"Behold the fowls of the air." . . . "Consider the lilies of the field." Matthew 6:26, 28 Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they simply are! Think of thesea, the air, the sun, the stars and the moon - al these are, and what aministration they exert. So often we mar God's designed influence through usby our self-conscious effort to be consistent and useful. Jesus says that there isonly one way to develop spiritual y, and that is by concentration on God. "Donot bother about being of use to others; believe on Me" - pay attention to theSource, and out of you wil flow rivers of living water. We cannot get at thesprings of our natural life by common sense, and Jesus is teaching that growthin spiritual life does not depend on our watching it, but on concentration on ourFather in heaven. Our heavenly Father knows the circumstances we are in, andif we keep concentrated on Him we wil grow spiritual y as the lilies. The people who influence us most are not those who buttonhole us and talk tous, but those who live their lives like the stars in heaven and the lilies in thefield, perfectly simply and unaffectedly. Those are the lives that mould us. If you want to be of use to God, get rightly related to Jesus Christ and He wilmake you of use unconsciously every minute you live.

"Behold the fowls of the air." . . . "Consider the lilies of the field." Matthew 6:26, 28 Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they simply are! Think of the sea, the air, the sun, the stars and the moon - al these are, and what a ministration they exert. So often we mar God's designed influence through us by our self-conscious effort to be consistent and useful. Jesus says that there is only one way to develop spiritual y, and that is by concentration on God. "Do not bother about being of use to others; believe on Me" - pay attention to the Source, and out of you wil flow rivers of living water. We cannot get at the springs of our natural life by common sense, and Jesus is teaching that growth in spiritual life does not depend on our watching it, but on concentration on our Father in heaven. Our heavenly Father knows the circumstances we are in, and if we keep concentrated on Him we wil grow spiritual y as the lilies. The people who influence us most are not those who buttonhole us and talk to us, but those who live their lives like the stars in heaven and the lilies in the field, perfectly simply and unaffectedly. Those are the lives that mould us. If you want to be of use to God, get rightly related to Jesus Christ and He will make you of use unconsciously every minute you live.

"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." Matthew 6:33 Immediately we look at these words of Jesus, we find them the most revolutionary statement human ears ever listened to. "Seek ye first the kingdomof God." We argue in exactly the opposite way, even the most spiritual yminded of us - "But I must live; I must make so much money; I must be clothed;I must be fed." The great concern of our lives is not the kingdom of God, but how we are to fit ourselves to live. Jesus reverses the order: Get rightly relatedto God first, maintain that as the great care of your life, and never put the concern of your care on the other things. "Take no thought for your life. . . ." Our Lord points out the utter unreasonableness from His standpoint of being so anxious over the means of living. Jesus is not saying that the man who takes thought for nothing is blessed - that man is a fool. Jesus taught that a disciple has to make his relationship to God thedominating concentration of his life, and to be careful y careless about everything else in comparison to that. Jesus is saying - "Don't make the ruling factorof your life what you shal eat and what you shal drink, but be concentrated absolutely on God." Some people are careless over what they eat and drink, andthey suffer for it; they are careless about what they wear, and they look as they have no business to look; they are careless about their earthly affairs, and Godholds them responsible. Jesus is saying that the great care of the life is to put the relationship to God first, and everything else second. It is one of the severest disciplines of the Christian life to al ow…

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" Romans 8:35 God does not keep a man immune from trouble; He says - "I wil be with him in trouble." It does not matter what actual troubles in the most extreme form get hold of a man's life, not one of them can separate him from his relationship to God. We are "more than conquerors in al these things." Paul is not talking of imaginary things, but of things that are desperately actual; and he says we are super-victors in the midst of them, not by our ingenuity, or by our courage, or by anything other than the fact that not one of them affects our relationship to God in Jesus Christ. Rightly or wrongly, we are where we are, exactly in the condition we are in. I am sorry for the Christian who has not something in his circumstances he wishes was not there. "Shal tribulation . . . ?" Tribulation is never a noble thing; but let tribulation be what it may - exhausting, gal ing, fatiguing, it is not able to separate us from the love of God. Never let cares or tribulations separate you from the fact that God loves you. "Shal anguish . . . ?" - can God's love hold when everything says that His love is a lie, and that there is no such thing as justice? "Shal famine . . . ?" - can we not only believe in the love of God but be more than conquerors, even while we are being starved? Either Jesus Christ is a deceiver and Paul is deluded, or some extraordinary thing happens to a man who holds on to the love of God when the odds are al against God's character. Logic is silenced in the face of every one of these things. Only one thing can account for it - the…

