"Elect
according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through
sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the
blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied."
-I
PETER
1:2 [KJV]
Peter
declares that we are "elect unto obedience." Election unto
eternal life, unto salvation, unto the blood of sprinkling many
gladly hear of, receive, and profess. This, they say, is sweet and
precious doctrine. And so indeed it is. But do they find or feel any
similar sweetness and preciousness in being chosen and ordained to
know and do the will of God? Do they see and feel the blessedness of
the precept being secured by divine decree, as well as the promise;
and that there is a constraining power in the love of Christ under
which they experience a holy and sacred pleasure in no longer living
unto themselves, but unto Him who died for them and rose again,
similar in kind, if not in degree, to the pleasure which they
experience in knowing they were ordained unto eternal life?
But
until this obedience be rendered, until these good works be brought
forth, half of the sweetness and blessedness of real religion and of
salvation by grace is not felt or known, nor the liberty of the
gospel thoroughly realised or enjoyed, for the gospel must be obeyed
and lived, as well as received and believed, that its full,
liberating, sanctifying influences may be experienced as sweetening
the narrow and rugged path of doing and suffering the whole will of
God.
-Gospel
report by preacher J.C. Philpot (1802-1869 A.D.)
April
25th, EARS FROM HARVESTED SHEAVES
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