You Have Only Just Begun!

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Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:13-14).

You say that you cannot live up to the things you read in the Bible. I know of no one who can do so. The Bible sets before us very lofty ideals; so lofty that if you spend every year in striving toward the best things and you will still find that you have not fully attained them.

Paul was a great deal better than most of us, and he said, when he was quite an old man, that he was not yet perfect – but was still striving after the things which he wished to attain. We never measure up to the ideals.

You must not judge yourself, therefore. Christ does not. You will still find on the last evening of your life, that you have very much to attain, that really you have just begun. I think it was Rubinstein, the great musician, who said at the close of a long life devoted to intense musical work, “I have just begun to know music.” It is so in the believer’s life. If you live to be eighty years old, growing every day more and more, you can say then no more than that you have begun – just begun, to know Christ and to know how to live life.

J.R. Miller (1840-1912)
Intimate Letters on Personal Problems (1914)
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If you enjoyed this selection you may also enjoy the books:
The Best of J.R. Miller Volume 1
The Best of J.R. Miller Volume 2

The Placer of All

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The Placer of all, the Creator of all, the Operator of all, the Fulfiller of all, is using all to fulfill His plan to be “All in all.” No one is frustrating Him. All is and are serving Him and His plan. Evil is here to serve the good. Justice will be administered. All will learn. All will grow up to be model citizens of a new and permanent creation. No one is getting away with anything. No one will be left out. Death is sleep. Everyone will wake up and be brought to maturity. Daddy has a big stick. He also has a kind heart. Anyone trying to help Him will discover that He doesn’t need any help. He doesn’t need anything. He is the supply of everything. All is going as planned, right on schedule. It always has and always will. What can we do, then? Exactly what He has us doing, nothing more, nothing less. If you’re really looking for something to do, here’s something you might try. Always thank God for everything. After you have failed enough, He will become the thanks and everything else you need, springing from within you, pouring into you from above, making you very content, happy, pleased with all He does. And then it may be time for another storm to solidify that constitution. Eventually the heat, pressure and wisdom will make you into a bright transparent crystalline expression and enjoyer of your Source, Means, and infinite Destiny.

Jeff Bohlender

Our Response to Blindness

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The world is filled with blindness: relatives, friends, neighbors, co-workers. As impairing as physical blindness can be, this is not the one to which I refer. Instead, I speak of one far worse: spiritual blindness.

Most go through life groping in the darkness. Only those granted the spiritual eyes to see have any divine light. It is not hard to see the effects of such a condition all around us.

The blinded condition is as divinely ordained as is sight, for,

Who appointed a mouth for man, or Who appointed him to be dumb, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I Jehovah? (Exodus 4:11-12).

Listen as John’s Gospel (12:37-40) describes the true condition of unbelief:

But though He had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on Him: that the saying of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke,
“Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”
Therefore they could not believe, because that Isaiah said again,
“He has blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; lest they should be seeing with their eyes, and should be understanding with their heart, and be converted.”

Those who “believed not” simply “could not believe, because” God had “blinded their eyes,” “lest they should be seeing.”

The reason for their blindness is certain; it is divine.

Without the imposition of divine spiritual blindness, all of those of Jesus’ day would have believed. Israel’s Messiah “had done so many miracles before them,” it took an act of God to prevent them from seeing Who He really was.

There is no need to be frustrated or irritated at the divine work of blindness among our fellow man. Faith will not belittle, make fun of, or mock them. The blind merely play their part in the divine drama.

Be careful that we do not fall into a carnal mindset: being demeaning, condescending, insulting, disrespectful and sarcastic toward those who are blind. All such reactions are childish and irresponsible.

Our response toward blindness is compassion, kindness, tenderheartedness, empathy and graciousness regarding their handicap. It has been thrust upon them, as equally as has been our sight.

For who makes you to be different from another? What do you have that you didn’t receive? Now, if you received it, why are you proud, as if you hadn’t received it? (I Corinthians 4:7).

By the grace of God I am what I am: and His grace which was bestowed on me was not in vain (I Corinthians 15:10).

(Check out our video on this title: Our Response to Blindness)

Clyde L. Pilkington, Jr.
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Leading Others to The Living Truth

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I believe that no teacher should strive to make men think as he thinks, but to lead them to the Living Truth, to the Master Himself, of Whom alone they can learn anything, Who will make them in themselves know what is true by the very seeing of it. I believe that the inspiration [i.e., realization] of the Almighty alone gives understanding.

