A STUDY

A STUDY

I give you Luke 18 to study, the difference between wanting from God, and being satisfied with Him. To be perfect, sell all and find all your resources in Christ. If you want, you must come to God as a widow who has no resource but God - appearances must not discourage, because you know there is power to help you nowhere else. This made the widow persist in applying to the unjust judge. But you must be one who has no claim, while you know that there is the power to serve you nowhere else. You must not claim ^[p. 446] it as if you deserved it, but as one entirely dependent on God’s mercy, and yet with the unquestioning confidence of a child in arms. No great intelligence in this state, but there is no question as to your resource. The young man is rich, he is no widow, he is not a publican, he is not an infant; he is a true Pharisee, but he must give up his perfection, he must count all things but dross - not for salvation - but for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ. There is a great difference between the affection which, like a lamb to its mother, is always looking at its own feelings, and how the Lord suits or relieves them, and the affection which thinks of His feelings and His interests and of how you refer your ways and works to them. The greatest delight the heart knows is in pleasing one it loves, and knowing the love, gratifies the love much more than being pleased with its favours. The apostle longed to know Christ, because the more He knew of Him the more he learned of One whom he delighted in, and then it was a pleasure to keep His commandments, for thus you abide in His love. As you please His love, you certify yourself in the love. Now study this, the difference between relative love that meets your need, and the love of union - this latter is the only knowledge of Christ which will compensate the soul for giving up everything here. “What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ” (Philippians 3: 7).