On Bearing With The Faults Of Others

Imitation of Christ by Thomas A. Kempis

Those things that a man cannot amend in himself or in others, he ought to suffer, patiently, until God orders them otherwise.

Endeavor to be patient with the defects and infirmities of others, of what sort so ever they be: for that thyself also has many failings which must be borne with by others.

If thou canst not make thyself such an one as though wouldest, how canst thou expect to have another in all things to thy liking?

We would willingly have others perfect, and yet we amend no our own faults.

We will have others severely corrected, and will not be corrected ourselves.

The large liberty of others displease us; and yet we will not have our own desires denied us.

We will have others kept under strict laws; but in no sort will ourselves be restrained.

And thus it appeareth, how seldom we weigh our neighbor in the same balance with ourselves.

If all men were perfect, what should we have to suffer of our neighbor for the sake of God.

But now God hath thus ordered it, that we may learn to bear one another’s burdens; for no man is without fault; no man hath his burden; no man is sufficient of himself; but we ought to bear with one another, help, instruct, and admonish one another.

Occasions of adversity best discover how great virtue or strength each one hath.

For occasions do not make a man frail, but they show what he is.

The Duty of Discrimination

Judge not, that ye be not judged—Matt. 7:1-5

Several meanings may be put on these words.  (1) Pass no final condemnation on anyone; judge yourself critically, but judge others charitably.  (2) Let self-judgment and not judgment of others be the guiding principle of your life.  This is not to preclude discernment and convictions.  (3) The surest way to make folk sit in judgment on you is to maintain a spirit of judgment toward them.  “Do not judge, if you would not be judged” may rightly convey the meaning of Jesus’ instruction.  Indeed, the attitude of others toward you is a fair index of your attitude toward them.

Nothing could be farther from the meaning of this admonition than the conclusion that a person is not to form opinions and tentative judgments.  An honest person must evaluate himself as well as others.  Jesus is, in fact, urging the most careful discrimination between the mote and the beam;  He desires that each of us “sees clearly” his own as well as his brother’s need.  It is a sad fact that most of us do not see clearly enough; we have not properly “proved all things.”

The danger pointed out by Jesus is the tendency to minimize our faults and to magnify the faults of others.  The critical person who sees “the mote” in his brother’s eye is completely unaware of anything in his own!  Such a person commonly has a beam in his eyes, and is in no position therefore to correct his neighbor.

If only a person would first view himself critically!  Jesus calls that person a hypocrite who constantly overlooks his own need of adjustment and ever sees the inconsistencies of others.  “Fist cast the beam out of thine own eye.”  It is one’s own duty to carefully examine and correct his own conduct before he endeavors to help others.

These words have a very pointed applicatio9n for preachers and for Christian workers who are constantly engaged in seeking to help others.  We may be so sure of having corrected certain things in our lives and so solicitous in seeking a similar correction in others that we neglect further personal adjustments.  Our spotty vision, seeing only the errors corrected and self-adjustments already made, may lead us to spiritual intolerance and bitter condemnation of others who have not yet had “the mote” pulled out of their eyes.  On the other hand, a person who is constantly endeavoring to pull “the beams” out of his own eye has almost unlimited access to another brother who is troubled with “a mote.”

--George E. Failing

If We Knew All the Facts

If we know all the facts, none of us would be so critical of others.  We often set ourselves up as self-appointed judges and severely condemn those about us, when our knowledge of all the facts involved is totally inadequate.  If we only knew all the element, we would praise and not condemn.

A man went to a barber shop to get a shoeshine.  The shine boy was slow with his work.  Exasperated, the man spoke to him harshly and with cruel words, whereupon the boy looked up at him with tear-filled eyes.

“Excuse me,” said the man, now contrite, “I did not intend to hurt you.”

“It is not that, sir, which causes these tears.  They were already there already.  You see, my mother died last night, and I am here this morning to earn enough to buy a small bouquet of flowers to go on her grave.  My eyes were so filled with tears I could hardly see your shoes.  That’s the reason I am so slow.”

