are personal things. 

They are entities in a certain position. The authority of darkness is firstly a person, of whom Pharaoh is but a faint type.

And then the authority is that power which is wielded and exercised by one in a position to exercise it, who has the right to exercise it in his own realm, and whose very strength is in his right;

From whom you cannot be delivered just in the direct way of snatching from his grasp, but you have to undo his right to hold, you have to take from him all ground of jurisdiction, to bring him to judgment and judge him clean out of court, so that he has not any more ground to stand upon, he has no case left.

Hath delivered us from the very case that the devil has against us' - that is a tremendous thing, that he has no more case against us.

He will forever be seeking to have a case against us, to find some ground on which he can bring up a case against us.

Hence he is called "the accuser of the brethren" (Rev. 12:10), but he has had his case spoiled, his ground destroyed, his rights nullified, and in this way we are delivered out of the authority of darkness.

The Cross of the Lord Jesus is that kind of exodus, that escape, that way out, that glorious achievement.

You see, this word 'authority' carries with it the idea of rights, and that great battle in Egypt, headed up to the Passover and consummated at the Red Sea, was all a question of rights.

In the Passover, the rights of Pharaoh were wound up.

If we understand the meaning of the virtue of the blood of the lamb, the dying of that lamb, the identification by faith of every believer with that lamb in death, and the appropriation by faith of the blood of the lamb, then we understand the meaning of Pharaoh's rights being wound up.

From that moment, he had no rights over them, and they began their exodus.

He sought to re-assert his rights and he met the authority of superior rights and his hosts were destroyed in the Red Sea.

He had no ground to stand upon, morally, spiritually and literally; his ground was gone.

All that is gathered into the Cross of the Lord Jesus. The work of the Lord Jesus in His Cross is all gathered into the Passover; and then, as He leads His people out through the offering of Himself, the shedding of His Blood, Satan's rights over them have been destroyed..

And they have a position which means that while Satan will be active afterward, he is only active against himself while they maintain their position in faith;

He is only bringing upon himself his own destruction while we hold to the ground that the Blood of the Lord Jesus has provided.

That mighty Passover can turn back upon Satan for his own undoing.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Thorough Cleansing

Eze 36:25  Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.

What an exceeding joy is this! He who has purified us with the blood of Jesus will also cleanse us by the water of the Holy Spirit. 

God hath said it, and so it must be, "Ye shall be clean."

LORD, we feel and mourn our uncleanness, and it is cheering to be assured by Thine own mouth that we shall be clean.

Oh, that Thou wouldst make a speedy work of it! He will deliver us from our worst sins.

The uprisings of unbelief and the deceitful lusts which war against the soul, the vile thoughts of pride, and the suggestions of Satan to blaspheme the sacred name-all these shall be so purged away as never to return.

He will also cleanse us from all our idols, whether of gold or of clay: our impure loves and our excessive love of that which in itself is pure. 

That which we have idolized shall either be broken from us or we shall be broken off from it.

It is God who speaks of what He Himself will do.

Therefore is this word established and sure, and we may boldly look for that which it guarantees to us. 

Cleansing is a covenant blessing, and the covenant is ordered in all things and sure.

~Charles Spurgeon~

If The World Loves Us, Smiles On Us, And Speaks Well Of Us!

The concern of Jesus for the safety and happiness of His people, is both great and astonishing! 

He had watched over His disciples while He was with them, and being about to leave them--He would make them the special care and charge of His Father, and thus He prays, "I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to You. Holy Father, KEEP through Your own name, those whom You have given Me!" John 17:11
 
Notice the circumstances in which we are placed: "They are still in the world." They are chosen out of it, are raised above it--and yet are left in it, for holy and important purposes.
The world to the believer, is a place of trial. 

Every principle he has, as well as the profession he makes, will be tried here.  

Storms will arise, and often suddenly and unexpectedly. Labors have to be performed, and self-denying labors too. Persecutions must be endured, and at times these are fiery and long-continued.  

This world is . . .a treacherous environment, a field of labor,
 a weary land, an enemy's country!  

The world to the Christian is a place of DANGER. He has foes both within and without. From some he must escape by fleeing--and from some by resisting.  

The corruption in the world caused by evil desires (2 Peter 1:4) is defiling, debasing, and disturbing! 

