OTHERS MAY, YOU CANNOT

by G.D.Watson.
Editors note:  What was your new years resolution?  Perhaps it was to be more like Christ. Our first feature article this year will remind you of the cost involved in a walk of radical obedience to God. Our prayer is that we will all choose to walk that path. The world needs to see such people to provide evidence of the reality of Jesus to a sceptical world.

If God has called you to be really like Jesus He will draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility, and put upon you such demands of obedience, that you will not be able to follow other people, or measure yourself by other Christians, and in many ways He will seem to let other people do things which He will not let you do.

Other Christians and ministers who seem very religious and useful,  may push themselves, pull wires, and work schemes to carry out their plans, but you cannot do it, and if you attempt it, you will meet with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you sorely penitent.

Others may boast of themselves, of their work, of their successes, of their writings, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing, and if you begin it, He will lead you into some deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good works.

Others may be allowed to succeed in making money, or may have a legacy left to them, but it is likely God will keep you poor, because He wants you to have something far better than gold, namely, a helpless dependence upon Him, that He may have the privilege of supplying your needs day by day out of an unseen treasury.

The Lord may let others be honoured and put forward, and keep you hidden in obscurity, because He wants to produce some choice fragrant fruit for His coming glory, which can only be produced in the shade. He may let others be great, but keep you small. He may let others do a work for Him and get the credit for it, but He will make you work and toil on without knowing how much you are doing; and then to make your work still more precious He may let others get credit for the work which you have done, and thus make your reward ten times greater when Jesus comes.

The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch over you, with a jealous love,  and will rebuke you for little words and feelings or for wasting your time, which other Christians never feel distressed over. So make up your mind that God is an Infinitely Sovereign Being, and has a right to do as He pleases with His own. He may not explain to you a thousand things which puzzle your reason in His dealings with you, but if you absolutely sell yourself to be His love slave, He will wrap you up in Jealous Love, and bestow upon you many blessings which come only to those who are in the inner circle.

Settle it forever, then that you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit, and that He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue, or chaining your hand, or closing your eyes, in ways that He does not seem to use with others. Now, when you are so possessed with the living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit over your life, then you will have found the vestibule of Heaven.

Source: Faith, Prayer, & Tract League

Past Feature Articles

♦ A FURTHER FIVE CHANGES THAT COULD REVOLUTIONISE THE CHURCH
♦ A NEW APPROACH TO THE ABORTION DEBATE
♦ A NEW GENERATION OF ADULTS BEND MORAL AND SEXUAL RULES TO SUIT THEMSELVES
♦ ARE THE HISTORICAL CREEDS STILL OF IMPORTANCE TO THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH TODAY?
♦ ARE WE PREPARED TO PRAY THE PRICE TO SEE GOD MOVE IN OUR NATION?
♦ CHRISTIANS - THE MOST PERSECUTED PEOPLE GROUP ON EARTH
♦ CHRISTLIKENESS - A DEFENCE SYSTEM OF A NATION
♦ DOES SLAVERY STILL EXIST?
♦ FIVE CHANGES THAT COULD REVOLUTIONISE THE CHURCH
♦ FROM ISLAM TO CHRIST - THE JOURNEY OF ONE RADICAL MUSLIM
♦ FROM FREEMASONARY TO CHRIST - THE TESTIMONY OF A 33rd DEGREE FREEMASON
♦ HALLOWEEN - HARMLESS FUN OR DABBLING WITH THE DEMONIC?
♦ HOW MORALITY IS DESTROYING HOLINESS
♦ LET US NOT BE AMONGST THOSE WHOM GOD OPPOSES
♦ LIVING A CHRISTIAN LIFESTYLE IN THE WORKPLACE
♦ NO REVIVAL WITHOUT REPENTANCE
♦ OUR FREEDOMS - RELIGIOUS AND OTHERWISE - ARE UNDER ATTACK
♦ PROTECTING OUR CHRISTIAN HERITAGE FROM THE ADVANCE OF SECULAR HUMANISM
♦ SAME-SEX MARRIAGE - AN EXPERIMENT WE WILL LIVE TO REGRET
♦ THE COMING PERFECT STORM
♦ THE IMPORTANCE OF A FATHERS LOVE
♦ THE IMPORTANCE OF A FATHER'S LOVE IN THEIR DAUGHTER'S HEALTHY DEVELOPMENT
♦ THE POWER OF PRAISE
♦ THE WALK OF SUFFERING
♦ THE WHITE-ANTING OF CHRISTIAN CULTURE?
♦ UNDERSTANDING THE TIMES IN WHICH WE LIVE
♦ WHAT FATHERLESSNESS COST SOCIETY
♦ WHAT IS WRONG WITH A BILL OF RIGHTS
♦ WHY DO PEOPLE LEAVE CHURCH
♦ WHY THE SECULAR LEFT DESPISE CHRISTIANITY
♦ WINDS OF CHANGE
♦ WITHOUT CHRISTIAN VALUES CAPITALISM IS DOOMED TO FAIL