The man was condemned in his own heart.  If he had only known all the facts!

If we only knew all the facts, we would be less envious and more sympathetic.  We would also be happier.

The Weakest Christian That I Know

“Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual restore him gently.  But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.”  Gal 6:1

Though you may know an abundance of people to be guilty of some gross sins with which you cannot charge yourself, yet you may justly condemn yourself as the weakest Christian that you know; and that for the following reasons:

First, because you know more of the folly of your own heart than you do of other people’s and you cannot be sure that others are guilty of such folly.  So, since you know more of the folly, the baseness, the pride, the deceitfulness and negligence of your own heart than you do of anyone else’s, you have just reason to consider yourself the weakest Christian that you know, because you know more of the greatness of your failings.

Secondly, the seriousness of your weakness arises chiefly from the greatness of God’s goodness to your, from the particular graces and blessings, the favors, the light, the instruction which you have received from Him.  Every person knows more of the aggravations of his own weakness than he does of other people’s and consequently may look upon himself to be the weakest Christian that he knows.  How good God has been to others, what light and instruction he has given to them what blessings and graces they have received from Him, how often he has touched their hearts with holy inspiration, you cannot tell.  But all this you know of yourself; therefore, you know greater aggravations of your weakness, and are able to charge yourself with greater ingratitude than you can charge other people.  This is the reason why the greatest saints have in all ages condemned themselves as the weakest of Christians.

In order, therefore, to know our weakness you must consider your own particular circumstances:  your health, your sickness, your youth or age, your occupation, the amount of your education, the degrees of light and instruction which you have received, the good men which you have conversed with, the holy people it has been your privilege to associate with, the good books that you have read, the multitude of divine blessings, graces, and favors that you have received, the good motions of grace that you have resisted, the impulses toward good that you have frustrated, the resolutions of amendment that you have broken, the checks of the Spirit that you have disregarded.  Only you know how seldom you pray through, how infrequently you pray yourself happy, how often your prayers are not answered.  No one else knows as you do how dry and lean you are for long periods of time, how that many times the Bible seems to be a closed book to you, how that so few times you are melted and made mellow and made tender by the Spirit.  So little of the fruit of the Spirit, so little spiritual progress, so much hardness of heart, such slow response of the Spirit of God!  Perhaps the person of whom you are so critical would have been so much better than your are, had he been altogether in your circumstances, and received all the same favors and graces from God that you have.

This a very humbling reflection for any of us and very proper for those people to make who measure their virtues by comparing the outward course of their lives with that of other people.  Also for those who are inclined to be critical of others.

“May Grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made perfect in weakness….  When I am weak then am I strong.”  II Cor. 12:9, 10

“Out of weakness they were made strong.”  Heb. 11:34

“God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the…mighty.” I Cor. 1:27

-L. J. Reckard

The Minister

He held the lamp of truth that day

So low that none could miss the way;

And yet so high, to bring in sight

That picture fair-the world’s great Light-

That gazing up, the lamp between,

The hand that held it scarce was seen.

He held the pitcher, stooping low

To lips of little ones below;

Then raised it to the weary saint,

And bade him drink when sick and faint;

They drank-the pitcher thus between,

The hand that held it scarce was seen.

He blew the trumpet soft and clear,

That trembling sinners need not fear;

And then, with louder note and bold

To raze the walls of Satan’s hold.

The trumpet coming thus between,

The hand that held it scarce was seen.

But when the Captain says, “Well done,

Thou good and faithful servant-come!

Lay down the pitcher and the lamp;

Lay down the trumpet-leave the camp,”

These weary hands will then be seen

Clasped in those pierced ones-naught between.

Prayer Lessons from Gethsemane

“The place called Gethsemane” is a hallowed place:  let us tread reverently. But let us enter the Garden and learn what Christ would teach us of prayer, for prayer is a sacred art and needs much teaching and practice.

