This is what the term consecration properly means. It is the voluntary surrender or self-offering of the heart, by the constraint of love to be the Lord's. Its glad expression is, "I am my Beloved's." It must spring, of course, from faith. There must be the full confidence that we are safe in this abandonment, that we are not falling over a precipice, or surrendering ourselves to the hands of a judge, but that we are sinking into a Father's arms and stepping into an infinite inheritance. Oh, it is an infinite inheritance. Oh, it is an infinite privilege to be permitted thus to give ourselves up to One who pledges Himself to make us all that we would love to be, nay, all that His infinite wisdom, power and love will delight to accomplish in us. It is the clay yielding itself to the potter's hands that it may be shaped into a vessel of honor, and meet for the Master's use. It is the poor street waif consenting to become the child of a prince that he may be educated and provided for, that he may be prepared to inherit all the wealth of his guardian.

SEPTEMBER 18.

"We walk by faith, not by sight" (II. Cor. v. 7).

There are heavenly notes which have power to break down walls of adamant and dissolve mountains of difficulty. The song of Paul and Silas burst the fetters of the Philippian gaol; the choir of Jehoshaphat put to flight the armies of the Ammonites, and the song of faith will disperse our adversaries and lift our sinking hearts into strength and victory.

Beloved, is it the dark hour with us? the winter of barrenness and gloom?

Oh, let us remember that it is G.o.d's chosen time for the education of faith and that He conceals beneath the surface, precious and untold harvests of unthought-of fruit! It will not be always winter, it will not be always night, and when the morning comes and spring spreads its verdant mantle over the barren fields then we shall be glad that we did not disappoint our Father in the hour of testing, but that faith had already claimed and seen in the distance the glad fruition which sight now beholds, with a rapture even less than the vision of naked faith.

Lord, help me to believe when I cannot see, and learn from my trials to trust Thee more.

SEPTEMBER 19.

"In due season we shall reap if we faint not" (Gal. vi. 9).

If the least of us could only antic.i.p.ate the eternal issues that will probably spring from the humblest services of faith, we should only count our sacrifices and labors unspeakable heritages of honor and opportunity, and would cease to speak of trials and sacrifices for G.o.d.

The smallest grain of faith is a deathless and incorruptible germ, which will yet plant the heavens and cover the earth with harvests of imperishable glory. Lift up your head, beloved, the horizon is wider than the little circle that you can see. We are living, we are suffering, we are laboring, we are trusting, for the ages yet to come. "Let us not be weary in well doing for in due season we shall reap if we faint not," and with tears of transport we shall cry some day, "Oh, how great is thy goodness which Thou hast laid up for them that fear Thee, which Thou hast wrought for them that trust in Thee before the sons of men."

Help me to-day to live under the powers of the world to come, and to live as a man in heaven walking upon the earth.

SEPTEMBER 20.

"They shall not be ashamed that wait" (Isa. xlix. 23).

Often He calls us aside from our work for a season and bids us be still and learn ere we go forth again to minister. Especially is this so when there has been some serious break, some sudden failure and some radical defect in our work. There is no time lost in such waiting hours. Fleeing from his enemies the ancient knight found that his horse needed to be reshod. Prudence seemed to urge him without delay, but higher wisdom taught him to halt a few minutes at the blacksmith's forge by the way to have the shoe replaced, and although he heard the feet of his pursuers galloping hard behind, yet he waited those minutes until his charger was refitted for his flight, and then, leaping into his saddle just as they appeared a hundred yards away, he dashed away from them with the fleetness of the wind, and knew that his halting had hastened his escape. So often G.o.d bids us tarry ere we go, and fully recover ourselves for the next great stage of the journey and work.

Lord, teach me to be still and know that Thou art G.o.d and all this day to walk with G.o.d.

SEPTEMBER 21.

"Faint, yet pursuing" (Judges viii. 4).

It is a great thing thus to learn to depend upon G.o.d to work through our feeble resources, and yet, while so depending, to be absolutely faithful and diligent, and not allow our trust to deteriorate into supineness and indolence. We find no sloth or negligence in Gideon, or his three hundred; though they were weak and few, they were wholly true, and everything in them ready for G.o.d to use to the very last. "Faint yet pursuing" was their watchword as they followed and finished their glorious victory, and they rested not until the last of their enemies were destroyed, and even their false friends were punished for their treachery and unfaithfulness.

So G.o.d still calls the weakest instruments, but when He chooses and enables them they are no longer weak, but "mighty through G.o.d," and faithful through His grace to every trust and opportunity; "trusting," as Dr. Chalmers used to say, "as though all depended upon G.o.d, and working as though all depended upon themselves."

Teach me, my blessed Master, to trust and obey.

SEPTEMBER 22.

"We see not yet all things put under Him, but we see Jesus" (Heb. ii. 8, 9).

How true this is to us all! How many things there are that seem to be stronger than we are, but blessed be His name! they are all in subjection under Him, and we see Jesus crowned above them all; and Jesus is our Head, our representative, our other self, and where He is we shall surely be.

Therefore when we fail to see anything that G.o.d has promised, and that we have claimed in our experience, let us look up and see it realized in Him, and claim it in Him for ourselves. Our side is only half the circle, the heaven side is already complete, and the rainbow of which we see not the upper half, shall one day be all around the throne and take in the other hemisphere of all our now unfinished life. By faith, then, let us enter into all our inheritance. Let us lift up our eyes to the north and to the south, to the east and to the west, and hear Him say, "All the land that thou seest will I give thee." Let us remember that the circle, is complete, that the inheritance is unlimited, and that all things are put under His feet.

SEPTEMBER 23.

"I am the Lord that healeth thee" (Ex. xv. 26).

It is very reasonable that G.o.d should expect us to trust Him for our bodies as well as our souls, for if our faith is not practical enough to bring us temporal relief, how can we be educated for real dependence upon G.o.d for anything that involves serious risk? It is all very well to talk about trusting G.o.d for the distant and future prospect of salvation after death! There is scarcely a sinner in a Christian land that does not trust to be saved some day, but there is no grasp in faith like this. It is only when we come face to face with positive issues and overwhelming forces that we can prove the reality of Divine power in a supernatural life.

Hence as an education to our very spirits as well as a gracious provision for our temporal life, G.o.d has trained His people from the beginning to recognize Him as the supply of all their needs, and to look to Him as the Physician of their bodies and Father of their spirits. Beloved, have you learned the meaning of Jehovah-rophi, and has it changed your Marah of trial into an Elim of blessing and praise?

SEPTEMBER 24.

"He calleth things that are not as though they were" (Rom. iv. 17).

The Word of G.o.d creates what it commands. When Christ says to any of us "Now are ye clean through the word which I have spoken unto you," We are clean. When He says "no condemnation" there is none, though there has been a lifetime of sin before. And when He says, "mighty through G.o.d to the pulling down of strongholds," then the weak are strong. This is the part of faith, to take G.o.d at His Word, and then expect Him to make it real. A French commander thanked a common soldier who had saved his life and called him captain, although he was but a private, but the man took the commander at his word, accepted the new name and was thereby const.i.tuted indeed a captain.

Shall we thus take G.o.d's creating word of justification, sanctification, power and deliverance and thus make real the mighty promise, "He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might He increaseth strength; for they that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength."