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| God first puts the good thoughts
and the holy impulses into your heart. Then when you try to obey and do
what he commands and suggests, he helps you to do it. "It is God which
worketh in you both to will and to work" (Philippians 2:13). If character
is a web and we are weavers, we cannot ourselves prepare white, clean
threads of thought and purpose and love, for our hearts are unclean; nor
can we weave the threads into a pure, unsoiled web, for our hands are
stained. God must put into our hearts the beautiful threads. He must give
us the pattern, too, into which he would have us fashion the fabric. Then
he must cleanse our hands (Psalms 51:7 and Isaiah 1:18) and guide our
fingers. In weaving this web we must not miss a thread, for if we do the
loom goes on and the web rolls by, but the place of the dropped thread
remains unfilled. Would you be able to say at your life's end, "I have
finished the work which God gave me to do," you must be sure that each
smallest duty is done in its own time. To have at last a finished life,
each day must close with its duty all done, no tasks remaining unfinished.
That is, each day's work must be left complete, with life's duty done up
to that moment, as if we should never come again to our tasks. God looks upon us as individuals. We come into this world one by one. We live in a sense alone with our own personal responsibilities. We die one by one. As individuals, not as crowds, must we stand before God. Your destiny will not depend on any chance of the moment; you are fixing it yourself in your choices and acts, in your habits and life. Your own faith and obedience must weave the garment of beauty for your life. God gives the materials, but after that each one is the weaver of his own "wedding-garment." Matthew 22:11-13: And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment: And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (KJV) 2 Corinthians 3:5: Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; (KJV) Philippians 2:13: For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. (KJV) Philippians 4:13: I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. (KJV) Hebrews 13:20-21: Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is wellpleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. (KJV) James 1:5: If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. (KJV) Psalms 51:7: Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. (KJV) Isaiah 1:18: Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. (KJV) |
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