The Message of Victory, Oct-Dec 1975 / What We Need

The work of God is languishing for lack of a consecrated church.  We cannot have peace in ourselves, or evangelize the world, until we bow at the feet of God and pray, “O God of peace, consecrate us wholly to Thyself.”—J. Battersby-Harford.
We can have no idea what we should be able to do if we were completely lost in accord with God; if we sought no will but His; if not a word of our mouths not a beat of our hearts, not a thought of our minds, not a movement of our souls or bodies but were turned to Him obediently, in the spirit of Samuel, “Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth.”  There have been men who have shown what a man can do—a Luther, a Wesley, a St. Paul, a Moses—these men have shown what a man can do when he only seeks to obey the will of God.—A Monod.
The act of consecration is cancelled by one reserve.  To give ninety-nine parts and to withhold the hundredth, undoes the whole transaction, because in that one piece of reserve the whole life entrenches itself—defying Him.—F. B. Meyer.
To forsake all without following Christ is the virtue of a philosopher.
To follow Christ in profession without forsaking all is that state of the generality of Christians.
To follow Christ and to forsake all, is the perfection of Christians.—Adam Clark.
When William Booth was asked for the secret of his success, he answered that it was because God had all that there was of him.  He had never knowingly withheld anything from God.  Henry Varley once said to Mr. Moody, “It remains to be seen what God will do with a man who gives himself up wholly to Him.”   Mr. Moody said to himself:  “Well, I will be that man.”
Dr. G. Campbell Morgan, writing in his little book entitled Wherein, says of that verse of a familiar hymn often sung at conventions:

“My all is on the altar,
I am waiting for the fire.”
“That is absolute absurdity.  Nobody ever waited for the fire when  ‘all ‘ was on the altar.  Let a man sing, if he like,
‘A part is on the altar;
I am waiting for the fire.’
“When you and I put our all on the altar the fire falls directly.”