George MacDonald (1824–1905)
“Justice”
Unspoken Sermons
(Originally published in three series in 1867, 1885, and 1889 in London by Longmans, Green & Co.)

I am Prepared to Learn

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For my own part, I am prepared to learn and earnestly listen to any one or more of my fellow-believers who will undertake to show wherein [my] teaching is fallacious in content, provided only that he will speak from an honest heart, in a spirit of love, and with a desire not to aggravate our present divisions, but to heal them.

Dr. Harold P. Morgan (1883-1953)
The Revolt (Against the Distinctive Ministry of the Apostle Paul)[1]

[1]The Revolt is an “Open Letter” written in 1936 to J. David Adams, president of the Philadelphia School of the Bible, in response to an article, entitled “Dead Flies,” that appeared in the school periodical Serving and Waiting. A facsimile reprint of this book is available at Study Shelf, and is listed on the order form under “Morgan.”

His Sovereign Control

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And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen (Romans 16:20).

What infinite victory is revealed! The Lord said that the Seed of the woman would bruise the head of the serpent. That Promise was given in part of the earliest Scriptures given to mankind (Genesis 3:15).

Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world (Acts 15:18).

God is never caught surprised. The Lamb was “slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8).

The Lord knows exactly what He is doing. We should have complete confidence in Him, because nothing is outside of His sovereign control.

Dr. John McKay
Amazing Grace
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Being Consciously Weak

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And He said unto me, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong (II Corinthians 12:9-10).

Only when we are consciously weak, as Paul said, then is His strength perfectly manifested. When we are fearing, He is courage. When we dislike, He is the love. And Paul goes as far as to say that he personally takes pleasure in negative situations of weakness, hurts, needs, problems – for when he is weak, then he is strong.

Norman P. Grubb (1895-1993)
Who Am I?
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Truthing in Love

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But speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him, Who is the Head, even Christ (Ephesians 4:15).

There is actually no [Greek] word here for “speaking.” If the English language would permit the use of “truth” as a verb we should express the original best by saying “truthing in love.” The word [ἀληθεύω (alētheuō)], translated “speaking the truth” implies more than verbally stating the truth. The force of the expression indicates that the believer speak, live and act according to “the Truth” … and all of this is to be done so “in love.”

Charles H. Welch (1880-1967)
An Alphabetical Analysis, Volume 5, page 85
Things to Come, Volume 16, page 93 (August, 1910)
(edited excerpts)
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Dry Times

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A part of our spiritual education at the hands of God has necessarily to be dry times, times when He appears to have withdrawn His presence, times when the Bible ceases to speak to us, prayer is dull, our heart seems cold, fruit seems to be nil; and such times are most healthy for us, as we thoroughly learn one lesson – to relax in the fact that He is believing in Himself for us. Once this lesson is learned, to a large extent, the variations disappear between dry and fresh, dull or bright, hot or cold, fruitful and fruitless, showing that they are largely illusory to a faith that is fixed.

Norman P. Grubb (1895-1993)
God Unlimited
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Containers … and More

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There is really only One Person in the Universe – God Himself. The creation is the means of manifesting Him. We humans are basically containers, created as persons in His image, to contain and manifest Him as The Person. God is the “All,” and we are merely the means of His Self-manifestation.

We are vessels, and activity is not the function of a vessel. Do we see what this means? Not that we have a life to live with God as our helper. Not that we must pray more, give more, love more, witness more. Not basically that we are God’s partners, or fellows, or co-workers, but that God Himself is the “All” in us. He is the One Who prays, gives, loves, witnesses. He lives our life, our common everyday life.

But, having absorbed and accepted that we are containers, we are more. We are united to Him Whom we contain in a way a vessel can never be united to what it contains. We are also Christ’s Body. A body is solely the agent of its head. In head and body, activity of the members comes to the forefront. A body is made for action. A head is useless without a body, so the Body in Ephesians is specifically spoken of as the fullness [plērōma] of the Head – “the fulness of Him that filleth all in all” (1:23). Head and Body are necessary to each other.

Norman P. Grubb (1895-1993)
God Unlimited
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