DEVOTIONAL COLUMN

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 6864, 21 May 1932, Page 7

DEVOTIONAL COLUMN

Precept. Forgive. Luke (5. 37. Promise. And ye shall be forgiven. Luke 6. 37. Praise. If Thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with Thee. Ps. 130. 3. 4. GOD’S CALL. God calling yet! shall I not hear? Earth’s pleasures shall I still hold dear? Shall lifo’s sweet passing years all fly, And still my soul in slumber lie? God calling yet! shall I not rise? Can I His loving voice despise? And basely His kind care repay" He calls me still; can I delay? God calling yet! and shall He knock, And I my heart the closer lock? He is still waiting to receive, And shall I dare His Spirit grieve? God calling yet! and shall I give No heed, but still in bondage live? I. wait, but He does not forsake; He calls mo still; my heart, awake! God calling yet! I cannot stay; My heart I yield without delay; Vain world farewelll from thee I part; The voice of God has reached my heart. —G. Tersteegcn. RIGHT CHOICES. A wealthy man on one occasion said to a Christian lady, “I would give the world to have your experience.” To which the lady replied, “That is just what it cost me. I gave my world for Christ, for it is impossible to serve Go-d and Mammon.” As you may remember, for centuries scholars have spoken of the result of the interview between the young ruler and Christ as “The Great Refusal.” Ho went away we read, away from the greatest possession, the Pearl of great price, to go to the tinsel toys of time. Dante, wandering with Virgil through tho “Inferno,” thought he saw the young ruler searching for the lost opportunity. SAMBO’S REPLY. An old coloured man in America, who had become known for his sinful and dissolute character, got soundly converted, and henceforth his life was transformed as he went about tolling what great things the Lord had done for him. One day his master accosted him. “So, Sambo, you’ve got mastery of tho devil at last, they tell mo,” said the scoffing white man. ■ “No, sah,” replied Sambo, “dey’s wrong dero, sah, but I’ve got do Master of do dovill” And is not that the secret of victory? When, wo possess tho Master wc may be assured of the mastery. “IT CAME TO PASS.”

An old Scotswoman was visited by her minister, as usual, one day, and, after reading a portion out of the Auld Book, was asked, “Well, Grannie, we’ve been, reading together about many of God’s promises, and now I want to ask you which of all the promises do you find the most comforting?” “Sure, bless you, sir, the one, ‘lt came to pass’—there be none like it in all the Auld Book, and we ha’ got it over and over again.” “ ‘lt came to pass?’ ” the minister questioned. ‘ ‘ Whatever can yon make out of that, I wonder?” “Why, ye see, it don’t stay; it juist comes to pass; so 1 says to myself, it ain’t for long this rough bit of road, or this trial or temptation; it’s come to pass. And so it do, sure enough.” NOT WHAT, BUT WHOM. “I know whom I have believed.” — 2 Tim. 1:12. Christianity is Christ. Religion is life. Christianity is founded not oil what, but on whom.

1. The one thing to do is to make Christ contra! and all else marginal. Let Christ explain his own religion. 2. Doctrines never save. Dogma can never deliver one from evil. . . Personal knowledge of Christ will give us a working creed. 3. To know Whom instead of what will make us ready to suffer and sacrifice. We are not willing to live and die for an abstract teaching, but will rospond to the heroic call personal Friend and Leader . . . . If wo just live for definitions, dogmas, rituals, which change, we will bo sorely disappointed; but if we live for Christ, the unchangeable, wc will be certain of enduring success. May we, there Tore, give less of our attention and energy to the what, and more to the Whom of our Christianity. THE POWER OP PEAYEE. Some years a.go there was a poor peasant servant girl who wondered What .she could do for the Lord, and she set horself to pray for the salvation cf the world. Soon through her imlucneo there wore seven men gathered together in a small shoe-maker’s store, resolved that they would do all they could for Christ. Thoy worked with all their energy for the salvation of tho unsaved for twenty-five years, and during that time they were .instrumental in planting sixty-five churches and 7,160 preaching mission stations, and the gospel has been preached to 50,000,000 people as a result of their efforts. Wc often think, if wo had that man’s means, or that man s ability, or that man’s opportunity, wo could do something worth while, but, as we are, there is no possibility of any great thing. THE CEOSS TO THE GLOEY.

LED BY A CHILD. “A little child shall lead them.” (Isaiah 11:6.) It was a child that our Lord used to teach His disciples some of their most needed lessons. The kingdom of heaven He likened to a little child, and entry thereto administered only to those who came with the simple faith of such a one. And tho heart of childhood through two millenniums has been made glad by that “Suffer tho children” of the Saviour’s. Again tho child was used as a rebuke to tho inordinate ambitions of tho diseiples and their dispute as to who should be the greatest. The greatest, our Lord pointed out, was ho who was content to be the least, and to receive a little child in His name was to receive Himself. And again from theso same loving lips, that have dignified and glorified childhood for all time, fell the terrible denunciations of those who would cause “one of theso little ones who believe in Mo to stumble.” It were better, we are told, that a millstone weTO hung about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depths of tho sea. Yes, He says, it were even bettor for that man that he should never have been born.

And then in that glorious picture of the millennial age that Isaiah draws for us in the 11th chapter of that book, when righteousness and peace have thrown their mantle over the whole oarth, when the curse has been lifted from nature, and the ferocity of the animal kingdom has been changed into gentleness, it is again f ‘a little child that leads them.”

It is a relief to turn from the world to-day with its strife and turmoil, its hectic rush and its seething unrest, and contemplate the picture of perfect peace Isaiah presents and symbolised by a child. The world has grown old with its burden of care, but the story of a child can touch its heart. What it needs to do is to sit at the feet of Him who was once a child, holy, harmless and undefiled.

Redeemed 5:21 Reconciled ....... 2 Cot. 5:18 Righteous ...... 2 Cor. 5:21 Regenerated ..... 2 Cor. 5:17 Rewarded 5:10