Part 5 (1/2)
Isaiah's words find their New Testament fulfilment: They that wait on the Lord shall walk and not faint, because Christ is now the strength of their life.
It is strange how believers sometimes think this life of dependence too great a strain, and a loss of our personal liberty. They admit a need of dependence, of much dependence, but with room left for our own will and energy. They do not see that even a partial dependence makes us debtors, and leaves us nothing to boast of. They forget that our relations.h.i.+p to G.o.d, and co-operation with Him, is not that He does the larger part and we the lesser, but that G.o.d does all and we do all--G.o.d all in us, we all through G.o.d. This dependence upon G.o.d secures our true independence; when our will seeks nothing but the Divine will, we reach a Divine n.o.bility, the true independence of all that is created. He that has not seen this must remain a sickly Christian, letting self do part and Christ part. He that accepts the life of unceasing dependence on Christ, as life and health and strength, is made whole. As G.o.d, Christ can enter and become the life of His creature. As the Glorified One who received the Holy Spirit from the Father to bestow, He can renew the heart of the sinful creature and make it His home, and by His presence maintain it in full health and strength.
O ye all who would fain walk and please G.o.d, and in your prayer-life not have your heart condemn you, listen to Christ's words: ”Wilt thou be made whole?” He can give soul-health. He can give a life that can pray, and know that it is well-pleasing to the Father. If you would have this, come and hear how you can receive it.
WHAT CHRIST ASKS OF US.
The story invites us to notice three things very specially. Christ's question first appeals to the will, and asks for the expression of its consent. He then listens to man's confession of his utter helplessness.
Then comes the ready obedience to Christ's command, that rises up and walks.
1. Wilt thou be made whole? About the answer of the impotent man there could be no doubt. Who would not be willing to have his sickness removed? But, alas, in the spiritual life what need to press the question. Some will not admit that they are so sick. And some will not believe that Christ can make a man whole. And some will believe it for others, but they are sure it is not for them. At the root of all lies the fear of the self-denial and the sacrifice which will be needed. They are not willing to forsake entirely the walk after the course of this world, to give up all self-will, and self-confidence, and self-pleasing.
The walk in Christ and like Christ is too straight and hard: they do not will it, they do not will to be made whole. My brother, if thou art willing, speak it out: ”Lord! at any price, I will!” From Christ's side the act is one of the will: ”I will, be thou clean.” From your side equally: ”Be it unto thee as thou wilt.” If you would be delivered from your impotence--oh, fear not to say, ”I will, I will!”
Then comes the second step. Christ wants us to look up to him as our only Helper. ”I have no man to put me in,” must be our cry. Here on earth there is no help for me. Weakness may grow into strength in the ordinary use of means, if all the organs and functions are in a sound state. Sickness needs special measures. Your soul is sick; your impotence to walk joyfully the Christian walk in G.o.d's way is a sign of disease; fear not to confess it, and to admit that there is no hope for restoration unless by an act of Christ's mercy healing you. Give up the idea of growing out of your sickly into a healthy state, of growing out from under the law into a life under grace. A few days ago I heard a student plead the cause of the Volunteer Pledge. ”The pledge calls you,”
he said, ”to a decision. Do not think of growing into a missionary: unless G.o.d forbids you, take the step; the decision will bring joy and strength, will set you free to grow up in all needed for a missionary, and will be a help to others.” It is even so in the Christian life.
Delay and struggle will equally hinder you; do confess that you cannot bring yourself to pray as you would, because you cannot give yourself the healthy, heavenly life that loves to pray, and that knows to count upon G.o.d's Spirit to pray in us. Come to Christ to heal you. He can in one moment make you whole. Not in the sense of working a sudden change in your feelings, or in what you are in yourself, but in the heavenly reality of coming in, in response to your surrender and faith, and taking charge of your inner life, and filling it with Himself and Spirit.
The third thing Christ asks is this, the surrender of faith. When He spoke to the impotent man His word of command had to be obeyed. The man believed that there was truth and power in Christ's word; in that faith he rose and walked. By faith he obeyed. And what Christ said to others was for him too--”Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole.” Of us, too, Christ asks this faith, that His word changes our impotence into strength, and fits us for that walk in newness of life for which we have been quickened in Him. If we do not believe this, if we will not take courage and say, with Paul, ”I can do all things in Christ, which strengtheneth me,” we cannot obey. But if we will listen to the word that tells us of the walk that is not only possible, but has been proved and seen in G.o.d's saints from of old, if we will fix our eye on the mighty, living, loving Christ, who speaks in power, ”Rise and walk,” we shall take courage and obey. We shall rise and begin to walk in Him and His strength. In faith, apart from and above all feeling, we shall accept and trust an unseen Christ as our strength, and go on in the strength of the Lord G.o.d. We shall know Christ as the strength of our life. We shall know, and tell, and prove that Jesus Christ hath made us whole.
