“You
are a child of God, and long to please Him. You love your divine
Master, and are sick and weary of the sin that grieves Him. You long
to be delivered from its power. Everything you have hitherto tried
has failed to deliver you: and now, in your despair, you are asking if
it can indeed be, as these happy people say, that Jesus is able and
willing to deliver you. Surely you must know in your very soul that
He is—that to save you out of the hand of all your enemies is, in
fact, just the very thing He came to do. Then trust Him. Commit your
case to Him in an absolute unreserve, and believe that He undertakes
it; and at once, knowing what He is and what He has said, claim that
He does even now save you. Just as you believed at first that He
delivered you from the guilt of sin because He said it, so now
believe that He delivers you from the power of sin because He says
it. Let your faith now lay hold of a new power in Christ. You have
trusted Him as your dying Saviour; now trust Him as your living
Saviour. Just as much as He came to deliver you from future
punishment did He also come to deliver you from present bondage. Just
as truly as He came to bear your stripes for you has He come to live
your life for you. You are as utterly powerless in the one case as in
the other. You could as easily have got yourself rid of your own
sins, as you could now accomplish for yourself practical
righteousness. Christ, and Christ only, must do both for you; and
your part in both cases is simply to give the thing to Him to do, and
then believe that He does it..." (54-55)
“Lord
Jesus, I believe that thou art able and willing to deliver me from
all the care and unrest and bondage of my Christian life. I believe
thou didst die to set me free, not only in the future, but now and
here. I believe thou art stronger than sin, and that thou canst keep
me, even me, in my extreme of weakness, from falling into its snares
or yielding obedience to its commands. And, Lord, I am going to trust
thee to keep me. I have tried keeping myself, and have failed, and
failed most grievously. I am absolutely helpless. So now I will trust
thee. I give myself to thee. I keep back no reserves. Body, soul, and
spirit, I present myself to thee as a piece of clay, to be fashioned
into anything thy love and thy wisdom shall choose. And now I am
thine. I believe thou dost accept that which I present to thee; I
believe that this poor, weak, foolish heart has been taken possession
of by thee, and that thou hast even at this very moment begun to work
in me to will and to do of thy good pleasure. I trust thee utterly, and
I trust thee now.” (55-56)
Amen!
