Expositions of Holy Scripture: the ActsMaclaren, Alexander
Religion
Expositions of Holy Scripture: the Acts
Maclaren, Alexander
Bible. Acts -- Commentaries
And do you not think that your day's work, and your business
perplexities, come under the same category? Perhaps the best way to
secure understanding of what we ought to do, in regard to very small
and secular matters, is to keep ourselves very near to God, with the
windows of our hearts opened towards Jerusalem, that all the guidance
and light that can come from Him may come into us. Depend upon it,
unless we have God's guidance in the trivialities of life, ninety per
cent., ay! and more, of our lives will be without God's guidance;
because trivialities make up life. And unless my Father in heaven can
guide me about what we, very mistakenly, call 'secular' things, and
what we very vulgarly call trivial things, His guidance is not worth
much. The Holy Ghost will give you wisdom for to-morrow, and all its
little cares, as well as for the higher things, of which I am not going
to speak now, because they do not come within my text.
'Full of grace,'--that is a wide word, as I take it. If, by our faith,
we have brought into our hearts that divine influence, the Spirit of
God does not come empty-handed, but He communicates to us whatsoever
things are lovely and of good report, whatsoever things are fair and
honourable, whatsoever things in the eyes of men are worthy to be
praised, and by the tongues of men have been called virtue. These
things will all be given to us step by step, not without our own
diligent co-operation, by that divine Giver. Effort without faith, and
faith without effort, are equally incomplete, and the co-operation of
the two is that which is blessed by God.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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