Can it indeed be? Yes, it can. He has done it for many: He will do it for you. Beware of forming wrong conceptions of what must take place.
When the impotent man was made whole he had still all to learn as to the use of his new-found strength. If he wanted to dig, or build, or learn a trade, he had to begin at the beginning. Do not expect at once to be a proficient in prayer or any part of the Christian life. No; but expect and be confident of this one thing, that, as you have trusted yourself to Christ to be your health and strength, He will lead and teach you.
Begin to pray in a quiet sense of your ignorance and weakness, but in a joyful a.s.surance that He will work in you what you need. Rise and walk each day in a holy confidence that He is with you and in you. Just accept Jesus Christ the Living One, and trust Him to do His work.
Will you do it? Have you done it? Even now Jesus speaks, ”Rise and walk.” ”Amen, Lord! at Thy word I come. I rise to walk with Thee, and in Thee, and like Thee.”
A PLEA FOR MORE PRAYER
CHAPTER IX
The Secret of Effectual Prayer
”What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye have received them, and ye shall have them.”--MARK xi. 24.
Here we have a summary of the teaching of our Lord Jesus on prayer.
Nothing will so much help to convince us of the sin of our remissness in prayer, to discover its causes, and to give us courage to expect entire deliverance, as the careful study and then the believing acceptance of that teaching. The more heartily we enter into the mind of our blessed Lord, and set ourselves simply just to think about prayer as He thought, the more surely will His words be as living seeds. They will grow and produce in us their fruit,--a life and practice exactly corresponding to the Divine truth they contain. Do let us believe this: Christ, the living Word of G.o.d, gives in His words a Divine quickening power which brings what they say, which works in us what He asks, which actually fits and enables for all He demands. Learn to look upon His teaching on prayer as a definite promise of what He, by His Holy Spirit dwelling in you, is going to work into your very being and character.
Our Lord gives us the five marks, or essential elements, of true prayer.
There must be, first, the heart's _desire_; then the expression of that desire in _prayer_; with that, the _faith_ that carries the prayer to G.o.d; in that faith, the _acceptance of G.o.d's answer_; then comes _the experience_ of the desired blessing. It may help to give definiteness to our thought, if we each take a definite request in regard to which we would fain learn to pray believingly. Or, perhaps better still, we might all unite and take the one thing that has been occupying our attention.
We have been speaking of failure in prayer; why should we not take as the object of desire and supplication the ”grace of supplication,” and say, I want to ask and receive in faith the power to pray just as, and as much as, my G.o.d expects of me? Let us meditate on our Lord's words, in the confidence that He will teach us how to pray for this blessing.
1. ”What things soever _ye desire_.”--Desire is the secret power that moves the whole world of living men, and directs the course of each. And so desire is the soul of prayer, and the cause of insufficient or unsuccessful prayer is very much to be found in the lack or feebleness of desire. Some may doubt this: they are sure that they have very earnestly desired what they ask. But if they consider whether their desire has indeed been as whole-hearted as G.o.d would have it, as the heavenly worth of these blessings demands, they may come to see that it was indeed the lack of desire that was the cause of failure. What is true of G.o.d is true of each of his blessings, and is the more true the more spiritual the blessing: ”Ye shall seek Me, and shall find, when ye shall search for Me with all your heart” (Jer. xxix. 13). Of Judah in the days of Asa it is written, ”They sought Him with _their whole desire_” (2 Chron. xv. 15). A Christian may often have very earnest desires for spiritual blessings. But alongside of these there are other desires in his daily life occupying a large place in his interests and affections. The spiritual desires are not all-absorbing. He wonders that his prayer is not heard. It is simply that G.o.d wants the whole heart. ”The Lord thy G.o.d is _one Lord_, therefore thou shalt love the Lord thy G.o.d with _all thy heart_.” The law is unchangeable: G.o.d offers Himself, gives Himself away, to the whole-hearted who give themselves wholly away to Him. He always gives us according to our heart's desire.
But not as we think it, but as He sees it. If there be other desires which are more at home with us, which have our heart more than Himself and His presence, He allows these to be fulfilled, and the desires that engage us at the hour of prayer cannot be granted.