Real praying always costs a Gethsemane.  Praying through is always a victory over pressure. No soul was ever converted or sanctified who did not pray his way through the pressure of sins, doubts and fears.  And do not our hearts tell us that the outstanding reason for fruitless living is our slowness and unwillingness to enter the Garden of intercession in behalf of others?

Not every disciple is an intercessor.  Among these eleven were two groups.  To one group Jesus said, “Sit ye here,” and to the other group He said, “Watch with me.”  And there were eight of the “sitters” to three of “watchers.”  Let our hearts be hushed, Christian believers, and let our Lord ask us these questions:  Is that not a true ratio today?  In which class do I belong?

A step further.  Not every intercessor is watching with Jesus.  No wonder (Is it?) that our churches are so spiritually unprogressive and without the glory of the Presence!  The eight sit without the Garden, and the three who enter go to sleep!  Let out beloved Zion weep over her sleeping intercessors.

The place of prayer is a place of danger, if we fail to pray.  “Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.”  Jesus did not wish mere human comradeship in the Garden, nor did He take the three on into the Garden that they might minister to Him.  Jesus rather entered Gethsemane to win the victory by prevailing prayer, and He took the three disciples along to inspire them to prevailing prayer by His own example.  But when he returned they were asleep.  The three had a victory to gain in that hour but they did not gain it.  When the betrayer came the three fled as quickly as the eight.  Prayerlessness is the gateway to temptation.

Conquering the flesh is the path to prayer victories.  “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” reveals the greatest prayer hindrance, “the flesh.”  By this term we are not to understand the carnal nature.  It is our own proper human nature, as weakened by The Fall, that waylays us as we journey to the Garden of intercession.  The early disciples who became monks to avoid contact with the world’s sin greatly erred; but they recognized truly that a certain self-denial of “the flesh” did accelerate the battles of prayer, there must be a consecration of the body to the will of God.  “Neither count I my life dear unto myself,” was Paul’s way of stating it.

Who will watch with Jesus in intercession?

--George E. Failing

The Prayer Questionnaire

Let us take a view of our prayer life and see how we stand before God.  Our relationship and fellowship with God determines our relationship to all other persons and things, here and hereafter.  As we ask ourselves the following questions, let us be honest with God and own hearts.

1.    Do I have a special time and place of prayer, where I meet with God each day.  “In the morning rising up a great while before day he went out and departed into a solitary place and there prayed.” (Mark 1:35)

2.    How much time do you spend with God in prayer each day?  If not enough, why not?  What is more important?

3.    Do you have a spirit of prayer, a spiritual atmosphere about your life?  Do you make it easy for others to pray in your presence?

4.    How long since you go blessed in prayer?

5.    How long since you had a definite answer to prayer?

6.    Do you ever fast and pray?  “Such cometh out but by prayer and fasting.”

7.    Do you live a life of prayer—“prayer without ceasing”?

8.    Does you prayer time seem short, or long and drawn out and burdensome?  Do you enjoy you fellowship and courtship with God?  If not, why not?

9.    Do you have a family altar in your home?  If not, why not?  If so, will your children remember it in after-years as a place and time of communion with God, or a dry and dreaded time?

10.  Would you have confidence in others if you knew that they prayed no more than you do?

11.  Would you be willing for your pastor and other Christians friends to know how much or how little you pray?  

12.  How long since you had a burden for souls in prayer?

13.  How long has it been since a soul was saved or filled with the Spirit in answer to your prayer?

14.  Are you ever defeated or discouraged because of a lack of prayer—“men, women ought always to pray and not to faint.”  We are never defeated or discouraged when we are prayed up.  “Temptations lose their power when Thou are nigh.”

15.  Do you talk to others more than you talk to God?  Do you unload your troubles and problems on others instead of on God?  God always understands and stands under us—“underneath are the everlasting arms.”