And it came to pass, while He blessed them, He was parted from them, and carried up into heaven." Luke 24:51 We have no corresponding experience to the events in Our Lord's life after the Transfiguration. From then onwards Our Lord's life' was altogether vicarious.Up to the time of the Transfiguration He had exhibited the normal perfect life ofa man; from the Transfiguration onwards - Gethsemane, the Cross, theResurrection - everything is unfamiliar to us. His Cross is the door by which every member of the human race can enter into the life of God; by HisResurrection He has the right to give eternal life to any man, and by His Ascension Our Lord enters heaven and keeps the door open for humanity.On the Mount of Ascension the Transfiguration is completed. If Jesus had gone to heaven from the Mount of Transfiguration, He would have gone alone; He would have been nothing more to us than a glorious Figure. But He turned His back on the glory, and came down from the Mount to identify Himself with fallen humanity. The Ascension is the consummation of the Transfiguration. Our Lord does now go back into His primal glory; but He does not go back simply as Son of God;He goes back to God as Son of Man as wel as Son of God. There is now freedom of access for anyone straight to the very throne of God by theAscension of the Son of Man. As Son of Man Jesus Christ deliberately limited omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience in Himself. Now they are His inabsolute ful power. As Son of Man Jesus Christ has al power at the throne of God. He is King of kings and Lord of lords from the day of His Ascension untilnow.

"That ye may know what is the hope of His calling . . ." Ephesians 1:18 Remember what you are saved for - that the Son of God might be manifested in your mortal flesh. Bend the whole energy of your powers to realize yourelection as a child of God; rise to the occasion every time.You cannot do anything for your salvation, but you must do something to manifest it, you must work out what God has worked in. Are you working it out with your tongue, and your brain and your nerves? If you are stil the same miserable crosspatch, set on your own way, then it is a lie to say that God has saved and sanctified you. God is the Master Engineer, He al ows the difficulties to come in order to see if you can vault over them properly - "By my God have I leaped over a wal ."God wil never shield you from any of the requirements of a son or daughter of His. Peter says - "Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to tryyou." Rise to the occasion; do the thing. It does not matter how it hurts as long as it gives God the chance to manifest Him self in your mortal flesh. May God not find the whine in us any more, but may He find us ful of spiritual pluck and athleticism, ready to face anything He brings. We have to exerciseourselves in order that the Son of God may be manifested in our mortal flesh.God never has museums. The only aim of the life is that the Son of God may bemanifested, and al dictation to God vanishes. Our Lord never dictated to His Father, and we are not here to dictate to God; we are here to submit to His willso that He may…

"Partakers of the divine nature." 2 Peter 1:4 We are made partakers of the Divine nature through the promises; then we have to "manipulate" the Divine nature in our human nature by habits, and the firsthabit to form is the habit of realizing the provision God has made. "Oh, I can't afford it," we say - one of the worst lies is tucked up in that phrase. It isungovernably bad taste to talk about money in the natural domain, and so it is spiritual y, and yet we talk as if our Heavenly Father had cut us off with a shiling! We think it a sign of real modesty to say at the end of a day - "Oh, wel , I have just got through, but it has been a severe tussle." And al the Almighty Godis ours in the Lord Jesus! And He wil tax the last grain of sand and the remotest star to bless us if we wil obey Him. What does it matter if externalcircumstances are hard? Why should they not be! If we give way to self-pity and indulge in the luxury of misery, we banish God's riches from our own livesand hinder others from entering into His provision. No sin is worse than the sin of self-pity, because it obliterates God and puts self-interest upon the throne. Itopens our mouths to spit out murmurings and our lives become craving spiritual sponges, there is nothing lovely or generous about them. When God is beginning to be satisfied with us He wil impoverish everything in the nature of fictitious wealth, until we learn that al our fresh springs are in Him.If the majesty and grace and power of God are not being manifested in us (not to our consciousness), God holds us responsible. "God is able to make al graceabound," then learn to lavish the…