EDITORIAL
DECLINE OF HOLINESS

John Wesley declared that the business of the people, called Methodists, was “to spread scriptural holiness over these lands.”  He also affirmed that he had noticed that the plain, frequent preaching of this message always resulted in revivals.  Those to whom this truth is most precious today, naturally decry the decline both in the preaching and enforcing of this glorious heritage.  Other emphases have gained ascendancy with very different results.  We ask, why the decline in the declaration of the message and in the possession of the glorious reality?
The basic cause is the substitution of formula for reality.  Such substitution is all too easy because faith which is the secret of all spiritual experience is a force unseen by the human eye.  The “holiness” ministry is far from blameless here.  A desire for the sense of achievement and the demand for statistics by committees and by many others, becomes so pressing that it produces prolonged appeals for people to “come out for sanctification.”  A formula is offered which requires a mere mental assent and the seekers are either told that they are now sanctified or they are at least encouraged by inference to believe so.
Lela McConnell was an instrument mightily used in the hills of Kentucky, U.S.A., until her home-call a few years ago.  How faithfully she deals with this question!
“I fear that often the distinction between believing what God says, and knowing what God does, is ignored, so that the real act of faith is omitted.  This omission always produces a spiritless class of witnesses to regeneration and to sanctification.  Just from theory they profess a spiritual experience which they do not possess.  These dear souls are always powerless.  They are devoid of love and often fanatical.  They make light of the striving to ‘enter in’ of others.
“No doubt many dear people are innocent of their true condition.  They have been taught ‘to take it by faith’ and have no consciousness of any vital experience.  They have been told—God says so, and I am believing His Word.  The danger lies in the fact that they did not really get anything.  You will hear them say, ‘I am standing by faith.’  Standing by faith, beloved, is neither the work of regeneration nor of holiness.  These dear people have not received the ‘end of their faith.’  The end of one’s faith is the salvation of the soul, and, if full salvation is sought, it is the actual cleansing of the heart from all carnality and the Holy Ghost coming in to abide.  They have not received the end of their faith, they have only believed it.  Receiving it is a conscious act.  A reality to be received must be perceptible to the one that receives it.  Of course faith in the truthfulness of God’s Word is essential to any degree of salvation, but it alone is not sufficient for salvation.  ‘Faithful is he that calleth you who also will do it’ (1Thess. 5:24).  We must receive the thing His promise embraces.
“This ‘believe you’ve got it and you have,’ has resulted in filling our churches and holiness camp meetings with unconverted and unsanctified people.”
Another fundamental error and one that leads to self-righteousness and smugness is the belief that this gift is an attainment that becomes a part of us and remains so.  John Wesley in his “Plain Account of Christian Perfection” puts it thus:
“The best of men say, ‘Thou art my light, my holiness my heaven.  Through my union with Thee, I am full of light, of holiness and happiness.  But if left to myself, I should be nothing but sin, darkness, hell.’”
A modern writer, Mr. Schaeffer, agrees with Wesley and says:
“It  is not my victory.  It is always Christ’s victory.  It is always Christ’s work and Christ’s holiness.  When I begin to think and to grow in the idea of my victory, there is really no true victory.  To the intent that I am thinking about my sanctification, there is no real sanctification.  I must see it always as Christ’s.
“Indeed it is only as we consciously bring each victory to His feet, and keep it there as we think of it—and especially as we speak of it—that we can avoid the pride of that victory; which can be worse than the sin over which we claim to have had the victory.  The greater the victory, the greater need of placing it consciously (and, as we speak of it, vocally) at His feet.”
Another great defect in the claims of many, has been the glorification of the crisis experience out of proportion and the neglect of the momentary supply of grace and the perpetual momentary cleansing flow.  Both are a part of this great provision—the fruit of full redemption and restoration from the effects of the Fall.  Of course there is the last moment when sin holds an inner dominion in our hearts, and the first moment when Christ has become Lord and Master, with all that that means.  But that is only the opening of the “flood gates.”  The steady flow must continue as we constantly look by the same faith that produced the crisis, for the continuity of grace and victory.
Still another error is the wrong concept of “power.”  Heaven’s power never exalts the channel—always the Source; neither does true spiritual power make comfortable in their emotional enthusiasm, unregenerate and unsanctified hearts.  The big modern successes are far too often soulish and have exactly the opposite effect they should have.  “When he is come (the Comforter, the Holy Ghost) he will reprove the world.”  True power is at first searching, condemning.  True power is often humiliating.  True power calls more often for immediate mourning than for celebration.  It takes courage and fresh and deep personal communion with God, to insist on true power being unleashed today.
Then, too, there has grown up steadily in “holiness” ranks the idea that temporal prosperity and even affluence are a mark of blessing.  This is inconsistent with the declared necessity of self-denial as a requisite for discipleship.  Thrift accompanies grace and acquisition becomes an easy goal but it is not the pathway to continued spiritual power and authority.
There is much more that could be said, but there is no question but that Holiness is the “Central Idea of Christianity” as one writer has termed it.  The Spirit-filled, self-crucified soul has the only answer to the need of the church and there is no filling of the Spirit without death to “the old man.”  Calvary must always precede Pentecost.

O God, no proper place I see,
     No work that I can do;
Myself I offer unto Thee,
     A sacrifice anew.

If Thou with clear sign from on high
     Will mark me as Thine own,
How soon, how gladly would I die,
     Unhonored and unknown.
—F. W. H. Meyers.

The utmost consecration possible yesterday makes possible and imperative a larger consecration today.—Charles Inwood.

JOHN INSKIP—PROMOTER OF HOLINESS

(The personal experience of a Methodist minister, who first opposed the truth of entire sanctification, and then became one of its more able promoters.)

