Do Not Be Anxious - Matthew 6:25-34

QUESTION: Explain "Take no thought for your life what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor for your body, what ye shall put on, take no thought for the morrow." (Matt. 6: 25-34).

ANSWER: The Revision is more exact: "Be not anxious." Perfect trust in God cannot dwell in the same heart with worry about the future. Where the great purpose of life is to promote the kingdom of God and to obtain the righteousness which he requires and bestows — if this is our chief good, the inferior good of material things will be added. For the Christian virtues are economic, promoting health, industry, frugality, a sufficiency, and often an overplus for Christian charities and Gospel missions.

— Steele's Answers p. 150.

Trust and Consecration

Some writers on advanced Christian experience magnify the will, and say to inquirers, Yield, bow, submit, to the law of Christ. While the evangelist of the Wesleyan type says, Believe, believe Christ's every word. Both are right. Perfect trust cannot exist without perfect consecration. Nor can we make over all our interests into Christ's hands without the utmost confidence in his word.

Hence, crucifixion with Christ implies perfect faith in him, not only when he is riding in triumph into Jerusalem amid the huzzas of enthusiastic men and the hosannas of willing children, but when the fickle multitude are crying, "Crucify him." From the beginning Jesus intimated that discipleship must be grounded on an acceptance of himself, stripped of all the attractions of riches or honor. To know him after the flesh, from some selfish and worldly motive, is to fail to know him in that way which insures eternal life. To an enthusiastic scribe who had just seen the glorious display of power in the healing of Peter's wife's mother and the casting out of demons, and who was taking only a romantic, rose-colored view of discipleship prompting the thoughtless promise, "I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest," Jesus replied, "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head." "Let him who follows me know that he is following a pauper, fed at the tables of friends, and soon to be buried as a beggar at their expense." "If any man will be my disciple, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me."

Here over the very gateway of the kingdom of Christ, stand chiseled the stoney words "Crucifixion of self." Hence, it is no stern requirement of the so-called higher Christian life; it is the condition of the lowest degree of spiritual life. The higher the degree of life the higher the required consecration.

— Half-Hours with St. Paul Chapter 10.

Let Yourself Go

Some teach that consecration must be a perfect and distinct act, preceding faith as a distinct act. But we can never surrender to a person whom we do not trust. So that faith, simple faith, lies at the bottom of every step God-ward. We have recently seen a beautiful illustration of the need of trust in order to complete consecration. A glass-worker makes a beautiful, yet exceedingly frail, ornament, and brings it to his friend as a gift. He says, "This is yours; it is very delicate, and must be touched with the greatest care.

"But," says the friend, whose hand has been out stretched for several minutes, "why do you not let go your grasp and give it to me?"

"O, because I am afraid that you will take hold of it so strongly as to break it, and all my labour will be lost," replies the giver.

"But you say that it is mine; let it go, then, and if it is shattered in the transfer, the loss will be mine and not yours."

If your gift of yourself to Christ is in good faith, let yourself go; and if you break all in pieces, you have lost nothing; it is His loss. Perhaps He can make a better use of you, thus shattered, than He could with your wholeness. In His service a broken heart is a thousand times more efficient for good than a whole one.

— Mile-Stone Papers, Part 1, Chapter 15.

Consecration and Trust

There are but two steps down into the pool which makes whole — consecration and trust. Difficulties attend both steps. Some are in doubt whether they surrender all to the disposal of Christ. To such we say, Consecrate all you know, and then all you do not know. This includes all your assets. God asks no more than this. At this point many fail, through fear that they are to become paupers, when God means to endow them with untold wealth. What, let Christ become my Lord indeed! Is it safe to give Him complete control over my heart, to be the Sovereign of my will, the Owner of all my property, while I sink down to a mere stewardship under Him. Will He not take some cruel advantage of me? Will He not command me to hard service? Will not reproaches be heaped up on me, if I avow before men and angels that I am wholly Christ's? Very likely He will honour you by entrusting to you some difficult labour. If you go into partnership with Him, you must share all the reproach which comes upon the firm. You are advised beforehand that Jesus is an unpopular character in what is called the best society. "If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of His household?" "The world will hate you, because it hateth Me: but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." Hence there can be no perfect consecration without an accompanying perfect trust.

— Mile-Stone Papers, Part 1, Chapter 15.

The First Throb of Spiritual Life

QUESTION: In Revelation 2:4, what is signified by first-love?

ANSWER: The love of God shed abroad in the heart when he first savingly trusts in Jesus. Christ, awakening responsive love which is the first throb of spiritual life, Strange indeed is the fact that backsliders generally deny and decry this experience as a mere spasm of excited sensibilities.

— Steele's Answers p. 93. 

Altar Advice

QUESTION: Is it right to exhort seekers at the altar to believe that God does now forgive their sins instead of trusting in Christ to forgive till assured of it by the witness of the spirit?

