To be near unto God - pagina 582

ences no impression, no influence, no governing power of that all-knowing and all-hearing character of the perceptions of God. He acts, speaks, thinks and allows his inner life to operate as though there were no God who watches him, who overhears him, and whose eye inwardly searches him. He who believe.? can not act thus. With hiiu the fear of the Lord is identified with every awakening in the life of his soul; and when he thinks of God. he refrains from the evil deed for the sake of God's holy will; he shrinks from the unbecoming word, suppresses the unholy thought, and repres.ses everything sinful or demoniac that would enter into his spirit. But alas, his soul is far from being alwaj'S as fully awake as this. During long periods of his life, his faith, as it were, slumbers. Then he does not think of God. He does not concern him.self about God. And he is almost indifferent to what God observ^es in his inmost life, of his doings and of his omissions, and all this leads to sin, until the conscience begins again to operate, and God awakens him. Is, then, our life No, it is through that of faith from fear only? fear

from

love.

From Horeb

it

was announced to

the Lord thy God, am a zealous, i. e. a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children" (Exodus 20:5). It is our ble.s.sed privilege, that we may be near unto God. that we may enjoy his presence and his fellowship, and that we may taste his secret walk. But to our spiritual perception responds a perception from the side of God. To him who loves us more tenderly than a father, it is a the people of

Dvine

God:

delight,

when

"I,

his child

is

mindful of him,

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