1865 195 When God brings in a new power, those who have clothed themselves with the old are the last to acknowledge the fresh way in which He is working. The Samaritan was the only one of the ten lepers who got to the source of the power, the divine person of the Son of God, even though the others got the blessing individually.
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It is an easy thing to set sail and get fairly out into the ocean; but when many days have passed and no land is in sight, one is apt to weary. If the heart is not fully occupied with the Lord, something is taken on board to fill up the void.
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"Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God." When we taste the sweetness of such communion, how careful should we be! A few minutes, yea, but one minute's allowance of vanity, worldliness, etc., how it will incapacitate for such enjoyment!
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1865 214 Let us not suffer the dread of what may be to hinder our present blessing. We can only take one step at a time: let us take it with Christ.
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It is one of the great questions of the day, Is the unity of Christians to be founded on love for the truth's sake, or on indifference to it?
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The measure of my privilege is that I am in Christ; the measure of my responsibility is that Christ is in me.
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1865 222 The history of the Bible is the history of original sin: the doctrine of the Bible is the doctrine of God's putting it away for ever.
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You will never find a Christian in a healthy state, who does not keep his body a living sacrifice for God.
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To know that God in His grace is occupied with us is a wonderful check on will.
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1865 240 Disproportion of truth is the thing we suffer from. Competency to judge of truth is the portion of every child of God. (1 John 2.)
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The writings of Paul bring out the doctrines of Christ; those of John, the person of the Lord. God is light and God is love.
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God is to us "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" as much in what He does not give, as in what He does.
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To be cast down is not wrong, but it is so when the being cast down causes distrust.
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Where there is feeble light, there is generally great strength of will.
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1865 245 (JND 'Law'?) Law may be the perfect rule of man's duty toward God and his neighbour: that, no doubt, Christ fulfilled. But it is not the measure of God's actings in grace toward man, and that Christ displayed too; and yet did so in obedience to His Father. But no law of loving God as the responsibility of the creature to God can measure Christ's self-sacrifice for us, nor, consequently, the path in which we are called upon to follow Him.
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1865 264 Christ is righteousness, and it is imputed to us, for it is not our own doing. But the point which is always avoided is, that imputing righteousness has the sense in Scripture of accounting the man righteous (and not seeing this is at the root of the fallacy of all they say), not of something done which is imputed. It might be in that way or not; but it does not say this; it is not in its meaning. It is not somebody else's righteousness imputed to me, but my being accounted righteous. Many being constituted sinners by one man's disobedience is not saying that the individual's sin was imputed to them, but that they by him all entered into and stood in that standing before God into which he got by that one sin. All are looked at as in his loins, and as alienated, and in sin before God. It is really the opposite of imputation of a particular act, as far as this passage goes.
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1865 268 It is often after a great effort of faith, that failure comes in. See the case of Gideon.
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1865 281 Luke 9:37-43. The disciples ought to have been able to use the power of Christ against the enemy. Their being unable to profit by it, becomes an occasion for judgment. Since it was so, it was therefore useless for Christ to remain on the earth. "How long shall I be with you, and suffer you?" And so it is with the Church.
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1865 282 2 Cor. 5:9-10. Paul laboured to please Christ, whatever might be the class in which he would be found at the coming of the Lord, whether among those who have fallen asleep before, or among those who will be still remaining, living on earth, when He comes.
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1865 282 If the life of the soul does not answer to the gifts, the exercise of power becomes only the forerunner of failure. It is thus that we see Elijah fleeing before Jezebel, after having done such great things before all Israel.
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1865 303 Christ has judged sin in its very principle. In baptism a man acknowledges that all he is is subject to the judgment of God. It is not merely that he has now new motives, but God has given him a divine conviction of the utter ruin of all he is, And he knows Another that the world does not know, as his life. He has One who is risen from the dead. Thus it is not with him a mere struggle against sin. Christ not only blots out the past, but He is given to me of God to live upon for the present. In trials and difficulties, God would keep Christ before me. Thus I am brought through, but it is not by bracing myself as if I could meet the emergency. There would not thus be the quiet faith and sense of nothingness, so wholesome to me and glorifying to Him. His grace is sufficient for me. In Christ dead and risen is power against sin. Christ is not merely a friend to help me, nor a motive of love to act on me. In Him I have much more than this. I am entitled as a Christian now to treat myself as dead to sin before God. If I merely struggle against sin, I am treating myself as a living person; for who, save a living person, can struggle? If Christ is before me, the victory is mine.
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1865 304 If I have got Christ between myself and Satan, I am strong against the enemy. But if Satan gets in between Christ and myself, then it becomes a question of my own strength, and I find that I am weakness itself. If any one, were it a poor weak woman, is in a house attacked by thieves, but a house well shut up and protected, she is without fear; but if once the thieves enter, it is a question of her strength, which must go for nothing.
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1865 313 To allege the impossibility that a holy, just, good, and perfect God can give any rule but one, is contrary to the plain facts and declarations of Scripture. God did give another, which He has disannulled, because it made nothing perfect; and there is the bringing in of a better hope, by the which we draw nigh to God.
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1865 346 There are two ways in which the priesthood of Christ is often wrongly used. First, as if we could not go directly to the Father; secondly, as if we sought thus to obtain righteousness.
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A dying Paul. 1865 368 — 2 Timothy illustrates the victory of faith and hope in Paul's soul. He was in prison, forsaken by brethren, apprehensive of the ill condition and of the coming apostacy of the Church; but all was faith and hope in his soul, sure and bright; and in further proof of this victory, he is thoughtful of others. Hope has purified him. See like victory in dying Jacob and in dying David. (Gen. 47, etc.; 1 Chron. 28, etc.) See it also in the camp at the close of their journey. (Joshua 1 - 4) Faith overcame all accusing recollections; hope overcame all present attractions in Jacob and David.
The sense of the glory lies so instinctively on Paul's heart that he speaks of it as "that day" indefinitely. (Chap. 1:12, 18; 4:8.) Faith and hope get their perfect victories in the soul of Christ. (See Heb. 12:1-2.) See Him as dying. (John 13, etc.; 19:27.) The Church is always to be thus. (Rev. 22:17.)
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The person of Christ is the object of faith; but he who believes has part in the righteousness of God, which is revealed as the portion of the believer.