John S. Inskip was born in the well-known little town of Huntingdon, England, on August 10, 1816.  His parents emigrated to Delaware, U.S.A., leaving their four-year-old lad to join them in the new country a year later.  The home was not a Christian one.  His father held infidelic beliefs and forbade any of his fourteen children to attend Sunday School.  This brought sadness to the heart of young John, but the early conversion of a sister had a powerful influence upon him.  At the age of sixteen, John was truly born-again and from that time was most eager to see others come into the same personal experience with Christ.  We give his own personal testimony below.—Editor.
I was awakened and converted to God April 2, 1832.  Although I encountered much opposition from my misguided parents, the Lord sustained and directed me.  Aided by divine grace, I continued steadfast and “witnessed a good confession” for Christ.
At length it was impressed upon my mind that God had called me to the work of the ministry.  A field of labor being opened, I commenced my itinerant life and consecrated myself to the service of God and the responsible duties of my calling.
The subject of entire sanctification attracted my attention.  I was profoundly interested in it at the time of my ordination, when the bishop asked me the solemn and heart-searching question, “Do you expect to be made perfect in love in this life?  Are you groaning after it?”
At that moment I came very near to this great salvation.  A little encouragement from anyone familiar with the deep things of God would have been of infinite benefit to me and might have so modified my subsequent experience as to have greatly increased my power with God and man.  Often, indeed, a similar crisis has occurred in my life, but, alas, it was allowed to pass away unimproved.
Various influences combined to change my views of the doctrine, and more especially of the experience of Christian perfection.  My mind, it is true, adhered to the doctrine as a peculiarity of our Methodist creed.  Notwithstanding this, I became exceedingly hostile to a profession of the experience.
My hostility assumed a more reprehensible form than doubt or skepticism.  It became, in fact, a deep-seated prejudice, and sometimes developed into the most uncharitable criticisms upon those who professed the blessing and the methods which they adopted to promulgate it.  The remembrance of this fact is often an occasion of great humiliation before God and my brethren.  I am aware that I did it “ignorantly in unbelief.”  Still the error was a very grievous one and, in a certain sense was “without excuse.”  I ought to have known better and done differently, but God has graciously forgiven me.
For nearly two years prior to the time when it pleased God to bestow this grace upon me, I had been living a more devout life than at any former period of my history.  My personal religious interests had been more prominently in view and had excited a larger measure of attention and effort than usual.
This was not, however, with any special reference to the attainment of the definite blessing of purity.  I sought after a closer walk with God and frequently was conscious of extraordinary power in the pulpit and divine fellowship in the closet.  Yet the idea of seeking entire sanctification, I think, did not once enter my mind.
At the Sing Sing camp meeting, on August 19, 1864, my wife sought and found this “perfect rest.”  Prior to leaving home she had been impressed that she would receive this blessing.  She was present at most of the meetings in which the subject of holiness was presented as a “specialty” and also attended and took part in all the usual services of the hour.  Her entire time was given and all the energies of her nature were aroused and drawn toward this momentous theme.
On the morning of the last day of the meeting the Lord heard and answered her cry.  The question came up, Would you be willing to acknowledge this blessing to your husband and others?  She made an affirmative response and, “looking unto Jesus” by faith, she felt the all-cleansing blood applied and rejoiced in the assurance that she was made “every whit whole.”  In an instant the great transaction was done.  The intelligence soon reached me.  I cannot say I was surprised.  Yet I was afflicted and mortified.  To the individual who communicated the fact I expressed myself in terms of the most decided disapprobation.
This, however, only increased my embarrassment and difficulty.  I could scarcely, sometimes, tell how I felt or what I should do.  In the meantime my wife, wherever she went, continued to tell the “wondrous story.”  She testified that Christ had become to her, “wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.”
Upon returning home, she embraced the earliest opportunity to give her testimony to the church.  This produced quite a sensation, and a number of persons came forward to the altar, earnestly seeking a clean heart.
The impression wrought in my own mind was such as led me to call on God for a larger measure of the influence of the Comforter, that I might be a more efficient laborer in the vineyard.  I was wonderfully quickened.  My whole soul was stirred within me. Yet, even at this moment, I had not definitely determined to seek the blessing of holiness.  The effect of my wife’s testimony and spirit was such, however, as to command my attention and confidence.  I could not but be persuaded that her experience was in harmony with the teachings of the Bible, and that if I should attain to it my usefulness and enjoyment would be greatly increased.
