April 28
Daily Gleanings of the Saintly LifeFourth Sunday in Lent
Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. Galatians 5:1.
WHAT is this liberty? It is in no sense laxity as opposed to strictness. No epistle contains such a view of the Christian state, as one of strict and severe abnegation of every evil defiling thing, as this; for in it we read that terrible list of the works of the flesh, of which we are assured that they who do such things shall not "inherit the kingdom of God," and, following close upon it, that counter-list of the works of the Spirit, which teaches us so plainly that our religion is to consist in no mere negation of evil, but in the cultivation of every Christian grace. The whole concludes, "They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts." What a liberty! A liberty which consists in our having evil lusts crucified! Yes! it is a strange liberty for a worldly, sensual, and godless man! It is a liberty to flee from and resist and conquer sin. It is a liberty to break and to cast away the chains of covetousness, so that we should give liberally and cheerfully. It is liberty to serve God. It is liberty to be disengaged from the world and to cleave to Christ. A liberty from the chains of evil things which imprison the heart, and a freedom which will exalt and expand and ennoble it for ever and ever.
Have I not brought thee from the house of slaves,
Parted the drowning waves,
And set My Saints before thee in the way,
Lest thou shouldst faint or stray?
What! was the promise made to thee alone?
Art thou th' excepted one?
An heir of glory without grief or pain?
O vision false and vain!
There lies thy cross; beneath it meekly bow,
It fits thy stature now;
Who scornful pass it with averted eye,
I will crush them by and by.