Chapter 14

So this, I think, is the teaching for me. We are justified by the penitent sense of want and not by the boastful sense of possession. Our sense of lack is the measure of our hope, and our measure of hope determines the poverty or fulness of our communion with the Lord. The Pharisee had no "beyond," no realm of admiration, no hope! Aspiration was dead, and therefore inspiration had ceased. Our possibilities nestle in our cravings.

SEPTEMBER The Fifteenth

_RESTORING A RUINED LIFE_

PSALM ciii. 1-18.

Could there be a sweeter chime than the opening music of this psalm?

"_Who forgiveth all thine iniquities._" He receives me back home again, interrupts the broken story of my sin, and drowns my sobbings in His rejoicings.

"_Who healeth all thy diseases._" He takes in hand the foul complaints which I acquired in "the far country," and with His powerful medicines, and His wonderful "bread of life," He drives the foul things from my soul.

"_Who redeemeth thy life from destruction._" Yes, with His own blood He buys me back from a midnight servitude, strikes every chain and shackle from my limbs, and makes me dance in "the glorious liberty of the children of God."

"_Who crowneth thee with loving-kindness and tender mercy._" He encircles me with the invulnerable army of His own love. Henceforth if the devil would get at me he must deal with God. "As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people."

"_Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things._" He sets before me a glorious table, and enlivens my spirits with glorious fellowship. That so I can be no other than "satisfied," and my heart is at rest in the Lord. "Thou, O Christ, art all I want!"

SEPTEMBER The Sixteenth

_THE STEADFASTNESS OF THE LORD_

"_My covenant shall stand fast._" --PSALM lxxxix. 19-29.

Such a divine assurance ought to make me perfectly quiet in spirit. Restlessness in a Christian always spells disloyalty. The uncertainty is born of suspicion. There is a rift in the faith, and the disturbing breath of the devil blows through, and destroys my peace. If I am sure of my great Ally, my heart will not be troubled, neither will it be afraid.

And such a divine assurance ought to make me bold in will and majestic in labour. I ought to be inventive in chivalrous enterprise, and I ought to covet the hardest parts of the field. If the mighty Ally will never fail, I should never be afraid of the marshalled hosts of wickedness. "One with God is in a majority." "He always wins who sides with God." "The Lord is on my side, whom shall I fear?"

And such a divine assurance ought to give me a kingly demeanour. The members of the Court acquire a certain stateliness by their lofty fellowship. And, surely, one who walks with God should be characterized by something of the Divine glory, and men should know that his acquaintances are found in the courts of heaven.

SEPTEMBER The Seventeenth

_THE NEVER-WITHERING LEAF_

JEREMIAH xvii. 5-11.

Let me look at "the blessed man" in the interpreting symbol of this healthy and graceful tree.

The blessed life is a life of vast resource. "_As a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river._" It is not watered by an occasional shower, it is unceasingly bathed by the vitalizing flood. Its rootlets are always drinking the nutritious waters of grace. The blessed life is planted on the banks of that wonderful river which takes its rise in the great white throne.

And just because of these boundless supplies, the blessed life is undisturbed in times of grave crisis and emergency. "_He shall not see when heat cometh._" He shall be cool when the unblessed are hot and fever-stricken. He shall "keep his head" in times of general panic. His powers of endurance shall make the world wonder! He shall "hold out" when everybody else is faint.

So shall there be nothing "sere and yellow" about him. "_His leaf shall be green._" His faith, and hope, and love shall remain fresh and beautiful even in "the dark and cloudy day."

SEPTEMBER The Eighteenth

_THE ALL-ROUND DEFENCE_

"_Thou hast beset me behind._" --PSALM cxxxix. 1-12.

And that is a defence against the enemies which would attack me in the rear. There is yesterday's sin, and the guilt which is the companion of yesterday's sin. They pursue my soul like fierce hounds, but my gracious Lord will come between my pursuers and me. His mighty grace intervenes, and my security is complete.

"Thou hast beset me ... _before_." And that is a defence against the enemies which would impede my advance and frighten me out of the heavenly way. There is fear--fear of the morrow, fear of consequences, fear of death! And my Lord will come between me and them, and their menace shall be destroyed. The fiery darts shall be quenched before they reach my soul.

