Never count success by money gained. That is not the mind of My Kingdom. Your success is the measure of My Will and Mind that you have revealed to those around you.
Your success is the measure of My Will that those around you have seen worked out in your lives.
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Philippians 2:5
There will never be a time when you will have conquered all of self. As you mount higher and higher you will see more and more clearly the errors and shortcomings of your character and life.
That is as it should be. Progress means youth.
Arrested growth means stagnation. Lack of progress and failure to conquer mean — old age.
In Eternal Life there can be no old age. Eternal Life is Youth-Life, full and abundant Life. “And this is Life Eternal that they may know Thee, the only True God, and JESUS Christ, Whom Thou hast sent.”
Our Lord, we know that all is well. We trust Thee for all. We love Thee increasingly. We bow to Thy Will.
Bow not as one who is resigned to some heavy blow about to fall or to the acceptance of some inevitable decision.
Bow as a child bows, in anticipation of a glad surprise being prepared for it by one who loves it.
Bow in such a way, just waiting to hear the loving word to raise your head, and see the glory and Joy and wonder of your surprise.
Do all things without murmurings and disputings.
Philippians 2:14
There is only one road that leads to the solving of mysteries, the road of obedience and Love.
But in perfect Love there is no curiosity, only a certainty that when the time has come all will be clear, and that until that time there is no desire to know anything that the Beloved has not chosen to reveal.
Does it matter if no mystery is made plain down here? If you have Me, then in Me you have all. Continue ye in My Love.
I see the loving, striving, not the defects. I see the conquest of your particular battle. I count it victory, a glad victory.
I do not compare it with the strenuous campaigns of My great Saints.
For you it is victory, and the angels rejoice, and your dear ones rejoice, as much as at any conquest noted, and rejoiced over, by Heaven.
My children, count the days of conquest as very blessed days.
But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:57
How human, how earthbound are the thoughts man has of God. He judges of Me and My Father by his own frail impulses and feelings.
There is in Divine Love no compulsion of duty from the loved one to the Lover.
Love draws, certainly, and then love longs to serve and to express one’s love.
But no question of duty in return for Love.
You must believe utterly. My Love can bear nothing less. I am so often “wounded in the house of My friends.” Do you think the spitting and scorn of My enemies, the mocking and reviling hurt me? No!
“They all forsook Him and fled.” “I know not the man.” These left their scars.
So now, it is not the unbelief of My enemies that hurts, but that My friends, who love and know Me, cannot walk all the way with Me, and doubt My Power to do all that I have said.
Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of
my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me. Psalm 41:9
There is a Joy of My Kingdom that My followers may know, and that no shadow of the world’s pessimism can endanger. It resists all cramping of outward, soulless convention.
Too often My followers fail to see how full of Joy I could be. They see Me, the JESUS who beheld the city and wept over it, Who was so touched by the suffering all round Me, and they fail to realize how filled with Joy I could be at the response to My Call.
No shadow of the Cross could darken that Joy. I was as a bridegroom among the friends he had chosen to share his wedding joys.
As such I refused to consider the implied reproof of the Pharisees. We were a band filled with desire to save the world, we were full of hope and enthusiasm. Our Spirits could not be compressed into the outworn bottles of mere pharisaic convention. Ponder this and recognize your Master Who bids you Love and Laugh.
Peace has, for every true disciple, a special meaning and message. It is endeared to him by association. It was the parting gift of his Lord to His followers, bequeathed through them to followers of each succeeding generation. It is not the peace of indifference, of sloth; that is mere acquiescence.
No, the Peace I left to My own is vital and strong. It can exist only in the heart of one who lives with Me. It derives from Me that Eternal Life which is Mine, and which makes the Gift ever full of an imperishable beauty, and instinct with Life indeed.
Our Lord, we bless Thee and thank Thee for Thy Keeping Power.
Yes! “Kept by the Power of God” is a promise, and an assurance that holds Joy and Beauty for the believing soul.
The keeping that means security, safety, is wonderful. There is, too, the keeping that implies Life, freshness, purity, the being “kept unspotted from the world.”
Then there is the keeping that I ensure to those of whom I speak as the salt of the earth.
“Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour it is henceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.”
Only in very close contact with Me is the keeping Power realized. That keeping Power which maintains the salt at its freshest and best, and also preserves from corruption that portion of the world in which I place it.
What a work! Not by activity in this case, but simply by its existing, by its quality.
I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment;
lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day. Isaiah 27:3