It must be overcome; we must cleanse ourselves from it, and escape from its contagion! 

Then we have to do battle with the god of this world--the prince of the power of the air; the powers of the world or ungodly, persecuting men in authority; the men of the world or the masses surrounding us; the things of the world, especially the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life! 

In such a world, surrounded by such evil elements and diabolic agents--we must be in danger, and shall be severely tried!! 

Hence Jesus pleads with His Father; He fixes on the holiness of His nature and character, and cries, "Holy Father!" 

His grace, or His mercy, or His pity--more generally attracts us, because we feel unworthy, or miserable, or weak. 

But His holiness fixes the eye on His obedient Son, and our great High Priest! 

He prays for their preservation: "Holy Father, KEEP through Your own name, those whom You have given Me."

Keep through Your own name, that is--keep them in the knowledge of Yourself and of Your truth; by Your power, mercy, and providence; to show forth Your truth, Your mercy, and Your love. 

The Lord's people, therefore, will be kept by God's power through faith unto salvation.  

Beloved, if Jesus thus prayed for us--then our preservation is certain, and our perseverance is sure. 

We shall be kept, in answer to the prayer of our great High Priest to His gratification, for His honor, and to the Almighty Keeper's glory!
 
Whatever storms may arise,
whatever foes may assail us,
whatever trials may come upon us--
our Heavenly Father will keep us, in honor of His Son.
 
Kept by the all-seeing eye and all-powerful hand of Jehovah--we shall persevere, though the road is rough and treacherous, the journey is long and dangerous, and our strength is but small.
 
Let us in every season of danger when foes and fears beset us, when our hearts misgive us, and the cross lies heavy upon us--
then let us hear Jesus praying for us, "Keep through Your own name those whom You have given Me!"
 
Reader! Are you OF the world or are you one of Christ's redeemed people IN the world?

Saints in the world are like pure lilies among stinging thorns,
precious diamonds among filthy pebbles,  harmless sheep among ravenous wolves!
 
If the world loves us, smiles on us, and speaks well of us--then we are certainly OF it! And if of the world--we shall certainly be damned along with it.
 
But if the world is to us a place of trial, and a place of danger; if we feel that we are not at home in it; if we are longing and preparing to leave it, that we may go home and dwell with Jesus in His Father's house forever--then all is well with us, and will be well forever!

~James Smith~

Organized? Named? Offended?

Mat 15:12  Then came his disciples, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended, after they heard this saying?
 

Mat 15:13  But he answered and said, Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up. 

Organized Christianity as it is today cannot understand anything that is not organized, that is not advertised, that is not run.

It must have names that carry weight, that mean influence. 

If you can get people with some title, you are going to have the guarantee of success for your Christian enterprise. 

And so the letters and the titles strung on are a necessary requisite for the success of the Lord’s work. 

You must write it up in the press, you must give a report of it, you must be able to make some kind of return that people can read, and say, "This is a successful thing." If you cannot do that, the whole thing is doomed to failure.

They say, "You must advertise, you must have publicity, you must organize, you must bring in all these things to support it, to carry it on."

If you did none of those; if you were never heard of in the press; if you never had a report; if you never had any names; if there was nothing at all that came out in a public way for people to take account of, what is the verdict of organized Christianity? "Nothing is being done. You are doing nothing. It is a-hole-in-a-corner sort of thing."

Is that true? What must we say about that?  

There was a striking absence of all that in the beginning, and a marvelous manifestation of power, of progress, of effectiveness, so that nothing could stand in the way. 

We must only conclude, we are driven to this extremity, that the Lord can do His own work. 

Evidently the risen Lord is able to carry on His own work; the Holy Ghost knows how to manage things. What a surprising discovery! 

Forgive my irony. I say, this is that upon which Hebrews 12:26-28 is fixed. “I will shake the earth and the heavens”; that which can be shaken will be shaken; that which cannot be shaken will remain; and what is that?

It is what God has done. “Whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever.” What God does is done in a spiritual way; it is spiritual, it is heavenly, it is eternal.

That may leave you perhaps in a vague, perplexed position, not knowing where you are, but I have no doubt about the truth of the message. 

If you do not feel you can accept it; if you disagree; if you revolt; if you feel it cuts clean across all your training, all your acceptance; if you feel that it runs counter to all that you know, all I ask of you is honesty with God.