Matters continued in this indefinite state until the ensuing Sabbath morning, when I was led to preach on these words:  “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us.”  In pressing home upon the consciences of the people this admonition, I was led to speak with great earnestness, and endeavored to urge them to immediate and decisive action.  My appeals were unusually pointed and direct.  The interest of the hour became more and more intensified as the train of thought I was pursuing developed.
A culminating crisis was soon reached, and in the most vehement manner I cried out, “Brethren, lay aside every weight.  Do this now.  You can do it now and therefore you should.  It is your privilege and therefore it is your duty at this moment to make a consecration of your all to God, and to declare that you will henceforth be wholly and forever the Lord’s.”
I endeavored to make this point very clear and repeated with increased earnestness, “Let us now lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us.”  I dwelt upon this, and as I continued to urge the admonition, a voice within said, “Do this yourself.”  I paused a moment, and the voice repeated, “Do this yourself and do it now.”
Of course, in the circumstances, I could consistently do but one thing, and that was to obey.  My mind was clearly persuaded of the correctness of the views I had presented and advised my people to adopt.  Hence it was proper that I should lead in their practical observance and, with so marked and startling a call, I could not hesitate.
Therefore I proceeded thus:  “Come, brethren, follow your pastor!  I am determined to lay aside every weight!  I call Heaven and earth to witness that I now declare I will be henceforth wholly and forever the Lord’s.”
Seeing that I had thus given myself in an “everlasting covenant” to the Lord and had, so far as I could, come out and separated myself unto God, my faith gathered strength and “looking unto Jesus,” I exclaimed with a rapture perfectly unutterable, “I am, O Lord, wholly and forever Thine.”
Mr. Inskip had the great joy, on that same night when he came into the wonderful experience of full salvation, of seeing eight souls saved.  Many more followed.  Long prejudiced against a certain type of testimony to holiness which he had often heard, the preacher at first inclined not to speak out too definitely concerning this great inner change.  But the Word of God convinced him that this was a wrong attitude and the more he proclaimed cleansing through “the blood of Jesus Christ,” the more the witness within flamed up, till it became a passion to shout out the wonderful news to all, far and near.
One habit which he had tried numbers of times to break was that of smoking tobacco.  He had even tried to sign a pledge to abstain, but although a preacher, he was still bound by the habit.  It was not until he had received the experience, above related, that the complete breaking of the inveterate habit was made possible.  He came to loathe the very smell of tobacco smoke.
Of course he now had the warmest fellowship with God’s sanctified people, and he was not long in inviting those advocates of full salvation, Dr. and Mrs. Palmer, to come and speak in his church.  His former interest in controversy in preachers’ meetings waned.  He no longer cared for entertainment as a part of the program of the church.
In those days there were a number of champions for holiness in the Methodist Episcopal Church, such as Alfred Cookman, J. A. Wood and others.  These held a Camp Meeting at Vineland, New Jersey, which led to the formation of the “National Camp Meeting Association for the Promotion of Holiness,” of which Mr. Inskip was elected the first President, a post which he held for the remainder of his life.  All the business was transacted on their knees.  The only constitution the newly formed Association had was that of its promoters shaking hands with one another as they vowed to be loyal to the message and to one another.
Mr. Inskip became a pliable instrument in God’s hand to go anywhere and to any people who would listen.  Doubtless He took over this servant of His in a new way and gave him a special anointing for the work.  Dr. G. D. Watson, himself a herald of the same message, tells of a burden which had come upon him for some time when he would groan out his desire in prayer that the Lord would send one of His servants to promote the holiness message in the South-eastern section of the United States—his own native area.  Later he was overjoyed to find the answer had come definitely, and that Rev. John Inskip had been led into those parts with the message of a complete Redemption in Christ, with very blessed results.
On his death-bed, Mr. Inskip’s utterances were truly messages from Glory, such as:  “All is well!  Glory!  Hallelujah!”  “I am dwelling on the mountain.”  His final words came when friends were singing, “The Sweet By and By.”  Pressing his wife to him and raising her hands in his, with radiant countenance, he shouted, “Victory!  Triumph!  Triumph!”  He then quietly slipped away and doubtless merged his Hallelujah Chorus with the grander one over there.  This was on March 7, 1884.—E. F. Harvey.

