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The great secret
(Octavius
Winslow, "Morning Thoughts")
"Without Me you can do nothing." John 15:5.
Oh, that each Christian would but realize this
truth: that simpler, closer, more experimental
views of Jesus would essentially strengthen
the tone of inward spirituality and comfort!
The great secret of all comfort in
seasons of
affliction, is to take the affliction, as it comes,
simply to Christ.
And the great secret of all holiness
is to take
the corruption, as it rises, simply to Christ.
It is this living upon Christ for all he needs,
this going to Christ under all circumstances,
and at all seasons, which forms the happy
and holy life of a child of God.
Christ must be all in all to him. Friends,
domestic comforts, church privileges, means
of grace; nothing must suffice for Jesus.
And why does the Lord so frequently discipline
the soul? Why remove friends, why blight domestic
comforts? Oh, why? but to open a way through
which He Himself might enter the believer, and
convince that lonely, bereaved, and desolate
heart, that He is a substitute for everything,
while nothing shall ever be a substitute for Him.
He will have the supreme affection of His people;
they shall find their all in Him. And to this end He
sends afflictions, crosses, and disappointments-
to wean them from their idols and draw them
to Himself.
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