I
am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I,
but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in
the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved
me, and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20
If God has called you to be really like Christ in all your
spirit, He will draw you into a life of crucifixion and
humility and put on you such demands of obedience, that He
will not allow you to follow other Christians, and in many
ways He will seem to let other good people do things which
He will not let you do.
Others can brag on themselves, and their work, on their
success, on 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.
The Lord will let others be honored and put forward, and
keep you hid away in obscurity because He wants to produce
some choice fragrant fruit for His glory, which can be
produced only in the shade.
Others will be allowed to succeed in making money, but it is
likely God will keep you poor because he wants you to have
something far better than gold and that is a helpless
dependence on Him; that He may have the privilege of
supplying your needs day by day - out of an unseen treasury.
God will let others be great, but He will keep you small. He
will let others do a great work for Him and get 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 will let others get the credit for the
work you have done, and this will make your reward ten times
greater when He comes.
The Holy Spirit will put 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 seem distressed over.
So make up your mind that God is an
infinite Sovereign, and has a right to do what He pleases
with His own, and He will not explain to you a thousand
things which may puzzle your reason in His dealing with you.
He will wrap you up in a jealous love, and let other people
say and do many things that you cannot do or say.
Settle it forever, 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 others are not dealt with.
Now, when you are so possessed with the Living God that you
are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this
particular, personal, private, jealous guardianship and
management of the Holy Spirit over your life, you will have
found the vestibule of heaven.
