SEPTEMBER 29TH, 1909
SEPTEMBER 29TH, 1909
MY DEAR —, — ... I was, and am, very interested in all that you told me of what you heard lately from one and another of the Lord’s servants, and also to know about the friend about whom you have been so exercised. These things show us very distinctly that nothing but a gracious work of God in the soul can prepare one to receive the gospel concerning His Son. We are wholly cast upon Him as to anyone for whom we desire spiritual blessing. Continue to pray for your friend. It is pleasing to God that you should do so, and the fact that she is so much laid upon your heart is an encouragement to believe that He has purposes of blessing for her. You may have the joy in that day of knowing that your prayerful interest in her was a distinct link in the chain of God’s blessed way in grace towards her. You may be sure that such exercises as these are never in vain. Nothing that takes us in child-like confidence to God could be without result. Blessed be His Name!
I trust you are feeling better for the change to Folkestone, and especially that it helped your father’s health.
It is a wonderful thing that the Lord has furnished us with so many opportunities for the outflow of those divine affections which His grace has wrought in us. He has put us in the circle of “His own”, and in that way given us the same objects as His own heart is set upon. In loving the saints,
[p. 57] and seeking their good, and finding our interests in their welfare we are practically delivered from the things of this present evil world. The youngest and feeblest can thus contribute to the prosperity of what is so precious to the Father and to Christ. If our thoughts and affections go off into other things we become no longer helpful and contributory in God’s house, but are rather hindrances to the general flow of refreshment and edification. How important, then, my dear sister, that we should keep Christ’s commandments and thus abide in His love! He has bidden us love one another as He has loved us. What a holy love is His! How He ever desires our complete separation from all that is of the world and therefore not of the Father! How He desires us to be intelligent in all that is of Himself and of the Father! And all this holy and sanctifying solicitude is to characterise our love one to another as His own — a love that ever seeks the spiritual enrichment of those towards whom it flows. One may feel how feeble one is to help much in a direct way, but at any rate one can pray and this service in prayer is perhaps the greatest of any services we can render. See how the beloved apostle Paul breaks off, as it were, in the midst of writing to the Ephesians to pour out his heart’s desires for them to God and to the Father (see chapters 1 and 3). May we have grace to serve a little in this way, my dear sister! May every divine encouragement be yours as you with purpose of heart cleave to the Lord!
Yours affectionately in the Lord,
September 29th, 1909.