The sinner’s choice is between Heaven and Hell; the Christian’s choice is between Heaven and earth.
What God wants is not our plans, but our lives, that He may work through us.—James H. McConkey.
She has given Me all her living, I will give her all My dying and all My resurrection life.—Charles A. Fox.

The meaning of being a Christian is that in response for the gift of a whole Christ I give my whole self to Him.—Sel.

She has given Me all her living, I will give her all My dying and all My resurrection life.—Charles A. Fox.

The meaning of being a Christian is that in response for the gift of a whole Christ I give my whole self to Him.—Sel.

GOD’S AVAILABLE LIST

Jesus made Himself available to God for His purposes. “Lo, I come to do Thy will,” it is said of Him.  By His life of selfless giving, asking nothing for Himself, He proceeded to demonstrate to a basically selfish world what God, the Father, was like.  In order to perpetuate the continuance of this spirit of selfless devotion, He announced to His disciples, “As the Father hath sent me, so send I you.”  Pentecost dealt with the reluctance in these formerly selfish men, and now, filled with Christ’s Spirit, they continued the role of Christ-like laying down of their lives for others.
Since the days of the primitive Church, God has always had a minority who have dedicated their entire lives to do God’s will, and as they did so, from their inward parts have issued the same stream of rivers of beneficent self-forgetful living.  We shudder to think what this poor old world would have been without such a contribution.
Men and women languished in prison conditions, too horrible for description.  Among those who responded to God’s call to these unfortunate ones, were John Howard and Elizabeth Fry, who brought to these incarcerated ones, God’s message of redeeming love.  The secret of such unusual service is found in their consecration.
John Howard, in the Spring of 1770, in Naples, wrote out a solemn covenant:
“Stop, remember thou art a candidate for eternity . . . O compassionate and divine Redeemer!  save me from the dreadful guilt and power of sin; and accept of my solemn, free, and, I trust, unreserved, full surrender of my soul, my spirit, my dear child, all I own and have, into Thy hands.”
Elizabeth Fry at sixty-two years of age, revealed the source of her constancy of purpose to serve Christ alone:
“Since my heart was touched when seventeen years old, I believe I have never wakened from sleep, in sickness or in health, by day or by night, without my first waking thought being how I might best serve the Lord . . . It has been strongly impressed on me, how very little it matters when we look at the short time we remain here, what we appear to others; and how much too much, we look at the things of this life.  What does it signify, what we are thought of here, so long as we are not found wanting towards our Heavenly Father?  Why should we so much try to keep something back, and not be willing to offer ourselves up to Him, body, soul and spirit, to do with us what may seem best unto Him, and to make us what He would have us to be?  O Lord!  enable me to be more and more singly, simply and purely obedient to Thy service!”
How much we owe to authors, preachers, poets and hymn-writers who, because they yielded their entire being to God, became channels for God’s truth to flow by pen and lip in blessing to all generations!
Matthew Henry, useful minister and commentator wrote:
“Unto Thee, O blessed Jesus, my only Savior and Redeemer, do I make a fresh surrender of my whole self this morning, body, soul, and spirit:  to me to live is Christ, particularly this ensuing year.  All my time, strength and service, I devote to the honor of the Lord Jesus; my studies, and all my ministerial labors, and even my common actions.  It is my earnest expectation and hope that Jesus Christ may be magnified in my body.”
Charles Wesley composed something in the region of 8,000 hymns.  One of them breathes his consecration:

“Lord, in the strength of grace,
With a glad heart and free,
Myself, my residue of days,
I consecrate to Thee.

