"If God
has called you to be really like Jesus, He will draw you to
a life of crucifixion and humility, and put upon you such
demands of obedience, that you will not be able to follow
other people, or measure yourself by other Christians, and
in many ways He will seem to let other good people do things
which He will not let you do.
"Other Christians and ministers who seem very religious and
useful may push themselves, pull wires, and work schemes to
carry out their plans, but you cannot do it; and if you
attempt it, you will meet with such failure and rebuke from
the Lord as to make you sorely penitent.
"Others may boast of themselves, of their work, of their
success, of their writings, but the Holy Spirit will not
allow you to do any such thing, and if you begin it, He will
lead you into some deep mortification that will make you
despise yourself and all your good works.
"Others
may be allowed to succeed in making money, or may have a
legacy left to them, but it is likely God will keep you
poor, because He wants you to have something far better than
gold, namely, a helpless dependence on Him, that He may have
the privilege of supplying your needs day by day out of an
unseen treasury.
"The Lord may let others be honored and put forward, and
keep you hidden in obscurity, because He wants you to
produce some choice, fragrant fruit for His coming glory,
which can only be produced in the shade. He may let others
be great, but keep you small.
"He may
let others do a work for Him and get the credit of it, but
He will make you work and toil on without knowing how much
you are doing; and then to make your work still more
precious, He may let others get the credit for the work
which you have done, and thus make your reward ten times
greater when Jesus comes.
"The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch over you, with a
jealous love, and will rebuke you for little words and
feelings, or for wasting your time, which other Christians
never seem distressed over. So make up your mind that God is
an infinite Sovereign, and has a right to do as He pleases
with His own.
"He may not explain to you a thousand things which puzzle
your reason in His dealings with you. But if you absolutely
sell yourself to be His...slave, He will wrap you up in a
jealous love, and bestow upon you many blessings which come
only to those who are in the inner circle.
"Settle it forever, then, that you are to deal directly with
the Holy Spirit, and that He is to have the privilege of
tying your tongue, or chaining your hand, or closing your
eyes, in ways that He does not seem to use with others.
"Now
when you are so possessed with the living God that you are,
in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this
peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship and
management of the Holy Spirit over your life, you will have
found the vestibule of Heaven."
"And you shall be holy to Me, for
I, the Lord, am holy, and have
separated you from the peoples, that you should be Mine."
Leviticus 20:26
"I am the Lord your God, who has
separated you from the peoples." Leviticus
20:24
"For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And
what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with
Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what
agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of
the living God.
"As God has said: 'I will dwell in them
and walk among them.
I will be their God, and they shall be My people.'
"Therefore 'Come out
from among them and be separate,' says the Lord. 'Do not touch
what is unclean, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you,
and you shall be My sons and daughters,' says the Lord Almighty.”
2
Corinthians 6:14-18
"Who shall separate us
from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or
persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is
written:
'For Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.'
Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who
loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor
angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor
things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created
thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in
Christ Jesus our Lord."
Romans 8:35-39