If God has called you to be really like Jesus, He will draw you
into a life of crucifixion and humility, and put upon you such demands
of obedience, that you will not be able to follow other people, or
measure yourself by other Christians, and in many ways He will seem to
let other good people do things which He will not let you do.
Other Christians and ministers who seem very religious and
useful, may push themselves, pull wires, and work schemes to carry out
their plans, but you cannot do it; and if you attempt it, you will
meet with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you sorely
penitent.
Others may boast of themselves, of their work, of their success,
of their writings, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any
such thing, and if you begin it, He will lead you into some deep
mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good
works.
Others may be allowed to succeed in making money, or may have a
legacy left to them, but it is likely God will keep you poor, because
He wants you to have something far better than gold, namely a helpless
dependence on Him, that He may have the privilege of supplying your
needs day by day out of an unseen treasury.
The Lord may let others be honored and put forward, and keep you
hidden in obscurity, because He wants you to produce some choice,
fragrant fruit for His coming glory, which can only be produced in the
shade. He may let others be great, but keep you small. He may let
others do a work for Him and get the credit for it, but He will make
you work and toil on without knowing how much you are doing; and then
to make your work still more precious, He may let others get credit
for the work you have done, and thus make your reward ten times
greater when Jesus comes.
The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch over you, with a jealous
love, and will rebuke you for little words and feelings, or wasting
your time, which other Christians never seem to get distressed over.
So make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign, and has a
right to do as He pleases with His own. He may not explain to you a
thousand things which puzzle your reason in His dealings with you, but
if you absolutely sell yourself to be His love slave, He will wrap you
in a jealous love, and bestow upon you many blessings which come only
to those who are in the inner circle.
Settle it forever, then, that you are to deal directly with the
Holy Spirit, and that He is to have the privilege of tying your
tongue, or chaining your hand, or closing your eyes, in ways that He
does not seem to use with others. Now when you are so possessed with
the living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and
delighted over this peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship
and management of the Holy Spirit over your life, you will have found
the vestibule of heaven.