"_And laid Thine hand upon me._" And that is a defence against the enemies which may lie in ambush in present and immediate circumstances: the sudden temptation to passion, or the temptation to panic, or the temptation which would snare me to criminal ease. But my Lord's hand is all-sufficient! And so on every side my defence standeth; "the angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him."

SEPTEMBER The Nineteenth

_THE NEEDS OF THE BODY_

JOHN vi. 1-21.

The Lord who came to save His people was sensitive to His people's hunger. In the presence of the supreme need the smaller need was not forgotten. He honoured the body as well as the soul. He ministered to the transient as well as the eternal. And that is ever the characteristic of true kingliness; it has a kingly way of doing the smaller things. I can measure my own progress toward the throne by my sovereign attention to scruples. "He that is faithful in that which is least, the same also is great."

The Lord is not oppressed by the multitude of His guests. "He Himself knew what He would do." We need not jostle one another for His bounty. We shall not crowd one another out. "There is bread enough and to spare." Even in the material realm this is true, and everybody would have his daily bread if the will of the Lord were done. There is no straitness in the gracious Host! It is the greed of the guests which mars the satisfaction of the feast.

And how careful the Lord of Glory was to "gather up the fragments"! Our infinitely wealthy Lord is not wealthy enough to "throw things away." He cannot afford to waste bread. Can He afford to lose a soul? "He goeth out after that which is lost until He find it"!

SEPTEMBER The Twentieth

_THE PATHETIC MULTITUDE_

MARK viii. 1-9.

My Lord has "_compassion upon the multitude_." And (shall I reverently say it?) His compassion was part of His passion. His pity was always costly. It culminated upon Calvary, but it was bleeding all along the road! It was a fellow-feeling with all the pangs and sorrows of the race. And a pity that bleeds is a pity that heals. "In His love and in His pity He redeemed us."

And the multitude is round about us still, and the people are in peril of fainting by the way. There is the multitude of misfortune, the children of disadvantage, who never seem to have come to their own. And there is the multitude of outcasts, the vast army of publicans and sinners. And there are the bewildering multitudes of Africa, and India, and China, and they have "nothing to eat"!

How do I regard them? Do I share the compassion of the Lord? Do I exercise a sensitive and sanctified imagination, and enter somewhat into the pangs of their cravings? My Lord calls for my help. "How many loaves have ye?" "Bring out all you have! Consecrate your entire resources! Put your all upon the altar of sacrifice!" And in reply to the call can I humbly and trustfully say, "O, Lamb of God, I come!"

SEPTEMBER The Twenty-first

_LIFE AS BREAD_

MARK viii. 10-21.

It is gracious to know that my Lord is "the Bread of Life," and that I can feed on Him. It is fearful to know that I, too, am bread, and that others are feeding on me. Am I the nutriment of vice or the sustenance of virtue? Am I an evil leaven, like the Pharisees, or a holy leaven like the Lord? When little children feed on my presence do they grow in strength and beauty? Or do they become relaxed and demoralized? Who will feed upon me to-day, and what will be the end of it?

If I would have my life to be as hallowed and hallowing leaven I must regularly feed upon the Bread of Life. If I am sustained by the Lord, I too shall be a sustainer of all who aspire after a true and holy life. My very character will itself become heavenly bread, and men will be nourished by it even when I am unconscious of the ministry. When they have spent a brief hour in my company they will go away refreshed.

"Lord, evermore give us this bread!" So feed us with Thyself that we may share Thy nature. Let "virtue" go forth from us, and let it be as holy bread to all who are heavy-laden, and ready to faint.

SEPTEMBER The Twenty-second

_THE HANDFUL OF MEAL_

1 KINGS xvii. 8-16.

What marvellous "coincidences" are prepared by Providential grace! The poor widow is unconsciously ordained to entertain the prophet! The ravens will be guided to the brook Cherith! "I have commanded them to feed thee there." Our road is full of surprises. We see the frowning, precipitous hill, and we fear it, but when we arrive at its base we find a refreshing spring! The Lord of the way had gone before the pilgrim. "I go to prepare ... for you."