16.  Do you pray more in secret than in public?

17.  Do you attend a mid-week prayer meeting and other special season of prayer with others?  If not, why not?

18.  Have you allowed the cares of this world, or the deceitfulness of riches to crowd out God and your prayer life?

19.  Did you ever spend more time with God than you do now?

20.  Can you live the Christ life without keeping in touch with Christ?

--Rev A. L. Vess

Thanks to the White Line

A few years ago there was quoted in a widely read devotional quarterly the following sentence from a personal letter:  “The fog was terrible: we had to creep along at five miles an hour, but arrived home safe and sound—thanks to the white line.”

There is a sermon in that sentence—perhaps many of them.  We often find the road of daily living obscured with a heavy fog; the future is uncertain; our duties are not clear; the effects of our acts are largely hidden from us; and what seems to be clearly our rights bring us into a clash with others.

Obscurity means danger.  “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” was the word of God through Hosea.  On the road of daily living we are endanger ourselves and we endanger others.  In the midst of the intricate relationships of our daily lives the unfortunate attitudes and habits of others may be communicated to us and we may injure others by our own example.

For the Christian there is a white line down the middle of the roadway of daily living.  It is the example and teaching of Jesus.  It does not afford us minute rules of conduct for every situation, but it encourages attitudes and enjoins principles that will help to keep us in the way.  To give single-hearted devotion to God is surely the best way to escape the contamination of secularism, and to adopt the redemptive attitude of our heavenly Father is surely the best way of working no ill to our neighbor.

The White Line is not always easy to follow.  It is obscured by the accumulation of theorizing that has gone on about the meaning of Jesus’ life and teaching.  It is obscured by the moral failures of many of the professed followers of Jesus.  But if a person will focus his eyes, not upon the fog but upon Jesus himself, he will be able to see enough of his duty to move forward.  One will often have to “creep along at five miles an hour,” or even five miles a day, but he will not have to stop.  In fact to stop is to endanger both himself and those behind him.

The White Line will lead us home, home to life’s haven of inner happiness and well-being, to joy of rich fellowship and fullness of life.  He who is “the way and the truth and the life” will bring us safely through the fog into the warmth and light of our eternal home.

--Selected

Only Hyphen

In Wasserburg, a small peninsula on Lake Constance, there stands a small church close to the shore.  Around the church is a cemetery.  One of the congregational deaconesses was showing me this wonderful place, when suddenly she stopped and pointed down into the water before us.  “Here,” she said, “my life was decided.”  I looked down into the waves.  Old gravestones were lying there on the bottom.  When the water is clear, you can still read the inscriptions.

The deaconess continued, “When I was a young girl I was standing here once, looking down just as we are now.  My eye fell upon on particular stone whose name was no longer readable.  But I could still make out the dates, 1789-1821.  And there it struck me that the hyphen between those two numbers was a whole human life.  A mere hyphen, a dash, that’s all our life amounts to.  It suddenly came to me what a responsibility we have to make something worthwhile out of this miserable little hyphen.  That very moment I made my decision to place my whole life in the service of Christ, and thus I became a deaconess.”

We sat for some time there on the shore and it struck me also to see how great a miracle it is when God takes this little hyphen of our life and makes it into something “for the praise of his glory.”

Heart Holiness

COME, O my God, the promise seal,

This mountain, sin, remove;

Now in my gasping soul reveal

The virtue of thy love.

I want thy life, thy purity,

Thy righteousness, brought in;

I ask, desire, and trust in thee,

To be redeemed from sin.

For this, as taught by thee, I pray,

And can no longer doubt;

Remove from hence! to sin I say,

Be cast this moment out!

Anger and sloth, desire and pride,

This moment be subdued!

Be cast into the crimson tide

Of my Redeemer's blood!

Saviour, to thee my soul looks up,

My present Saviour thou!

In all the confidence of hope,

I claim the blessing now.

'Tis done! thou dost this moment save,

With full salvation bless;

Redemption through thy blood I have,

And spotless love and peace.

