April 21
All in All, Or Not At All
In the Hour of Silence"Seemeth it to you a light thing to be a king's son-in-law?"
CHRIST'S demand is—absolute Meekness. The most exacting is not to weary me, nor to anger me, nor to draw forth my churlish and untender refusal. I should be ready to sacrifice my own pleasure and comfort, even my own rights and claims and dues. My blessed Master, though He was God over all, did not please Himself; and no more should I.
Christ's demand is—invincible Love. I cannot walk through the world without awakening hostility in some breasts. How shall I treat the enemies who thwart and persecute me? Shall I render them evil for evil? Nay, I must heap coals of fire on their heads. Let me forgive them the hundred pence which they owe me, for His dear sake who freely remitted my great debt of ten thousand talents.
Christ's demand is—the very Perfection of God. To these snows so pure, these peaks so high, He points me on and up. With nothing short of the stainless beauty of the heavenly places will He be satisfied. He would have me spiritually sound, vigorous, every trace of weakness gone, my soul and my body those of a child in the blameless family of the Father. May my desires coincide with His!
I cannot fulfil His demands in myself; but when it is not I who live but He who lives in me, all things are possible, and there is nothing too high or too hard. Long ago, in Israel, David not only became the king's son-in-law, but the king himself—every inch a king. And so may I, a king in the dynasty of God, through my Lord's grace dwelling in me.