But how strange that a widow with only "a handful of meal" should be "commanded" to offer hospitality! It is once again "the impossible" which is set before us. It would have been a dull commonplace to have fed the prophet from the overflowing larder of the rich man's palace. But to work from an almost empty cupboard! That is the surprising way of the Lord. He delights to hang great weights on apparently slender wires, to have great events turn on seeming trifles, and to make poverty the minister of "the indescribable riches of Christ."

The poor widow sacrificed her "handful of meal," and received an unfailing supply. And this, too, is the way of the Lord.

"Whatever, Lord, we lend to Thee, Repaid a thousand fold will be."

SEPTEMBER The Twenty-third

_THE DEDICATION OF SUBSTANCE_

2 KINGS iv. 38-44.

Here is a man recognizing the sacredness of his substance. He saw the seal of the Lord upon his harvest, and he offered the first-fruits in token of its rightful Owner. Men go wrong when the only name upon their field is their own. "_My_ power, and the strength of _my_ hand hath gotten me this wealth." It matters nothing what the wealth may be--material substance, mental skill, or business sagacity. It becomes unhallowed power when we attach our own label to it, and erase the name of God.

This man dedicated his substance, and the hunger of his fellows was appeased. That is a great principle in human life. One man's satisfaction is dependent on another man's fidelity. His want is to be filled with my fulness. If I am selfish he remains hungry. If I acknowledge "the rights of God," and therefore "the rights of man," he has "enough and to spare." If I hoard my treasure I rob both God and man.

My gracious Lord, remove the scales from my eyes. Help me to be sensitive to the obligations of all wealth. Let my plenty call me to the children of need. Let me acknowledge my stewardship, and be Thy fellow minister in the service of man.

SEPTEMBER The Twenty-fourth

_AFTER THE TRIUMPH!_

MATTHEW xiv. 23-33.

After the great miracle of feeding the multitude our Lord "_went up into a mountain to pray_." May we reverently wonder if it was a season of temptation? Did they want to make Him a King? Was our human Lord assailed by "the destruction that wasteth at noonday"? And did He shut Himself up with the Father?

I am so disposed to pray _up_ to my successes, and to cease to pray _in_ them! I remember God in my struggles, I forget Him in my attainments. I hold fellowship with Him on the road, I part company with Him when I arrive. I become a practical atheist in the midst of my successes. My only security is to go up into a mountain apart and pray. Unless I become closeted with God, and see all things in their true colours and proportion, I shall be lifted up in most unholy and destructive pride.

And let me notice that our Lord returned from His privacy with the Father to do even greater miracles still. He had appeased the pangs of hunger; now He appeases the passion of the sea. And so in my degree shall it be with me. If in all my triumphs I remain the humble companion of the Lord, my triumphs shall be repeated and enriched. "Greater works than these shall ye do."

SEPTEMBER The Twenty-fifth

_THE SENSE OF GRACE_

PSALM cvii. 21-32.

A vital part of all devotion is the remembrance of the goodness of God. Such a remembrance keeps my soul in the realm of grace. I am so inclined to proclaim my personal rights rather than glorify the favour of God, so inclined to exhibit my own prowess rather than God's most gracious bounty. And whenever I lose the sense of grace I become a usurper and take the throne. Our salvation is "not of works, lest any man should boast."

And such a remembrance would keep my soul in the mood of humility. "Nothing in my hands I bring." I can no more claim the glory of salvation than a child, who has cut a shallow trench on the sands, can claim the glory of initiating the roll of the ocean-tide. I owe all my desires and all my hopes and all my present attainments to the boundless goodness of God.

And such a remembrance would keep my soul in the dispensation of love. I cannot quietly and steadily contemplate the goodness of the Lord without my soul being kindled into loving response. Without high contemplations love smoulders, and will eventually die out. But God's goodness inflames the soul, and communicates its own most gracious heat. "We love because He first loved us!"

SEPTEMBER The Twenty-sixth

_MY LORD AS MY BREAD_

JOHN vi. 26-35.

