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He will have the supreme affection of his
people.
(From Octavius Winslow's, "The Entire Pardon
and Justification of the Believing Sinner")
The child of God is as much called to live on
Christ for sanctification, as for pardon of sin.
Happy and holy is he who thus lives on Jesus.
The fulness of grace that is treasured up in Christ,
why is it there? For the sanctification of His people;
for the subduing of all their sins.
O forget not, then, that He is the Refiner, as well as
the Savior; the Sanctifier as well as the Redeemer.
Take your indwelling corruptions to Him; take the
besetting sin, the weakness, the infirmity, of
whatever nature it is, at once to Jesus. His grace
can make you all that He would have you to be.
Remember, too, that this is one of the great
privileges of the life of faith; living on Christ
for the daily subduing of all sin.
This is the faith that purifies the heart; and it
purifies by leading the believer to live out of
himself upon Christ. To this blessed and holy
life our Lord Jesus referred, when speaking of
its necessity in order to the spiritual fruitfulness
of the believer:
"Abide in Me, and I will abide in you. For a branch
cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine,
and you cannot be fruitful apart from Me. Yes, I
am the vine; you are the branches. Those who
abide in Me, and I in them, will produce much
fruit. For apart from Me you can do nothing." John 15:4-5
O that each individual 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.
There is no other path for him to walk in.
The moment he turns from Christ, he becomes like
a vessel loosed from its moorings, and driven at the
mercy of the winds from billow to billow.
Christ must be all in all to him.
Friends,
domestic comforts,
church privileges,
ordinances,
means of grace,
nothing must substitute for Jesus.
And why does the Lord so frequently discipline the soul?
O why, but to open away 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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