The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 464

FAITH

424 the outgoings of

with greater

my

conflict.

soul are from the inwrought faith,

Many

and attended do not appreciate them because they do not

have them, but, being the effects of the Holy Spirit and the results of the inwrought faith, they are pleasing to God, to whom they are directed. For He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and will not despise their prayer Psalm cii. 17. " Third, it is through this knowledge that I, by the light of the Spirit, know Jesus in the Gospel, as adapted in every respect to tny need. It is the very conviction of the fitness of a thing which persuades the affections to choose that thing above every other which makes one resolute and persevering in spite of every obstacle, never to abandon the determination

—

;

to secure to himself the thing or person chosen for this fitness to his need.

You can

see

it

in the

matter of marriage.

"A young man may And

yet, altho

Now

he

judge

it

him to marry. groping in the dark.

absolutely necessary for

convinced of this necessity, he

is

and to-morrow he is not. Now he wants this But as soon as he meets a person whom he considers adapted to him in every respect, he is fully resolved. This fitness is the arrow that penetrates his soul, and that causes the scale of his unsettled affections to turn in favor of the congenial object. Hence nothing can draw him away from her so long as he considers her adapted to himself if need be he will work for her as a slave twice seven years, which time will seem to him but as so many days by reason of the hope is

fully determined,

woman, and the next day

another.

;

own in the end. "And this can easily be applied to the spiritual. It shows that altho one may be convinced of his need of Christ as his Savior, yet so long as he does not see and know Him by faith as wonderfully adapted to his to call her his

person in particular, the affections are not drawn to Him.

From which

follows that many, in ordinary soul-trouble, act so undecidedly

they desire Christ, and to-morrow they do not.

:

it

to-day

This moment they wish

and the next they do not. This is the reason that many who once were touched by Christ's fitness to their need, and therefore were seekers after Him for a season, go back again and no more ask for Him, simply because they do not think Him so much adapted to their need as to be able for His sake to bear the heat of the day and the cold of the night, or sacrifice all things, to possess Him. And this proves that they never have known His real fitness, that they never have seen it with the eye of faith otherwise the seed of God would have remained in them. But when the divine light of the Holy Spirit, in the Gospel, illuminates my soul, and I receive this knowledge of faith from Jesus, oh then I see in Him such fitness as a Surety, a Mediator, a Prophet, Priest, and King that my soul is touched in such a measure that I judge it impossible to live another happy hour, except this Jesus becomes my Jesus. My affecto be converted,

;

!

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