By G.D. Watson
If
God has called you to be truly like Jesus in all your spirit, He will
draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility. He will put on you
such demands of obedience that you will not be allowed to follow other
Christians. In many ways, He seems to let other good people do things
which He will not let you do.
Others who seem to be very
religious and useful, may push themselves, pull wires, and scheme to
carry out their plans, but you cannot. If you attempt it, you will meet
with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you sorely
penitent.
Others can brag about themselves, their work, their
successes, their writings, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do
any such thing. If you begin to do so, He will lead you into some deep
mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good
works.
Others will be allowed to succeed in making great sums of
money, or having a legacy left to them, or in having luxuries, but God
may supply you only on a day-to-day basis, because He wants you to have
something far better than gold, a helpless dependence on Him and His
unseen treasury.
The Lord may let others be honored and put
forward while keeping you hidden in obscurity because He wants to
produce some choice, fragrant fruit for His coming glory, which can only
be produced in the shade.
God may let others be great, but keep
you small. He will let others do a work for Him and get the credit, but
He will make you work and toil without knowing how much you are doing.
Then, to make your work still more precious, He will let others get the
credit for the work which you have done; this to teach you the message
of the Cross, humility, and something of the value of being cloaked with
His nature. The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch on you, and with a
jealous love rebuke you for careless words and feelings, or for wasting
your time which other Christians never seem distressed over.
So
make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign and has a right to
do as He pleases with His own, and that He may not explain to you a
thousand things which may puzzle your reason in His dealings with you.
God will take you at your word; if you absolutely sell yourself to be
His slave, He will wrap you up in a jealous love and let other people
say and do many things that you cannot. Settle it forever; you are to
deal directly with the Holy Spirit, He is to have the privilege of tying
your tongue or chaining your hand or closing your eyes in ways which
others are not dealt with. However, know this great secret of the
Kingdom: When you are so completely possessed with the Living God that
you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this peculiar,
personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy
Spirit over your life, you will have found the vestibule of heaven, the
high calling of God.
I remember one day when I was serving my bride as her full-time caregiver that I heard John Lomacang saying on 3ABN that he was at the pinnacle, at the top of his form, in the prime of his ministry, and doing the most satisfying things he could imagine. Selfish pride smote my heart and I thought, "I wish it was me. I wish I could say that." I would tell my bride, "I wish I had a ministry," to which she would reply, I
am your ministry. And she was right, for God taught me many lessons through that season that John Lomacang has never had opportunity to learn and God is yet preparing me for that work which He, in his kindness, has not yet shown me, lest I faint.
remain faithful,
Dave
G.D.Watson (1845-1924) was a Wesleyan
Methodist minister and evangelist based in Los Angeles. His evangelistic
campaigns took him to England, the West Indies, New Zealand, Australia,
Japan and Korea. He also wrote several books.