ANSWER: Some have been saved under such advice, not because the advice was good, but because they did rely on Christ; but others have been bewildered and thrown into despair. This erroneous advice implies that the seeker, and not God, is to decide when the conditions of salvation have been complied with. This is God's province. Some say, trust the Word, for it contains the assurance of salvation; "believe that Christ does not cast you out, but receives you." The Bible can no more tell a man his sins are forgiven than the revised Statutes of a State can tell a convict in prison that he is pardoned. This is the prerogative of the Governor. Nor should anyone seeking entire sanctification say that the work is done because he has done his part, but he realizes no change. This implies that God is belated in keeping his promises. The safe advice is, trust till you know, then confess to the glory of God.

— Steele's Answers pp 72, 73.

Put Yourself Into Christ's Hands

A friend of the writer, travelling abroad, became sick in Paris. He sent for the most eminent physician in the city, who, after a careful diagnosis, informed his patient that he was attacked with a fatal fever then prevailing in the French capital. Said he to him, "You will soon lose your reason, and then sink into a state of insensibility, from which it is not certain that you will rally. But I will do my best to carry you safely through the deadly disease. Make your will, and deposit it with me. Put into my hands your trunk and its key, your watch, your purse, your clothes, your passport, and every thing else which you prize." The sick man was thunderstruck at such demands by an entire stranger, who might administer a dose of poison, and send the patient's body to the potter's field, and appropriate the surrendered treasures to his own use. A moment's reflection taught him that the demand was made out of pure benevolence, and that it was more safe to trust himself and his possessions to the hands of a man of high professional repute than to run the risk of being plundered by the hungry horde of hotel servants. He surrendered all his goods and himself into the charge of the physician. He sat by his bedside, saw his prophecy fulfilled, reason go out in delirium, and intelligence sink into stupor. He watched the ebbing tide of life with all the solicitude of a brother. At length he saw the tide turn, and detected the first faint refluent wave which was to bring the sick man back to the shores of life. He recovered, and found his purse and all his treasures restored to him.

Thus must you do if you would avail yourself of the skill of the all-healing Physician, Jesus Christ. Make your will, and give it to him. Commit your purse to his keeping. A consecrated pocket-book always attends a sanctified heart. Without this attendant, the heart-work is not real and genuine. Put yourself, your possessions, your reputation, your future, into Christ's hands by an act of consecration, and then BELIEVE that he will do his work without any assistance from you. You cannot improve your own condition. You cannot expel the dire disease of sin from its hold upon your very vitals. Jesus only can free you.

"His precious Blood both wounds and heals,
When faith the balm applies,
My peace restores, my pardon seals,
My nature sanctifies.
His precious Blood the life inspires
Which angels live above,
And fills my infinite desires,
And turns me all to love." 

— from Love Enthroned, Chapter  21.

What is Saving Faith In Jesus Christ?

QUESTION: Briefly describe saving faith in Jesus Christ.

ANSWER: This is a very important request. There is much which passes for faith in Christ which does not save. An eclectic faith does not save, the faith that dwells upon pleasant Gospel truths and ignores or rejects all disagreeable truths. In these days many are trusting in a fragmentary God regarding only the love side of the Divine character, forgetting that he is the Executive of the moral law. Saving faith believes all that Christ taught about heaven and hell, about eternal life and eternal punishment. Saving faith receives Jesus as Lord as well as the Teacher. To Him the will must bow. We must enthrone Him over our lives and render Him unhesitating obedience. Many seekers fail at this point. Again, there must be perfect trust in Him as the only Savior. Many think they are believing in Christ, while they are secretly leaning on their morality, their good works, the priest, the sacraments, the church. Again, an impenitent faith is unsaving. Penitence is the only soil out of which true faith can spring.

— Steele's Answers pp. 60, 61.

We Trust. God Works.

Guest blog by Hannah Whithall Smith (1832-1911):

There is a certain work to be accomplished. We are to be delivered from the power of sin, and are to be made perfect in every good work to do the will of God. ‘Beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord,’ we are to be actually ‘changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.’ We are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, that we may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. 

A real work is to be wrought in us and upon us. Besetting sins are to be conquered. Evil habits are to be overcome. Wrong dispositions and feelings are to be rooted out, and holy tempers and emotions are to be begotten. A positive transformation is to take place. So at least the Bible teaches. 

Now somebody must do this. Either we must do it for ourselves, or another must do it for us. We have most of us tried to do it for ourselves at first, and have grievously failed; then we discover from the Scriptures and from our own experience that it is a work we are utterly unable to do for ourselves, but that the Lord Jesus Christ has come on purpose to do it, and that He will do it for all who put themselves wholly into His hand, and trust Him to do it. 

Now under these circumstances, what is the part of the believer, and what is the part of the Lord? Plainly the believer can do nothing but trust; while the Lord, in whom he trusts, actually does the work intrusted to Him. Trusting and doing are certainly contrastive things, and often contradictory; but are they contradictory in this case? Manifestly not, because it is two different parties that are concerned.

— edited from: The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life Chapter 1.

An All Surrendering Trust

QUESTION: Harmonize Luke 14:33:

"Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple."

and Rom. 10:13,

"For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."

ANSWER: No one can effectually call upon the name of the Lord without abandoning every other hope and without an all surrendering trust, which includes the man himself and all his possessions — not that he is to give all his money to the first tramp that comes along, but to regard all as cheap in contrast with Christ, and to hold all as his steward to be administered for his glory. There is no contradiction in these texts.

— From Steele's Answers pp. 20, 21.