The Conflict Within
“For the good that I would I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do” (Rom. 7: 19). This is humbling, but a just, account of the Christian’s attainments in the present life, and is equally applicable to the strongest and to the weakest. The weakest need not say less, the strongest will hardly venture to say more. The Lord has given His people a desire and will, aiming at great things; without this they would be unworthy the name of Christians; but they cannot do as they would; their least desires are weak and ineffectual; not absolutely so, for He who works in them to will, enables them in a measure to do likewise, but in comparison with the mark at which they aim. So that, while they have great cause to be thankful for the desire He has given them, and for the degree in which it is answered, they have equal reason to be ashamed and abased under a sense of their continual defects, and the evil mixtures which taint and abase their best endeavours. — Newton.
Growth in Knowledge
“Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord” (Hosea 6: 3). The mysteries of Christ are not learned in a day. Some are in a good mood, maybe, and they will look into the Bible and read a chapter or two, and away they go for a week, and never practise it more; like some boys, if at school one day, truant all the week after. Is it any wonder such thrive not in knowledge? It is a good speech of one:— “The study of the Word and the reading of it differs as much as the friendship of such who every day converse lovingly together doth from the acquaintance one hath with a stranger at an inn, or whom he salutes as he passeth by in the street.” If you will get knowledge indeed, you must not only salute the Word now and then, but walk with it, and enter into daily converse with it. — Gurnall.