“Thy ransomed servant, I
Restore to Thee Thine own;
And from this moment live or die
To serve my God alone.”

Francis Ridley Havergal, in a letter to a friend, voices her heart’s desire for others:
“When one is really and utterly ‘all for Jesus,’ then and not till then we find Jesus is all for us, and all in all to us.  Now I want you to be ‘all for Jesus!’  I can’t describe the happiness He puts into any heart that will only give itself up altogether to Him, not wishing to keep one single bit back.  And I want you to have this and to have it now; not to wait till illness or great trouble come, and you feel driven at last to Him.  Jesus says, ‘Come now!’ not, ‘come when everything else has turned bitter.’  And if you come now, and surrender to Him now, you will have the peace now and the gladness now; and I can tell you it is worth having, because I haveit, and so I know it is.”
Oswald Chambers’ books continue to pour off the press by the thousands, and his writings probe and stab wide awake the sleepy, dull generality of Christians.  The explanation is found in an excerpt from his writings:
“You ask a question about the baptism of the Holy Ghost—did I get there all at once, or easily?  No, I did not. Pride and the possession of the high esteem of my Christian friends kept me out for long enough.  But immediately I was willing to sacrifice all and put myself on the Altar, which is Jesus Himself, all was begun and done.
“Holiness is not an attainment at all, it is the gift of God, and the pietistic tendency is the introspection which makes me worship my own earnestness and not take the Lord seriously at all.  It is a pious fraud that suits the natural man immensely.  He makes holy, He sanctifies, He does it all.  All I have to do is to come as a spiritual pauper, not ashamed to beg, to let go of my right to myself and act on Romans 12:1-2.  It is never, ‘Do, do, and you’ll be’ with the Lord, but ‘Be, be, and I will do through you.’  It’s a case of ‘hands up’ and letting go, and then entire reliance on Him.”
Rugged, daring pioneers there have been who, becoming God’s servants, were sent to enter formerly closed doors in unevangelized areas of the world.  Among these were the Calverts who, when told by the captain of the ship on which they were sailing to Fiji, that cannibals would soon write “finis” to their labors, answered, “We died before we came out.”
David Livingstone’s story is a never-ceasing wonder of achievement and endurance, but the secret lies in his personal willingness to sacrifice all for God:
“Let us seek—and with the conviction that we cannot do without it—that all selfishness be extirpated, pride banished, unbelief driven from the mind, every idol dethroned, and everything hostile to holiness and opposed to the divine will crucified; that ‘Holiness to the Lord’ may be engraven on the heart, and evermore characterize our whole conduct.
“This is what we ought to strive after; this is the way to be happy; this is what our Savior loved—entire surrender of the heart.  May He enable us by His Spirit to persevere till we attain it!  All comes from Him, the disposition to ask as well as the blessing itself.”
Titus Coan, missionary to Hawaii, briefly registers the same entire surrender to God:
“Put any burden on me, only sustain me; send me anywhere, only go with me; sever any tie but the one that binds me to Thy service and to Thy heart.”

Lord, I have fallen again—a human clod!
Selfish I was, and heedless to offend;
Stood on my rights.  Thine own child would not send
Away his shreds of nothing for the whole God!
Wretched, to Thee Who savest, low I bend;
Give me the power to let my rag-rights go
In the great wind that from Thy gulf doth blow.

– George MacDonald.

“Present yourselves unto God as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God” (Rom. 6:13).
“Ye are not your own . . . For ye are bought with a price:  therefore glorify God in your body” (1Cor. 6:19-20).
“They first gave their own selves to the Lord” (2 Cor. 8:5).
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice” (Rom. 12:1).

