Helps To Holy Living

Part Two

Baptized Into His Death

  "Baptized into His death." Rom. 6:3. Many saints fail to walk in that blessed fellowship and intimate communion that their souls crave. They long to have Christ more real in their life. They yearn for a greater consciousness of His presence. They come short of their soul's cravings because they are not baptized fully into Christ's death. They live too much to the flesh. They live too much for earthly things. They have too great an admiration for earthly things, a fine home, fine furniture. fine automobile. Look closely into the life of Christ. Not once did He ever manifest an admiration of the fine things of the world. He admired God in nature, but never admired nature of itself. If He admired the works of man, it was not what man had done, but what God had helped him do. In all His sight seeing He never lost sight of God. This is a precious secret in the Christian life. See God everywhere and in everything. Admire God, adore Him, and not the thing He has created. Alas, how many think more, admire more, talk more about, seek more after the thing created than they do the Creator. Jesus saw this world and all the fine things in it under condemnation and ready for the burning, and so will you when baptized into His death.

Dying With Christ

  "Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus." 2 Cor. 4:10. Do not think of Christ being dead to the extent that He had no temptation. He was tempted all through His life as any sanctified person is tempted. Read Heb. 4:15. His death was that of an everyday dying. He had temptation to resist and overcome. He had a human will which He kept in subjection to the Divine will just as Christians have to do. The same power that enabled Him to do this will enable the Christian to do likewise. This is holy living. Just as Jesus kept dead to every suggestion of the flesh, so are we to keep dead.[46] This is bearing about in our body the dying of the Lord Jesus. One brother inquires, "How can a man marry and raise a family and not live to the flesh?" Just the same as he can do any thing in the flesh and not live to the flesh. Jesus did not refuse to marry because it was sinful or fleshly. It was not His calling. Paul said, "Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he is called," and he was talking on this very subject. Marrying belongs to pure humanity as much as eating, drinking, sleeping, etc. though not as necessary to the life of the person, but is to the life of the race.

  Raising a family was not the sin of Eden. God told Adam and his wife to be fruitful, to multiply and replenish the earth before their transgression. When man and woman marry simply for the gratification of the flesh, they transgress a higher law of their being. They are living on the plane of the flesh. This is true of every thing in life. To build a house, or remodel one, to buy home furniture or an automobile to the gratifying of the flesh is sowing to the flesh. There are to be fasts, by mutual consent for the soul's good in the married life, the same as abstaining from food and drink. ( 1 Cor. 7 :5 ) . Dying with Jesus means the refusing to do anything in life purely for fleshly gratification. This is holy living. This is where many a saint is coming short of the perfect life. They are too careless. Their soul is not stirred up to realization of the great importance of sowing to the Spirit. Listening to the suggestion of the flesh has caused many a one to fail to obey the Spirit. They sowed to the flesh instead of to the Spirit, and they will have to pay the penalty. They absent themselves from the prayer meeting, from the closet, fail to give of their means at the suggestion of the flesh. They are missing the joy of God.[47]

Living to Our Ability

  "He that is able to receive it, let him receive it." Matt. 19:12. God requires no one to receive that of which they are not capable. Jesus withheld some truths from His disciples because they were not able to receive them. Some are capable of receiving more than others. God does not require one man to live to the capability of another, but does require each one to live to the fullest of his own capability. Have you done this ? Are you doing it ? If you had lived to the fullest of your capability in the past, it may be that you would be more capable today. Begin now! Lose no more time! Jesus does not condemn all who do not live to the full standard of life. He does condemn all who do not live to the full light they have been given of that standard; you to yours and me to mine. The question is, are you living to your full light? The soul has wonderful capabilities. If we will only live up to our full capabilities, we will be brought into a very close life with God. We greatly fear that many are careless. They are not putting their soul out to its fullest capability. They are not reaching out with all the energy of their being for things that are before. They could be better Christians if they would.

The Joys of Heaven

  The Lord said to his faithful servant, "Enter into the joy of thy Lord." By this Jesus means to tell us that if we be faithful servants of God, some day we shall be admitted into higher joys than we ever knew here. The little child that has been taught that Santa will bring it many pretty things on Christmas will think a great deal about these nice things, and can scarcely wait until Christmas comes. Why should we not think much about the joys of heaven ? Maybe some of us do not keep that heavenly country enough in our thoughts. The more you contemplate the joys of heaven, the lighter will be the sorrows of earth. The joy that Jesus looked forward unto helped Him [48] to endure the cross. We can bear a great deal today if we have bright anticipations of tomorrow. What if there be a few tears here, there will be none over there, and this thought helps us to bear up a little longer. Thinking of the joys of heaven will let the light through the darkest clouds that can hang over our heads. Earthly pleasures fail to charm us as we think about the pleasures at God's right hand. Though there is no flour in the bin, nor meat in the larder, we grow happy as we think of heaven.

Tune Your Harp

  David calls up his soul and tunes it to the great heart of God. Keeping in tune with heaven is the secret of holy living. We must catch daily messages from the sky that we might keep in harmony with the mind of God. We must hear the voice of God, we must feel His life playing on the tender cords of our soul, we need to be moved by the impulses of His loving heartbeats to live as holy as we should. Let there be no discordant notes in the music of your soul. You can keep tuned in with the sweet harmony of heaven in the very face of strife and sin in the world. Peter slept like a child with the chopping block only a few hours ahead; Paul kept the music of heaven in his heart while fast in the stocks; Daniel kept tuned in with the world of glory at the entrance to the lions' den; the furnace cast no fear over the life of the three Hebrews; Habakkuk rejoiced in the God of his salvation with empty fields, storehouses and stalls before him; Job kept the proper wave length in his soul amid all his adversities. Beware, oh beware, lest something of earth gets your harps out of tune. Why will mortal man allow the poor, weak things of earth disturb the music of his soul! [49]

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