May 3

"The word is very nigh unto thee."—Deuteronomy 30:14.

GOD'S commandment is not too hard for me. It must be, indeed, if I attempt to fulfil it in my unaided strength; for this boasted strength of mine is helpless inability, so far as spiritual and heavenly things are concerned. But, when He gives the commandment, He is eager to give me, too, His kingly and overcoming power to make all things possible to me. Augustine puts it well: God bestows what He enjoins, and then He may enjoin whatever He will.

Neither is His commandment far off. I have not to go through a long novitiate, like the mediæval knight, before I can be pleasing to Him. I have not to tarry for maturity and age before I shall satisfy Him. I have not to wait for heaven, before I am qualified to do His will. Here and now I may obey His first mandate, that I believe on Him whom He hath sent; and, after that, the other mandates will follow, little by little, step by step. I shall meet them at each turning of my path, and always with a smile on their faces.

Neither is God's commandment a covenant of cursing and death. I can only make it so by wilful impenitence and by disobedience persevered in to the end; He has no desire that it should bring me aught but blessing and life. Judgment is His strange work, and nothing but the sternest necessity will compel Him to have recourse to it. If I am willing and obedient, I shall eat the good of the land. If I keep the commandment, I shall reap a great reward.

If His law fetters me, it is with a chain of gold. When I am within its threshold, there is "a world of strife shut out, a world of love shut in."