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206
THE
OVERCOMER.
Self-denial in Prayer.*
" My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and
to finish His work."—John iv., 34.
must be sacrifice in praver. So
THERE
many people, when they are beset by
untoward circumstances, begin to pray
themselves out of them, and the time they give
to themselves and their own affairs is lost to the
kingdom.
Each one should learn the lesson that God
will provide for them, spiritually and temporally,
as they work for the kingdom. But people
will not trust God to feed them spiritually.
When they get "hungry" for spirit-food they
are restless, and hunt about for food, whereas if
they had remained in hunger, and sought for the
work that God wanted them to perform, they
would have been instantly fed in the doing of it.
We need to learn the lesson of self-denial as
regards the spiritual feeding of oneself. The
truth is, the spiritual man is fed by the doing of
work in God's will. You have to come to the
point that you are willing to work for God—
whether it be in prayer, or other service—from
morn till night without considering yourself.
Then you become a practical, and a perfect workman. What folly there is in the false shepherding of oneself. What if you employed a man
to work for you, and when he came he spent all
his time looking after his own needs ? You say
you employed him not to attend to himself, but
to do your work. And we who are God's
workers should come to the point that we leave
ourselves in God's hands to feed us, and to clothe
us, so that we are free from morn till night to
serve Him.
Even as a boy, Christ manifests the thoughts
and actions'o f a fully matured spiritual man.
He said He must be about " the Father's
business." Nothing must keep Him from that
" business." He knows why He has come to
earth. He saw that He did not come down from
Heaven primarily to obey Joseph and Mary.
He came to do the Father's will. With those
who are the sons of God, in like manner the selfdenial should be so deep that the man is free
from himself to serve God—to do His will and
finish His work. If your "all is on the altar,"
and the offering is consumed by fire from heaven,
what is left for the one who is the sacrifice ?
The " all" is not on the altar to be kept alive,
but to be slain. Your all on the altar means
that from that moment God is free to work out
His will in you, without any obstruction, and you
not only are His son, but His servant. You become a "son" by partaking of His nature, and
you become a servant by doing His bidding.
* Notes of conversations with Mr. Evan Boberts, by Fidelis.
Many speak so much about consecration, and
yet their own will governs them; they are stubborn, and full of their own plans and their own
determination. Then their all is not on the
altar, because their seli-will is left behind, and
their stubborness. Deep surrender to God
means you are so consumed by God that He can
do as He will with you, like clay in the hands of
the potter. Then you are urged on by Divine
force, and from the moment of true surrender
God has no trouble with you.
In not attending to yourself you seem to be
wrong. It appears as if you should look after
yourself, but if you refuse to do it, and turn to
attend to the Kingdom, lo and behold, without
any effort of your own you find yourself right.
This taking care of oneself as regards being
spiritually fed is a great snare. The test comes
when you feel so wrong, and do not know what
to do, and then you put yourself on one side and
attend to the kingdom. " Let him deny himself." What is "denial"? "I do not know
the man." If you are in terrible spiritual
hunger, you say : God is going to see to it, and
to feed me. There are times when, if you dare
attempt to feed yourself, you get nothing; but
when you understand the spiritual law that you
will not get anything until you have given up
the self-principle of feeding yourself, then you
will find you are fed and sustained. Christ did
not say to Peter "Peed thyself." It is the lambs
who need feeding!
The only time when a spiritual man can lawfully attend to himself, is when he himself is not
the goal of his attention; that is, he is simply
"sharpening" himself as an instrument for the
conflict, or the work. The goal is not food for
himself, but work for God.
I have seen jobbing gardeners come and bring
their own tools to do their work; but supposing
on their arrival they began to sharpen their
shears, and pull the lawn-mower to pieces to oil
it, and to clean it, that would be theft of the
employer's time. Just so, there is too much
"theft" of God's time in the attending to oneself
instead of doing God's work for the kingdom.
Suppose that during the debates in the House
of Commons the Speaker is made acquainted
with some trivial family trouble, and leaves the
House to write a long family letter, and that
happened at every sitting, what sort of a Speaker
would he be ? Very few realise the imperative
nature of the demands of God and of His
Kingdom. You have no option; you do not
belong to yourself ; and it is " D.V." not only
about a meeting, but concerning everything all
day long. " Ye are not your own. For ye are
bought with a price; therefore glorify God in
your body, and in your spirit, which are God's."