And the Lord wants my body as "_a living_ sacrifice." He asks for it when it is thoroughly alive! We so often deny the Lord our bodies until they are infirm and sickly, and sometimes we do not offer them to Him until they are quite "worn out." It is infinitely better to offer them even then than never to offer them at all. But it is best of all to offer our bodies to our Lord when they are strong, and vigorous, and serviceable, and when they can be used in the strenuous places of the field. And so let me appoint a daily consecration service, and let me every morning present my body "a living sacrifice" unto God. Let me regard it as a most holy possession, and let me keep it clean. Let me recoil from all abuse of it--from all gluttony, and intemperance, and "riotous living." Let me look upon my body as a church, and let the service of consecration continue all day long. "Know ye not that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit?" NOVEMBER The Sixth _PEACE IN TRIBULATION_ JOHN xvi. 25-33. Here is a strange medley of experiences! I am to enjoy the gift of peace, and yet I am to be smarting under tribulation! When the Holy Spirit is my guest I am to enjoy the gift of peace. "_These things I said unto you that ye might have peace._" The life of the soul is to move without jar or discord. It shall be like a quiet engine-house, in which every wheel co-operates with every other wheel, and there is no waste or friction in the holy place. "All that is within me" blesses God's holy name. And yet, while peace reigns within, there may be tribulation without! "_In the world ye shall have tribulation._" Here is a peace which is not broken by the noise and assault of brutal circumstance. The most tempestuous wind cannot disturb the quiet serenity of the stars. When the world stones me, not one grain of its gritty dust need enter the delicate workings of my soul. That was the peace of my Lord, and it is my Lord who says to me: "My peace I give unto you!" So "_be of good cheer_," my soul! Thy Lord has "_overcome the world_," and thou shalt share His victory. NOVEMBER The Seventh _REJECTED LOVE_ ISAIAH lxiii. 7-14. If I refuse the friendship of the Holy One I inevitably invite His hostility. "_But they rebelled, and vexed His holy Spirit: therefore He was turned to be their enemy, and He fought against them._" And so, if I reject the forces of grace I do not turn them from my gate, I convert them into foes. Malachi teaches me that rejected sunshine becomes like a burning oven. The Epistle to the Hebrews teaches me that rejected love becomes "a consuming fire." Holiness nourishes virtue, it withers vice. If I offer my Lord a tender aspiration, His breath wooes it like the balmy air of the spring; if I come before Him with the weeds of ignoble dispositions, He blights them as with the nipping of the frost.