To be near unto God - pagina 350

cultivate with young and old the supreme reality of life with God. This requires effort. must live in the world. God only calls us out of the world at death. And almost everything in the world draws us away

We

from God.

Not only wealth and temptation, but

also the incessant activity of life, labor that is strenuous, multiplicity of interests, much trouble and sorrow. Among confessing christians there are all too many, therefore, who count themselves christians and can live for hours and for days at times without a thought of God, who are distracted in mind even in their prayer, and who are scarcely aware of what it means to be ''near unto God" and Vvith him to live in constant fellowship of the Spirit. This lack can not be made good by sound creeds, nor by constant bearing witness. Life with God in the world can not be replaced by much activity and good works. The lamp can not burn unless it is continually fed with oil. Not in us, but in God alone is the power and the might, that can break unbelief in the world. And in this conflict we can only be instruments in the hand of the Lord, when his power inwardly animates us, when his Spirit inwardly

impels

us,

and when

''to

be near unto God" and

in the midst of the world to live with

become our second, our regenerated

God, has

nature.

65

'T

WILL WALK AMONG YOU."

Vital fellowship with sonal. It

must

also

be

God

can not merely be perWhatever touches

collective.

merely the world of our own heart is personal. And whatever we go through with others, who are

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