--Charles Wesley

Make Me an Angel

A person should not want to be an angle, I suppose.  After all, people are a higher, order of beings than angels, I understand.

I know also that there will be no migration of soul after death, and that if I die a human I will be a human forever.

Still there are reasons why I should like to be an angel—a good angel, of course.

Angels are often mentioned in the Bible as bearers of good tidings.  They were messengers from heaven.  The “word spoken by angels” proved true and reliable.  I would like to be a bearer of good news.

Angels often appeared quickly and without invitation.  They just “showed up” in the very hour of need.  Most of them are nameless.  The face or form of none of them is well described.  But they came and performed and errand of mercy right at a critical moment.  I would like to do that.

Furthermore, angels never drew attention to themselves.  They seldom discussed their mission or its difficulty.  They never complained about the task. They never dramatized themselves, but tried to appear as ordinary people.  They never stayed to reap a harvest of praise for what they did, simply delighted to do their work and went on.  I want to be like that.

Angels must live close to God, so close they hear His voice and know what He wants done.  What other angels do, or do not, never seems to bother them.  They only want to know what God wants them to do.  I want to live that close to God.

Angels are associated with singing and with radiance.  Where they are there is music, heavenly music.  And where they are there is light, heavenly radiance.  Any sky would be lightened by their presence, and any burden would vanish by their song.  I want to go my way singing, and walk with a radiant face among men.

No, I cannot actually become an angel, but I can be angel-like. Stephen’s face shone “as an angel” and angels minister to them who are angel-like.

--George E. Failing

Caleb and the Mountain

He was a youth with falcon eyes, and hair as white as snow,

With arms of Spirit clinging to a hill of long ago.

“What would you choose,” ask Joshua, “of Canaan’s choicy spoil?”

“The mountain!” cried the ancient youth who feared no war nor toil.

When Moses first had sent them, the twelve, to spy alone,

The eyes of Caleb scaled the hill; he knew it was his own—

The Mount called Hebron—this he knew upon his bended knee;

He would return, God willing, to enter joyfully

The task of driving giants from off the wooded hill,

As clinging to his vision, he would return! Until

That day, no matter when, he’d keep the vision bright,

Of vineyards on the hillsides, and springs that catch the light.

The honeycomb within the tree was tender, pale, and sweet,

With ruby-red pomegranate juice and giant grapes to eat,

Yet, as they stood by Eschol and scanned the distant way,

They saw the giants stalking and knew that danger lay

Within the lush, sweet borders of this, the teeming soil,

This land of milk and honey.  They gathered sample soil

On soft feet still as moonlight; when forty days had passed,

They hastened to their camp again, for their report at last.

“Let us go … possess it,” young Caleb stood his ground;

But of the spies, one other was all that could be found

Whose eyes and heart went marching to live on victor’s ground.

So, after words and conflict, and tragedy’s black night,

The Israelites meandered on, with Canaan far from sight.

From year to year upon his bed within the wilderness

He looked up through the harplike trees, still hungry to possess

His hill.  And so the heat and cold of many barren years,

And plagues to dull the vision and multiply man’s fears.

Yet Caleb dreamed, “The hill is mine! Oh keep me strong, my God,

Until I stand upon the height, possessor of its sod!”

And through his heavy coal-black locks the silver sheen of years

Soon touched his hair, transforming him; and yet he owned no fears.

Then after long heart-breaking toil Sweet Canaan loomed in sight.

They crossed the Jordan River; God’s anger led the fight!

From victory to victory they marched, from gain to gain.

And Caleb thrilled, his eyes ahead.  He spoke to Joshua then,

“Now therefore, give this mountain.  I am as strong this day.”

And Joshua gave, and blessed him, and Caleb’s dream, they say,

Become a living symbol for all who long and roam

With instinct crying in the breast, “In Canaan there’s a home!

It calls me, calls me—beyond the Jordan blue,

So sweet, through bright with danger—and I am going through!”

