| Strength and Beauty |
Chapter 3 |
Page 6 |
A Christian woman tells of her experience in making a fuller consecration to Christ. “Did you ever have a person in your home,” she asks, “who acted as a perpetual rasp on the feelings of your household? I had. One day when I had nearly lost my faith and was sinking in the black waters of despair, I called on Christ to help me or I would perish. And what do you think he asked me to do? To love this woman. This was the only ladder he offered me up out of the black depths.
Then I grew uglier than ever, and almost hated my Saviour. The struggle continued until I could stand it no longer. In agony I rushed to my closet and besought Jesus to help me. It seemed then as though in a most tender, loving voice, he asked, ‘Can’t you love her for my sake?’ I said, ‘Yes, Lord, I will.’ At once peace filled my heart. My feelings toward her changed entirely. I had yielded my will to Christ.” She had heard the Master’s voice, and was following him. That to which he had called her was not easy, – it had on it the print of the nails, – but it was the way to blessing and joy.
The sum of all this teaching is that the Christian life is one of love like Christ’s, poured out in service like his, in self forgetfulness, without stint; and whatever voice calls us away from such living and serving to self indulgence, to personal ease, to the saving of our own life, is the voice of a stranger, not the Good Shepherd, and we should flee from it as from a luring evil.
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