Very much of our spiritual teaching fails, because the people to whom we give it are so shallow. Their deeper nature has never been stirred.
The beatitudes begin at the bottom of things, the poor in spirit, the mourners, and the hungry hearts. Suffering is essential to profound spiritual life. We need not go to a monastery or a leper hospital to find it. The first real opportunity for unselfishness will bring into your life the anguish of crucifixion, unless you are born of some different race from Adam’s.
It is because men and women have not faced this that they know so little of suffering and death. We must have deep convictions. Truth must be to us a necessity, and principle a part of our very being. Lord, make me poor in spirit. Lord help me to be even as Thou wert when on earth, always the lowest, and therefore “highly exalted.”
“As He is, so are we in this world” (I. John iv. 17).
Jesus will come into the surrendered heart and unite Himself with it, impart to it His own life and being and become anew from day to day, the supply of its spiritual needs and the substitute for its helplessness.
Our part is simply to yield ourselves fully recognizing our own worthlessness and then take Jesus Himself to live in us and be, moment by moment, our strength, purity and victory.
One in His death on the tree, One as He rose from the dead; I from the curse am as free E’en as my glorious Head.
One in His merits I stand, One as I Pray in His name, All that His worth can demand I may with confidence claim.
One on the Throne by His side, One in His Sonship divine, One as the Bridegroom and Bride, One as the Branch and the Vine.
All that He has shall be mine, All that He is I shall be; Robed in His glory divine, I shall be even as He.
“Looking diligently lest any man fail” (Heb. xii. 15).
It is not losing all, but coming short we are to fear. We may not lose our souls, but we may lose something more precious than life—His full approval, His highest choice, and our incorruptible and star-gemmed crown. It is the one degree more that counts, and makes all the difference between hot water—powerless in the boiler—and steam—all alive with power, and bearing its precious freight across the continent.