Walking with God



 Walking with God will make death sweet. It was Augustus’ wish that he might have a euthanasia, a quiet, easy death without much pain. If anything makes our pillow easy at death it will be this, that we have walked with God in our generation. Do we think walking with God can do us any hurt? Did we ever hear any cry out on their deathbed that they have been too holy, that they have prayed too much, or walked with God too much? No, that which has cut them to the heart has been this, that they have not walked more closely with God; they have wrung their hands and torn their hair to think that they have been so bewitched with the pleasures of the world. Close walking with God will make our enemy (death) be at peace with us. When King Ahasuerus could not sleep, he called for the book of records, and read it (Esther 6:1). So when the violence of sickness causes sleep to depart from our eyes and we can call for conscience (that book of records) and find written in it, ‘On such a day we humbled our souls by fasting; on such a day our hearts melted in prayer; on such a day we had sweet communion with God’ – what a reviving this will be! How we may look death in the face with comfort and say, ‘Lord, now take us up to thee in heaven. Where we have so often been by affection let us now be by fruition.’. Walking with God is the best way to know the mind of God. Friends who walk together impart their secrets one to another: ‘The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him’ (Psa. 25:14). Noah walked with God and the Lord revealed a great secret to him – destroying the old world and saving him in the ark. Abraham walked with God, and God made him one of his privy council (Gen. 24:40): ‘Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?’ (Gen. 18:17). God sometimes sweetly unbosoms himself to the soul in prayer and in the holy supper, as Christ made himself known to the disciples in the breaking of bread (Luke 24:35).
 They who walk with God shall never be wholly left by God. The Lord may withdraw for a time, to make his people cry after him the more, but he will not leave them altogether: ‘I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee’ (Isa. 54:8). God will not cast off any of his old acquaintance; he will not part with one that has kept him company. ‘Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him’ (Gen. 5:24). He took him up to heaven. As the Arabic renders it, ‘Enoch was lodged in the bosom of divine love.’

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Muckle Kate Not a very ordinary name! But then, Muckle Kate, or Big Kate, or Kate-Mhor, or Kate of Lochcarron was not a very ordinary woman! The actual day of her salvation is difficult to trace to its sunrising, but being such a glorious day as it was, we simply wish to relate something of what shone forth in the redeemed life of that "ill-looking woman without any beauty in the sight of God or man." Muckle Kate was born and lived in Lochcarron in the county of Ross-shire. By the time she had lived her life to its eighty-fifth year she had well-earned the reputation of having committed every known sin against the Law of God with the exception murder. Speaking after the manner of men, if it took "Grace Abounding" to save a hardened sinner like John Bunyan, it was going to take "Grace Much More Abounding" to save Muckle Kate. However, Grace is Sovereign and cannot be thwarted when God sends it on the errand of salvation, and even the method used in bri
Read more
  Severance from Christ is death   to the Church. A Christless Church is a headless trunk. We may retain the doctrine and ethic of the New Testament, but, nevertheless, amputation of the Head means death. Even a partial severance of connection involves paraylsis - loss of spiritual power and loss of spiritual feeling. II.  INTERNALLY, THE CHURCH IS THE FULLNESS OF CHRIST. It is filled with Christ. He is not only the Head above it; he is the life within it. He does not only teach, bless, command, and lead from without; he inspires his people and lives in his Church. Christ fills " all  in all;"  i.e.  the Spirit that was in Jesus of Nazareth is in the whole universe, inspiring all creation and all providence with wisdom and goodness, purity and grace. The same Spirit is in the Church. As yet, unhappily, the Church is not filled with Christ. Though Christ is received into the heart of Christians, every door within is not yet flung open to the gracious Guest. But in the perfect
Read more

Church discipline

Once from the pulpit, at an ordination of elders, the late Rev. M. M'Cheyne made the following declaration. "When I first entered upon the work of the ministry among you, I was exceedingly ignorant of the vast importance of church discipline. I thought that my great, and almost only, work was to pray and preach. I saw your souls to be so precious, and the time so short, that I devoted all my time and care and strength to labour in word and doctrine. When cases of discipline were brought before me and the elders, I regarded them with something like abhorrence. It was a duty I shrank from; and I may truly say it nearly drove me from the work of the ministry among you altogether. But it pleased God, who teaches His servants in another way than man teaches, to bless some of the cases of discipline to the manifest and undeniable conversion of the souls of those under our care; and from that hour a new light broke in upon my mind, and I saw that if preaching be an ordinance of Chri
Read more