To enjoy nearness to God we must not be influenced by any will of sense.
The impulse of sense is so deceptive that, if we are not very watchful and
fully surrendered to God with an intense desire to know and do his will,
it will prevent our understanding his will to us. It may not be difficult
to convince you that it is God's will that your brother should go as a
missionary to some foreign field, but very difficult to convince you that
it is God's will for you to go, when perhaps it is just as reasonable
every way that you should go. It may be the will of sense to remain, that
prevents your knowing God's will.
Here is a truth I wish you to think upon: We can not see the folly of any
passion clearly when we are strongly tempted by that passion. A sanctified
man may eat too much sometimes; he may be intemperate sometimes in the
sexual relation; and yet the Word of God says, "Whether ye eat or drink,
or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." Let me say, however,
that those who enjoy deep union and communion with God are careful to be
temperate in their entire manner of life.
As we have stated before, the pure in heart have organs of sense. These
organs can be impressed by external objects. These impressions may
properly be termed "feelings." A man filled with the Holy Spirit may, when
being praised by some unwise person, be tempted to pride; in other words,
he feels a sense of pride. This feeling is in the self-life of the man. A
sanctified man is tempted to impatience. He feels a sense of impatience,
not carnal, but as an impulse of sense in the self-life. When some one
does something contrary to your pleasure or wishes, you may have feelings
of displeasure or impatience. The patience of a mother is sometimes tried
by the conduct of a child. The trying of patience is simply feelings of
impatience in the self-life. But in her patience she is to possess her
soul. These feelings of impatience are to be resisted in the strength of
the Lord. Resist them with a prayer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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