I ask you to come and ask Him to open to you the meaning of the letter to the Hebrews, why it was written, what its significance is, why God has preserved it, what its application is now. 

Have honest dealings with the Lord. Please do not go away hot in spirit, antagonistic; do not lay this at the door of any man.

At least give God a chance.... May the Lord give us His own interpretation, give us honesty of heart, and show us His meaning in having brought us to this consideration.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Definiteness

The Bible seems throughout to have, among others, this continuous note of emphasis - Be strong! Be steadfast! Be unmovable! Go on! 

There is a tremendous amount along that line. 

And you ask about this, if from one point of view that is the whole Bible, what does it imply and what does it signify?

Why should the Bible find it necessary to keep that emphasis all the way along, to maintain that note from start to finish?

Well, quite obviously, the whole trend of things is in the opposite direction, to either turn us back, pull us back, hold us back, or in some way to keep us from an end.

The things are countless which would seek to have that effect upon us, and they are always present in some form or another, and we shall never know a time or a position when we are entirely free from that which would, if it cannot turn us right back, keep us or hold us back. 

There will always be something, and, if we listen to it, if we take account of it, if we stop to be occupied with it and allow it to be the thing which affects us most, then we are going to stand still; we are going to stop, we are going to cease to go on.

That is simple, but it is sometimes good to let the whole weight of the Bible come upon you, getting away from its detail and sitting back and getting its effect.

When you view it in this particular connection, you see, wherever you look, in the Old or the New Testament, there is this coming from God: 

Go on! Be purposeful! Be definite! Be positive! 

There is everything in this universe to make you otherwise, and, unless you recognize it, reckon with it, you are not going to go on!

The Bible is then throughout one long mighty emphasis upon God's desire that His people should be definite, and we find Him coming out again and again in the strongest way against indefiniteness.

How long limp ye between the two sides? 

Those words were spoken at a very big hour in a nation's history, showing what God's mind was about things.

Limping between the two sides. The Authorized Version has it - "halting between two opinions", but I am afraid we have rather given the modern English sense to the word 'halt' - standing still between two things. 

It also means hopping from one to another, limping, just crippled by indecision. The Lord is against that. 

If there is any one stronger passage in the Bible on that matter, it is Rev. 3:15: "Because thou art lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spew thee out of my mouth" - God's desire to have definiteness in His people.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Faithful Stewardship

1Co 4:2  Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.
 
I believe that the greatest virtue in the eyes of God is faithfulness; it embraces everything. 

Faithfulness is after God's own heart. 

Take a passing glance at this steward - Paul the Apostle. "Demas forsook me"; (2 Tim. 4:10); "all that are in Asia turned away from me" (2 Tim. 1:15). 

Look at him when everything which would inspire to faithfulness is breaking down. He is left practically alone. 

He has more enemies than ever. And now the tragedy, the pathos is that so many of his enemies are those to whom he has been most used.

While there were enemies without it was not so difficult, but now the very people for whom he has spent himself have become his enemies.

But there is no thought, no hint, no suggestion of giving up. 

His word is, "faithful unto death" This steward was faithful. 

You cannot say that, when he died, the situation outwardly testified to tremendous success. It did not look like that at all. 

Paul's life was not vindicated up to the hilt. No! He died largely a lonely man, but faithful, "it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful."

But what enrichment of others may follow from the meeting of that requirement, costly as it is. 

Paul is not dead! I only hope that Paul knows of all that has sprung from his ministry, all that his ministry means to us.

The Lord has met us through His servant, and we never, never get to the depths or anywhere near the bottom of the fullness of Christ that has come through Paul.

We shall go on, and, if we live twice or three times the length of our present life, we shall still be making discoveries of what we owe to Paul's faithfulness as a steward. That has been going on century after century.

That is faithful stewardship, and although the steward may be called away from his earthly stewardship, the stewardship goes on. 

Faithfulness is always rewarded beyond our wildest dreams.

May the Lord maintain us in faithfulness, even though that faithfulness may sometimes involve us in an appearance of utter failure.

The Lord make us good stewards.

~T. Austin Sparks~

The Transforming Love Of GOD

Isa 60:15  Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated, so that no man went through thee, I will make thee an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations.

