Initiated Into The Mystery

 

A mind at perfect peace with God

Oh! What a word is this!

A sinner reconciled through blood

This, this indeed is bliss!


By nature and by practice far

So very far from God

Yet now by grace brought nigh to Him

Through faith in Jesus’ blood.


So near, so very near to God

I cannot nearer be

For in the person of His Son

I am as near as He.


So dear, so very dear to God

More dear I cannot be

The love wherewith He loves the Son

Such is His love to me!


Why should I ever anxious be

Since such a God is mine

He watches o’er me night and day

And tells me Mine is thine!

 

  

-Hymn, “Am I a Soldier of the Cross? 




*****



Initiated Into The Mystery

 

 

Paul said in Philippians 4:11, “I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” Satisfied!  In verse 12 he says,  “I know both how to be abased and I know how to abound: everywhere and in all things I am  instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.” The meaning of the word instructed comes from the word mystery, something we could not possibly know unless God was pleased to make it known.  I have been initiated by God into this great mystery.  “I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.”   

 

Content is the person who has been thus instructed. I am complete in Christ, lacking nothing, yet I feel I know so little of Him and hunger to know Him more.  His grace abounds toward me yet I suffer need because of my present sinfulness and unbelief. And how can I be content in either one of these states?  “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13).  By His grace, at one and the same time.  Be abased and abound. Be full and be hungry. Abound and suffer need… and be content in both states because Christ is my contentment. I am content with Him!

 

-copied 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Putrid Cup of Tolerance: When Evil Poses as Progress

"Ye that love the LORD, hate evil: He preserveth the souls of His saints; He delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked." -Psalm 97:10 [KJV] "Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil." Thomas Mann's chilling words pierce through the fog of modern moral relativism like a shard of ice. It's a warning that echoes through the blood-soaked pages of history, a truth we ignore at our peril. The Seduction of False Neutrality We live in an age where tolerance is held up as the supreme virtue, the golden idol before which we must all bow. We're told to accept everything, question nothing, and embrace a faux-unity that sacrifices truth on the altar of political correctness. But what happens when this tolerance becomes a blindfold, obscuring the stark reality of evil lurking in our midst? Like a ravenous wolf, evil doesn't care for our carefully crafted social constructs. It doesn't respect boundaries, it doesn't play fair, and it ce...
Read more

According to God's Good Pleasure...

"According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love: having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will." -Ephesians 1:4, 5 [KJV] It is a very solemn but a very true assertion, that no man can quicken his own soul; and it is an equally solemn, we might almost say, a tremendous truth, that the gospel only comes in power to those whom God has chosen unto eternal life.  Indeed the one flows from the other; for if no man can quicken his own soul, it necessarily follows it must be of sovereign grace that it is quickened at all. Once you allow the fall, and acknowledge that a man is by nature so thoroughly dead in trespasses and sins that he cannot raise himself up out of this state to newness of life, then the doctrine of election necessarily follows.   A living soul may reason thus: "Am I quickened? Yes. Di...
Read more

Christ Alone Be Magnified!

"He MUST Increase, but I MUST Decrease" -J OHN 3:30 [KJV] This was spoken of the Redeemer by His forerunner John. And it is not to be considered as the language of complaint or sullen agreement as if he would say, "I dislike it; but it is unavoidable. It is my grief; and I must bear it." No. It was as agreeable to his feelings as it was firm in his belief. And it showed a fine and a noble soul in John. The spirit that is in us lusteth to envy. We love to be distinguished above others. We wish to rise, even by the fall of others. It is trying, even to a good man, to withdraw, and see a successor filling his place better than himself, and, as the honors he has worn are transferred to another, to say, "He must increase, but I must decrease." It is not an easy thing to go down well, or for a setting star to exult in a rising sun. But it was thus to John. He knew his rank and approved his place. He was the servant, not the Master: the friend, ...
Read more