God is not interested in your ability, but in your availability for Him to take and use.—Living Links.
CREATION LIKE CHRIST
“As he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17).

Those of us who are God’s children ought to stand in determined reverence before this verse.  It can mean only one thing, and that is that the image and character and holiness of Jesus Christ is ours by the sovereign right of His creation.  Sanctification means that we are taken into a mystical union which language cannot define (cf. 1 John 3:2).  It is Jesus Christ’s holiness that is granted to us, not something pumped up by prayer and obedience and discipline, but something created in us by Jesus Christ.  No wonder the New Testament puts Jesus Christ upon the throne!  No wonder Jesus said that the Holy Ghost would glorify Him!  And no wonder this talk is called “unrealized truths of sanctification!”
We are potentially sons and daughters of God through God’s claim upon us in Christ, but we are only sons and daughters of God in reality through our will.  Do we will, not to imitate Jesus, but to hand ourselves over to God until His claim is realized in us?  Paul says, “We pray you, we passionately entreat you, as though God did beseech you by us, be ye reconciled to God.”  It is one thing to realize in speechless wonder, when the heart is attuned to an impulse of worship, what the claim of God is, and another thing to tell God that we want Him to realize His claim in us.  “My God, I am Thine by creation, I am Jesus Christ’s through His Atonement, and I choose that Thy claim shall be realized in me.”
“Wherefore if any man is in Christ. . .”  “Any man” means ourselves—men of no account.  Our Lord never taught individualism; He taught the value of the individual, a very different thing.  Does Paul mean that I, an ordinary man with no particular education, with ordinary common-place work, surrounded by common-place people, can be made a new creation in Christ Jesus?  He does, because he says “any man,” and you must come in there.  Will you choose to be one of the ordinary common rut, the “any man,” and let God get hold of you?  You are part of the creation of God, then let Jesus Christ make His creation good in you.
Jesus Christ does not make us original characters, He makes our characters replicas of His own; consequently, argues the Spirit of God, when men see us, they will not say, “What wonderful, original, extraordinary characters.”  No, none of that rubbish!  They will say, “How marvelous God must be to take poor pieces of human stuff like those men, and turn them into the image of Jesus Christ!”  “ . . . which things the angels desire to look into.”  We are too free from wonder nowadays, too easy with the Word of God; we do not use it with the breathless amazement Paul does.  Think what sanctification means—Christ in me; made like Christ; as He is, so are we.
—In Our Brilliant Heritage by Oswald Chambers.