God loves to take the most lost of men, and make them the most magnificent memorials of His redeeming love and power. 

He loves to take the victims of Satan's hate, and the lives that have been the most fearful examples of his power to destroy, and to use them to illustrate and illuminate the possibilities of Divine mercy and the new creations of the Holy Spirit.

He loves to take the things in our own lives that have been the worst, the hardest and the most hostile to God, and to transform them so that we shall be the opposites of our former selves.

The sweetest spirits are made out of the most stormy and self-willed, the mightiest faith is created out of a wilderness of doubts and fears, and the Divinest love is transformed out of stony hearts of hate and selfishness.

The grace of God is equal to the most uncongenial temperaments, to the most unfavorable circumstances; and its glory is to transform a curse into blessing, and show to men and angels of ages yet to come, that "where sin abounded, there grace did much more abound."

~A. B. Simpson ~

Cain, Esau, Saul, Ahab and Judas

2Co 7:10  For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.

These two kinds of repentance are to be carefully distinguished from each other; though they are often sadly confounded. 

Cain, Esau, Saul, Ahab, Judas, all repented. But their repentance was the remorse of natural conscience, not the godly sorrow of a broken heart and a contrite spirit. 

They trembled before God as an angry Judge, but were not melted into contrition before Him as a forgiving Father.
 
They neither hated their sins nor forsook them.

They neither loved holiness nor sought it.
Cain went out from the presence of the Lord.
Esau plotted Jacob’s death.
Saul consulted the witch of Endor.
Ahab put honest Micaiah into prison.
Judas hanged himself.
 
How different from this forced and false repentance of a reprobate, is the repentance of a child of God; that true repentance for sin, that godly sorrow, that holy mourning which flows from the Spirit’s gracious operations!
 
Godly sorrow does not spring from a sense of the wrath of God in a broken law, but from His mercy in a blessed gospel; from a view by faith of the sufferings of Christ in the garden and on the cross; from a manifestation of pardoning love; and is always attended with self-loathing and self-abhorrence; with deep and unreserved confession of sin and forsaking it; with most hearty, sincere and earnest petitions to be kept from all evil; and a holy longing to live to the praise and glory of God.

~J.C. Philpot~

Instead Of Lodging The Lion And The Leopard And The Wolf?

Mark 1:27  And they were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, What thing is this? what new doctrine is this? for with authority commandeth he even the unclean spirits, and they do obey him.

No word of the Gospel sounds more gladsomely in my ears than this. For the unclean spirits have invaded the citadel of my soul, and asserted their hateful domination over me.

I have no strength to drive them out-but, my Lord, You can rescue me from their hideous craft and polluting bondage! 

Every deadly sin may be defeated by the virtue of Your Cross, and the omnipotence of Your Spirit.

There is what Dante calls the hungry lion of Pride. In my pride I claim a false superiority, I exalt myself arrogantly and unreasonably, I am never satisfied, I am never content with the honor I receive. Always I am clamoring for more, and more, and more.

LORD Jesus Christ, subdue this demon of Pride!

Then there is what Dante calls the spotted leopard of Sensuality. It is not simply in my hot youth that I give harborage to corrupting imaginations, which sink me beneath my true dignity. They are horribly persistent. They follow me into my riper age. Again and again they reappear. A story in the newspaper makes them recur, or a too suggestive picture, or an impure word which I overhear as I hurry along the street.

Wrestle, O Christ, with the spotted leopard in me, and kill him outright! Forsake me not, until my hidden thoughts are as sinless as Your own.

And there is what Dante calls the famished wolf of Covetousness. I crave money, crave it with a hunger which refuses to be appeased. If I have managed to secure a little gain, and am of some account in the social sphere — I am full of eagerness to add to my store. If I am poor, I am discontented, and forever scheming and toiling for more money.

LORD Jesus, when You were here, You had nothing of the world's riches and yet Your heart lacked for no good thing. Without wallet or purse, You were crowned with the love of the Father and the fullness of the Spirit. Teach me Your secret, and let the wolf of Covetousness be slain too.

You are all I want. Come to me, and dwell patiently and victoriously within me until I am holy as You are holy.
 
Then, instead of lodging the lion and the leopard and the wolf, and many another unclean and loathly beast — I shall be conformed to the Lamb and the Dove!

~Alexander Smellie~