Our life's bread is a Person. We may have much to do with Christianity and nothing to do with Christ. The other day I was in a great and wonderful bakery, but I never ate nor touched a morsel of bread. I touched the machinery. I was absorbingly interested in the processes, but I ate no bread! And I may be deeply interested in the means of grace, I may be familiar with all "the ins and outs" of ecclesiastical machinery, and I may never handle nor taste "the bread of God." Our religion is dead and burdensome until it becomes a personal relation, and we have vital communion with Christ.

"Thou, O Christ, art all I want." We find everything in Him. Everything else is preliminary, preparatory, subordinate, and to be in the long run dropped and forgotten. A ritual is only a way to "the bread," and by no means essential, and very often undesirable. The heart can find the Lord with a look, with a cry, and needs no obtrusion of ritual or priest. But how pathetic! To be contented to potter about among the ritual and never to find the Bread! To be in the house and never to see the Host! "Ye search the Scriptures ... and ye will not come to Me."

SEPTEMBER The Twenty-seventh

_TAKE AND EAT_

JOHN vi. 52-63.

There is, first of all, _appropriation_. I must "stretch out" "lame hands of faith"; and "take" before I "eat." In the lives of many Christians there is too much asking and too little taking. If it were only rightly regarded, prayer is companionship as well as petition, and companionship is literally significant of the sharing of bread. In every season of communion a part must be assigned to the taking of the things for which we have prayed. "_Receive ye_ the Holy Ghost."

And there is _assimilation_. We must "eat" as well as "take." It is in the exercises of obedience that we digest and incorporate the bread of life. Without our obedience the living Lord never becomes "part of ourselves." We never "become one in the bundle of life" with the Lord our God. And truth which is not assimilated becomes a drug. Instead of being a "savour of life unto life," it becomes a "savour of death unto death."

And there is _vitalization_. The assimilated bread of life makes everything alive. Every faculty in my being feels the touch of divine inspiration. It is native bread for native power, and everything is renewed.

SEPTEMBER The Twenty-eighth

_THE DAILY MANNA_

"_I will rain bread from heaven for you._" --EXODUS xvi. 11-18.

And this gracious provision is made for people who are complaining, and who are sighing for the flesh-pots of Egypt! Our Lord can be patient with the impatient: He can be "kind to the unthankful." If it were easy to drive the Lord away I should have succeeded long ago. I have murmured, I have sulked, I have turned Him out of my thoughts, and "He stands at the door and knocks!" I yearn for "the flesh-pots," "He sends me manna," "Was there ever kindest shepherd half so gentle, half so sweet?"

"_And they gathered it every morning._" And that I think is the best time to gather the heavenly food. At night I am weary, my body is craving sleep, and I am not vitalized in the fields of grace. But in the morning I am refreshed, and I can go to the heavenly fields and gather "the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him." I can be fed as the day begins, and I can set out to my daily work with the taste of God in my mouth, and His mighty grace in my heart, and I shall delight to "walk in the paths of His commandments."

SEPTEMBER The Twenty-ninth

_THE FOUNTAIN_

1 JOHN v. 9-21.

My Lord is "the fountain of life." "This life is in His Son." The springs are nowhere else--not in elaborate theologies, or in ethical ideals, or in literary masterpieces, or in music or art. "In Him was life." It is so easy to forget the medicinal spring amid the distractions of the fashionable spa. There are some healing waters at Scarborough, but they have been almost "crowded out" by bands and entertainments. It is possible that the secondary ministries of the Church may crowd out the Church's Lord. I do not object to the entertainment if only it opens out on to the Spring!

To have the Son is to have life. Nothing else is needed. "Thou, O Christ, art all I want." Ritualisms, and ecclesiasticisms, and formal theologies are not requisite. We can be saved without an academic knowledge of "the plan of salvation." Many a gamekeeper's little child knows all the roads on the estate, although she would be quite "at sea" in explaining "the plan of the estate" which hangs in the house of the steward. "This is life eternal, to know Thee and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent."

SEPTEMBER The Thirtieth

_WHITE ROBES IN THE STREETS_

JOHN xvii. 11-28.