"That life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh." 2 Corinthians 4:10 We have to form habits to express what God's grace has done in us. It is not aquestion of being saved from hel , but of being saved in order to manifest thelife of the Son of God in our mortal flesh, and it is the disagreeable things whichmake us exhibit whether or not we are manifesting His life. Do I manifest theessential sweetness of the Son of God, or the essential irritation of "myself"apart from Him? The only thing that wil enable me to enjoy the disagreeable isthe keen enthusiasm of letting the life of the Son of God manifest itself in me.No matter how disagreeable a thing may be, say - "Lord, I am delighted to obeyThee in this matter," and instantly the Son of God wil press to the front, andthere wil be manifested in my human life that which glorifies Jesus. There must be no debate. The moment you obey the light, the Son of Godpresses through you in that particular; but if you debate you grieve the Spirit ofGod. You must keep yourself fit to let the life of the Son of God be manifested,and you cannot keep yourself fit if you give way to self-pity. Our circumstancesare the means of manifesting how wonderful y perfect and extraordinarily purethe Son of God is. The thing that ought to make the heart beat is a new way ofmanifesting the Son of God. It is one thing to choose the disagreeable, andanother thing to go into the disagreeable by God's engineering. If God puts youthere, He is amply sufficient. Keep your soul fit to manifest the life of the Son of God. Never live onmemories; let the word of God be always…

A conscience void of offence toward God, and toward men." Acts 24:16 God's commands are given to the life of His Son in us, consequently to thehuman nature in which His Son has been formed, His commands are difficult, but immediately we obey they become divinely easy. Conscience is that faculty in me which attaches itself to the highest that I know, and tel s me what the highest I know demands that I do. It is the eye of the soul which looks out either towards God or towards what it regards as the highest, and therefore conscience records differently in different people. If I am in thehabit of steadily facing myself with God, my conscience wil always introduce God's perfect law and indicate what I should do. The point is, wil I obey? I have to make an effort to keep my conscience so sensitive that I walk without offence. I should be living in such perfect sympathy with God's Son, that inevery circumstance the spirit of my mind is renewed, and I "make out" at once"what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." God always educates us down to the scruple. Is my ear so keen to hear the tiniest whisper of the Spirit that I know what I should do? "Grieve not the HolySpirit." He does not come with a voice like thunder; His voice is so gentle that it is easy to ignore it. The one thing that keeps the conscience sensitive to Him isthe continual habit of being open to God on the inside. When there is any debate, quit. "Why shouldn't I do this?" You are on the wrong track. There isno debate possible when conscience speaks. At your peril, you al ow one thing to obscure your inner communion with God. Drop it, whatever it is, and see thatyou keep your…

"For if these things are yours and abound, they make you to be not idle nor unfruitful." 2 Peter 1:8 (R.V.) When we begin to form a habit we are consciousof it. There are times when we are conscious of becoming virtuous and patient and godly, but it is only a stage; if we stop there we shal get the strut of thespiritual prig. The right thing to do with habits is to lose them in the life of theLord, until every habit is so practised that there is no conscious habit at al . Ourspiritual life continual y resolves into introspection because there are some qualities we have not added as yet. Ultimately the relationship is to be acompletely simple one. Your god may be your little Christian habit, the habit of prayer at stated times,or the habit of Bible reading. Watch how your Father wil upset those times ifyou begin to worship your habit instead of what the habit symbolizes - I can't do that just now, I am praying; it is my hour with God. No, it is your hour withyour habit. There is a quality that is lacking in you. Recognize the defect and then look for the opportunity of exercising yourself along the line of the qualityto be added.Love means that there is no habit visible, you have come to the place where the habit is lost, and by practice you do the thing unconsciously. If you are consciously holy, there are certain things you imagine you cannot do, certain relationships in which you are far from simple; that means there is something tobe added. The only supernatural life is the life the Lord Jesus lived, and He wasat home with God anywhere. Is there anywhere where you are not at home with God? Let God press through in that…