CONSECRATED AND TRANSFORMED

By Mark Guy Pearse

Nothing in God’s world is any good until it is given up to that which is above it.
What is the worth of the land, however fruitful, and whatever title we may have to it, unless we can do something with it?  “Of course,” you say.  But why of course?  Underneath that “of course” lies the law of which we speak.  The soil must minister to us, or it is no good—merely waste land.  It must grow its grass or flowers or trees; it must yield us foundation for our buildings, or minerals and metals for our use, or it is of no service, and so no good.
The seed again and all its products—corn, and grass, and fruit, and tree—what should we give for them if we could do nothing with them?  They must yield themselves in turn to the animal life, or else more directly minister to our wants.  In this lies their worth, their good.
And the cattle and sheep, what of all the flocks and all the herds, except as they clothe us, and feed us, and minister to us?
And we, what are we for?  Here lies our worth and our good, in giving ourselves a living sacrifice to God.  This is our service.  Waste and worthless are we except as we give ourselves up to Him Who is above us, discerning and fulfilling His will concerning us, of Whom, and through Whom, and to Whom are all things.
Then comes the second part of this law, completing it—Everything by sacrifice not lost, but turned into higher life.  Very beautiful is this law of transformation.  Listen to the parable of the earth, as it lies far down beneath the blue heaven, or as in the cold night it looks up at the silver stars.  “Here am I,” it mutters, “so far away from Him Who made me . . . How can I ever climb up to Him Who made me?”  And then the poor earth sighs again: “And that is not all—not even the worst of it.  I am only dull soil, without any beauty of form, or richness of color, or sweetness of smell!  All things seem full of loveliness but me.  How can I ever be turned into worth and blessedness?”
And now there comes the seed, and it is hidden in the earth.  “Earth,” whispers the seed, “wilt thou give me thy strength?”
“No, indeed,” replies the earth; “why should I give thee my strength?  It is all I have got, and I will keep it for myself.”
“Then,” saith the seed, “thou shalt be earth, and only earth for ever and ever.  But if thou wilt give me thy strength thou shalt be lifted up into another life.”
So the earth yields and give up its strength to the seed.  And the seed takes hold of it and lifts it up and begins to turn it into a hundred forms of beauty; it rises with wondrous stem; it drinks in sunshine and rain and air, mingling them with the earth’s strength and changing it to toughened branch or dainty leaf, or to rich flowers and ripened fruit.  Then its work is done as it ends in the seed.  And it cries to the earth:  “Spake I not truly?  Thou art not lost, but by sacrifice transformed to higher life, to worth and beauty.”
And man gives himself up to God, to love Him, to learn His will, and do it.  And is transformed—into what?  Ah!  who can tell of that wondrous transformation when it is completed?  We think of the redeemed and glorified, white-robed and pure, untouched by sorrow, unstained by sin, into whose minds there entereth nothing that defileth, in whose heart no unlovely thing can find a lodging-place, who day and night are there before the throne, standing in the very light of God’s own glorious Presence, and serving Him with a perfect service, unwearied, unbroken, amidst the angels that do excel in strength!  Do you ask who are these and whence came they?  These but yesterday were here as we are, earth-stained, commonplace, burdened men and women, tempted and afraid, selfish, sinful; without beauty or worth were they too.  But they gave themselves up to God, and now are they like Him, for they see Him as He is.  By sacrifice not lost, but transformed to higher life.
My simple story is the poor and broken illustration of the law of God’s great kindness that runs through all things.  Here lies the earth, and it says:  “I have got in me some strength.  It belongs to God.  It came down from Him to me by a host of gracious messengers—the seasons, and the sunshine, and the rain.”  Then it whispers to the seed:  “I will pass it on to you, and if you can pass it on further, you will, won’t you?”  Then the seed takes it up, and carries it higher, and it says:  “I have some strength in me.  It belongs to God.  It came down from Him to the earth, and the earth has passed it on to me.”  And the seed whispers to the animal:  “I will pass it on to you, and if you get a chance of passing it on, you will, won’t you?”  And in turn the animal ministers to man, and it says:  “I have some strength in me.  It came down from God, and it belongs to Him.  The earth has passed it on to the seed, and the seed has passed it on to me, and now I pass it on to you.  If you can pass it on further, you will, won’t you?”  And as the man comes in and with a conscious and reasonable service yields himself to God, then do all things flow back again to their Creator.
So man completes the circle.  He is the last link in it all.  Think how all things minister to him—the light, the air, the earth; the growth of tree, and fruit, and flower, the strength and life of things about him.  Think how the ages wait upon him.  How the slow action of centuries has ground the rock to soil, and how the soil has been wrought upon by wind, and rain, and changes of the seasons, till it is fit for the seed.  And how the seed gathers up this vast preparation, and passes it on to man.  All things reach up to him; all things wait upon him:  “Thou hast put all things under his feet.”  If he serves not God, he hinders all things, and diverts them.
If man yields himself to God, then does he stand as the high priest of nature, arrayed in the garments of praise, and consecrates all things to the Creator.  It is a cry taken up and urged by the voice of all things—the sun in the heavens, the air we breathe, the food we eat, the earth we tread upon, the things we handle, all that eye can rest upon, and that ear can listen to, repeat this word, each adding to its reasonableness, each demanding it as a right:  “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice . . . unto God.”