The man who has been fed with the "bread of life" must remain "in the world." The Lord gives no countenance to the life of the ascetic. Our sanctification is not to be gained by withdrawal and retreat. At the best, that would be a holiness sickly and anæmic, a coddled virtue devoid of firm muscle and iron nerve. Our Lord purposes a holiness which shall wear white robes in the streets, and shine like virgin snow in the market, and keep itself chivalrous and stately in the common fellowships of men.

"In the world," but "_not of the world_." The man who is fed on "the bread of life" is endowed with powers of resistance against "the noisome pestilence." The germs of worldly epidemics find no nutriment in him. "The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me." When an evil microbe finds no foothold it withers away. If I am not "of the world" I shall quite naturally and instinctively be able to resist "all the wiles of the devil."

And my Lord purposes me to have this positive, masculine holiness in order "_that the world may believe_." He wants disciples who will arrest the world by their glorious health, and by their invincible moral defences. He wants my purity to advertise His grace; He wants my faith to increase "the household of the faith."

OCTOBER The First

_A WONDERFUL UNBELIEF_

PSALM lxxviii. 15-25.

"They believed not in God ... though He had----" Let everyone finish that sentence out of his own experience. How much grace can our unbelief withstand? The Lord had made the rock like unto a spring of water, and yet these people believed not! What has He done for thee and me? Let us retrace the pilgrimage of our own years. Let us recall the blessings by the way--the streams in the desert, the pillar of fire that led us in the night. And yet what is the quality of our faith? It is often weak and reluctant, riddled with timidities, or moth-eaten with worldly ease. It is not mighty and daring, riding forth every morning like a chivalrous knight to inevitable conquest. It creeps along, like Mr. Halting, and Miss Much-Afraid, and Mr. Little-Faith.

"He marvelled at their unbelief." The Lord Jesus wondered that men and women, seeing what they had seen, did not immediately spring to the life and service of faith. Perhaps we do not give time for faith to be born! Perhaps we do not see because we do not look. Perhaps we are blind to His mercies and are therefore dead to the faith. And therefore, perhaps, our first prayer should be, "Lord, that I might receive my sight," and then the prayer, "Lord, increase my faith."

OCTOBER The Second

_HUMBLING OUR PRIDE_

JOB xxxviii. 1-15.

"I will demand of thee, and answer thou Me." When our God begins to ask questions our pride is soon humbled, for the limits of our knowledge and power are speedily reached. The mist is very close to our doors, and in a very few steps we are lost on a trackless moor. Who can trace the real springs of a tear and lay his hand on the emotion that gave it birth? Who can lead us into the bright realm where smiles are born? Who knoweth the way of a frown, or who can uncover the secrets of fear? No living man can explain his own breathing, or can unravel the mysterious decree which moves his own finger!

And as there is so much mystery, it must be surely true that mystery is a very gracious thing. Uncertainty is the divine ministry of blessedness. If it were not so, He would have told us! "I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." If it were best for us that the mist should be removed, He would roll it up like a garment and give us the light of unclouded day. But the mist remains, the home of blessing. "He cometh in a thick cloud." "The clouds drop fatness."

OCTOBER The Third

_WATCHING THE CREATOR_

JEREMIAH x. 10-16.

"He hath made the earth by His power." And He is making it still. Even in the material world "His mercies are new every morning." James Smetham used to speak of going into his garden "to see what the Lord is doing." He would stand on the top of Highgate Hill on a blustering night "to watch the goings of the Lord in the storm." And all this means that to James Smetham creation was not merely a single event, but a _process_ whose countless events are still going on. He watched his Lord at work! Every sunset was a new creation from the Almighty Maker's hands.

To many of us the Creator is remote from His works. He is not immediately near. And so He no longer "walks in the garden in the cool of the day." The garden is no longer a holy place. Let us recover the sacredness of things. Let us "practise the presence of God." Let us link His love and power to every flower that blows. And so shall we be able to say, as we move amid the glories of the natural world, "The Lord is in His holy temple."

OCTOBER The Fourth

_CREATOR AND CREATURE_

ISAIAH xl. 9-28.