--Maggie Culver Fry

8 Symptoms of False Doctrine

Many things combine to make the present inroad of false doctrine peculiarly dangerous.

1. There is an undeniable zeal in some of the teachers of error: their “earnestness” makes many think they must be right.

2. There is a great appearance of learning and theological knowledge: many fancy that such clever and intellectual men must surely be safe guides.

3. There is a general tendency to free thought and free inquiry in these latter days: many like to prove their independence of judgment, by believing novelties.

4. There is a wide-spread desire to appear charitable and liberal-minded: many seem half ashamed of saying that anybody can be in the wrong.

5. There is a quantity of half-truth taught by the modern false teachers: they are incessantly using. Scriptural terms and phrases in an unscriptural sense.

6. There is a morbid craving in the public mind for a more sensuous, ceremonial, sensational, showy worship: men are impatient of inward, invisible heart-work.

7. There is a silly readiness in every direction to believe everybody who talks cleverly, lovingly and earnestly, and a determination to forget that Satan often masquerades himself “as an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14).

8. There is a wide-spread “gullibility” among professing Christians: every heretic who tells his story plausibly is sure to be believed, and everybody who doubts him is called a persecutor and a narrow-minded man.

All these things are peculiar symptoms of our times. I defy any observing person to deny them. They tend to make the assaults of false doctrine in our day peculiarly dangerous. They make it more than ever needful to cry aloud, “Do not be carried away!”

~ J.C. Ryle  http://jcrylequotes.com/

One With Christ and Inseparable from Him

Let me hear when I am on my deathbed that Christ died in the stead of sinners, of whom I am chief; that He was forsaken by God during those fearful agonies because He had taken my place; that on His Cross He paid the penalty of my guilt.  Let me hear, too, that His blood cleanseth from all sin, and that I may now appear before the bar of God, not as pardoned only, but as innocent.  Let me realize the great mystery of the reciprocal substitutions of Christ and the believer, or rather their perfect unity—He in them, they in Him—which He has expressly taught.  And let me believe that as I was in effect crucified on Calvary, He will in effect stand before the throne in my person.

His the penalty, mine the sin; His the thorns, mine the crown; His the merits, mine the reward.  Verily, Thou dost answer for me, O Lord, my Redeemer; in Thee have I trusted; let me never be confounded.

--Bishop Jeune

In the Secret Place

Sometimes, to go and be alone with God and Christ in the fellowship of the Spirit, just for the joy and blessedness of it; to open, with reverent yet eager hands, the door into the presence chamber of the great King; and then to fall down before Him, it may be, in silent adoration; our very attitude and act of homage, our merely being there, through the motive that prompts it, the testimony of our soul’s love.

To have our set hours of close communion, with which no other friend shall interfere, and on which we look back with satisfaction and peace—this indeed is prayer, for its own sake, for God’s sake, for our friends’ sake, for the church’s sake, for our work’s sake; prayer which we do not hurry through to still the conscience, but which (other things permitting) we can even linger over to satisfy the heart.

If we Christians, who talk so much about the privilege and blessedness of prayer, would try to avail ourselves of it as we may, how should we reflect on the world around us the glory, as it streams on us from the face of the incarnate Mediator?

Spiritual Temperature

Albert Schweitzer, working in the African jungle, surrounded by darkness, disease, and death, wrote:  “I work with unbroken concentration, but without hurry.  However much I am at the mercy of the world, I never let myself get lost by brooding over its misery.  I hold firmly to the thought that each of us can do a little to bring some portion of that misery to an end.”

That is the spirit of a Christian; Jesus spread a new atmosphere by His very presence.  When He spoke, people gained new courage and hope and strength.  He did not allow Himself to sink to the level of His environment, but rather He lifted it up to His level.  It is ever the task of Christians to be thermostats—controlling the temperature of their lives; not thermometers, registering it—but to change and set the atmosphere of their environment, not merely to record it.