Expositions of Holy Scripture: PsalmsMaclaren, Alexander
Religion
Expositions of Holy Scripture: Psalms
Maclaren, Alexander
Bible. Psalms -- Commentaries
Why should it cause anxious thought? Take your own personal salvation
for granted, and work from that. Do not work _towards_ it. If you have
gone to Christ and said, 'Lord, I cannot save myself; save me. I am
willing to be saved,' be sure that you have the salvation that you ask,
and that if you have put your soul in that fashion into God's hands, any
incredible thing is credible, and any impossible thing is possible,
rather than that you should fail of the salvation which, in the bottom
of your hearts, you desire. Take the burden off your backs and put it on
His. Do not be for ever questioning yourselves, 'Am I a saved man?' You
will get sick of that soon, and you will be very apt to give up all
thought about the matter at all. But take your stand on the fact, and
with emancipated and buoyant hearts, and grateful ones, work from it,
and because of it. And when sin rises up in your soul, and you say to
yourselves, 'If I were a Christian I could not have done that,' or, 'If
I were a Christian I could not be so-and-so'; remember that all sin is
inconsistent with being a Christian, but no sin is incompatible with it;
and that after all the consciousness of shortcomings and failure, we
have just to come back to the old point, and throw ourselves on God's
love. His arms are open to clasp us round. 'Into Thy hands I commit my
spirit.'
Further, the Psalmist meant, by committing himself to God, trusting Him
in reference to daily life, and all its difficulties and duties. Our act
of trust is to run through everything that we undertake and everything
that we have to fight with. Self-will wrenches our souls out of God's
hands. A man who sends his securities to the banker can get them back
when he likes. And if we undertake to manage our own affairs, or fling
ourselves into our work without recognition of our dependence upon Him,
or if we choose our work without seeking to know what His will is, that
is recalling our deposit. Then you _will_ get it back again, because God
does not keep anybody's securities against his will--you will get it
back again, and much good it will do you when you have got it!
Self-will, self-reliance, self-determination--these are the opposites of
committing the keeping of our souls to God. And, as I say, if you
withdraw the deposit, you take all the burden and trouble of it on your
own shoulders again. Do not fancy that you are 'living lives of faith in
the Son of God,' if you are not looking to Him to settle what you are to
do. You cannot expect that He will watch over you, if you do not ask Him
where you are to go.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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