Elizabeth Baker: Devotional Readings (eBook)

Chapter 1

Growth in the Divine Life

June 1908

THE SUBJECT I want to bring to you this afternoon is, “How to grow in the divine life.” I want to give you two texts:

“And this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us: and if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petition that we desired of him.” (1 John 5:14-15.)

“But without faith it is impossible to please him; for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6.)

There are two sides that I want to consider; first, our entire sinfulness and helplessness as to doing anything to maintain or increase the spiritual life in us, and second, the power and willingness of God to impart everything we need, and Who will work in us every moment through the Son and the Spirit.

First let us look at our sinfulness and our helplessness. I think that the sinner has little realization of his need. People do not think that they are so very bad, that God could be so very much displeased with them; they think they are very respectable, they would like to be a Christian, but it would not make such a very great change. Of course there are those who know they are sinners, those living a very bad life, who drink or swear, then there are those who have tempers; they are sinners, but people do not realize how far they are from God, but it is the work of the Holy Spirit that brings the sense of this lostness. In many places in India, in Ramabai’s work, and other places, the Spirit brought such a sense of the awfulness of sin. In heathen lands there is such a lack of moral sense of sin, but while missionaries have found it so hard to impress them with their sinfulness, the Holy Spirit, in a few moments, brought it to them, and they cried out to God in desperation over their sins.

A sinner comes to Christ, and now thinks he can serve God easily, and at once attempts to do it. He does not know how helpless he is, or how unlike Christ.

I had been a Christian but a short time before I had a sense I was not at all like the Lord. May nature was not the least bit like His, and if you will stop to think, you will see yours is not. Everything about us is unlike God, nature has so turned to self from God, and we have gotten so used to selfishness, we do not realize how deep it is. We often want God’s blessing for our advancement, and the Holy Spirit for our own satisfaction, and we do not understand how little like Jesus Christ we are. I have an idea that the incarnation was in part to show us how different His life was, as He worked and lived among men, from ours. He was so easy to be entreated, the woman from the street could go to Him and wash His feet with her tears. He never turned from anyone, but hypocrites. His was such a wonderful life of gentleness and dependence upon the Father. People are so independent, they do not like to take advice from another. How this is in every human soul! Jesus Christ did not seem to be like that at all. He had no independent spirit, He recognized what God wants us to recognize, I can do of my own self nothing. God has to burn that into us, by letting us try and struggle, and then to see how far short we come. There are things in our nature, we would be glad to overcome, we undertake it and expect to get it out of the way, but somehow H will let it get worse and worse. You try to govern your temper, and you find that you are worse than ever, and everything you are trying to suppress, seems to grow worse under the process. It is because you are trying to work, and you will never get on till you see you cannot do the first thing, but only hinder God.

Every moment we make towards self-control, self-betterment, Christ-likeness, is nothing but failure, till sometimes the failure is agonizing, till we learn this lesson, as Paul tells us, “In me dwelleth no good thing.” I do not believe we have half learned it; if we have, the other lessons will be easier. What God wants us to see is, that there can be no improvement by any effort of our own.

Next, the lesson has to be learned of the willingness of God to help. If we had learned the first lesson it would be easier to learn this, but till we come to the place where we cease looking to ourselves, we are not looking to God. So we find in ourselves what God found in Israel. He brought them out of Egypt. He made a way for them through the Red Sea. He caused water to flow from the rock, and yet when they came to every place of need, they said, “Can God?” We find the Psalmist saying:

“They tempted God in their heart by asking meat for their lust. Yes, they spoke against God; they said, Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?” (Psalm 78:18, 19.)

They could say, “We know He can open the sea, for we have seen Him do it; we know He can bring water from the rock, we have seen Him do it, but can He do this which is beyond our experience?” We say the same thing. “I know He can save sinners. He has saved me, but can He give victory over self? Can He fill me with the Holy Spirit? He can do these things for some people, but I am so constituted; he can do for this amiable person, but can He do for me?” You are saying: Can He? Can He? Can He heal this disease for me which was inherited from my father? Can He take this temper away?” They reasoned like that, and so do we. We try to believe God up to our experience, but is it possible for Him to bring me where I may know the fulness of the Spirit and be led by Him? You believe He can do that for some people, but are you not saying in your heart: Can He do this for me? Can He, can He?

God does not expect you to do the first thing. You have been hindering God all the time and preventing Him from having His way. What He wants us to do is to see that we are helpless, that we cannot help this any more than we can the color of our eyes. You blame yourself because you are thus and so, because you are this or that; you have lamented and said: “Oh, wretched man that I am!” You condemn yourself, but God does not in the sense you do yourself, but He does condemn you, because the way has been provided, a deliverance from this, and you do not come in God’s way. Jesus Christ has to save us from these things, as he saved us in the beginning, and what He wants us to see is, that we are thus and so and cannot help it, but He can. I used to go weeks and months at a time under condemnation, because I saw I wasn’t like the Lord, and was such a failure. Why be blamed for not doing what we could not do? It shows we expected to do it; if you are not expecting to accomplish anything, why blame yourself? We seem to think that somehow we will get wise enough to accomplish it after a while.

What does God want? He wants you to come to Him after the worst break you ever have made and look up in His face with the utmost confidence and say, “I can never do any different, I commit it to Thee, Thou art the Savior, I am not.”

Look at this word in Micah 7:7, “Therefore I will look unto the Lord, I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me.”

He will hear me. He will hear me. We can come to Him with the deepest sense of failure and say, “I know deliverance is mine, Thou wilt save me from this.”

I would like you to read a little book, written by Mrs. Boardman. There is nothing remarkable about it, or about her, only her simple faith. She would commit something that was besetting her to the Lord and say, “I thank Thee for the deliverance now,” and she did not bother herself any more about it. She believed He would do what He said. Not at all remarkable for God to keep His Word, and she acted upon the basis that He would do as He said. She did not wait to see the thing subdued in her, but her whole life was lived out in that present taking and thanking the Lord for it. After her husband’s death — they were so united in the natural and also in the spiritual — the Lord promised her she should never know widowhood. But she tells of coming into the house, feeling her loss so keenly, and saying to the Lord, “I think Thee now for Thy presence which is so comforting. Thou art all I need, and the whole sense of loss would flee away. She said this, when she felt nothing, but it became an act the next moment.

I believe we pray and pray, while God is saying, just believe me, I am here to keep my Word, I am here to give present grace.

“This is the confidence that we have in Him,” but we do not have it. He is more anxious to transform us, than we are to have Him. You say, “Why does He not do it, I am praying and praying.” Yes, but you have never committed it to Him and let go. You can commit it to Him now and go on praising Him and it will come. God is asking you to treat Him as if He meant what He said.

I was reading in a paper recently of a woman who was seeking Pentecost. She asked God to search her, and He did, and she made things; she had to write some letters of confession. She got it straightened up, and then He did not show her any more. Then she said to the Lord, “You have promised Pentecost, how give it to me.” He said, “I want you to thank Me for giving you your Pentecost.” There were no signs that she had it, but she said, “I do praise You for giving me my Pentecost.” Do you not see that was counting Him faithful, and there came right away a wonderful...