Bøger af James H McConkey

At no period in the last century of the history of God's people has there been more emphasis placed upon the Christian life and walk than at the present. For long years the hearts of God's true children have longed for the fullest, richest, closest spiritual life attainable in Christ Jesus. That there was such a deeper, higher, broader life in Christ than the lives of many of His children were exemplifying, was admitted by all. The Word of God promised it; the lives of the early disciples were resplendent with its glory; the hearts of God's devout children clung to it with pathetic persistence. That self-same tenaciousness of faith in the possibility of such a fullness of Christian experience was the Spirit-born and Spirit-fed proof of its existence. Men's hearts would not yield their faith in its existence because the Spirit who dwelt within them would not suffer such faith to perish. Seeing then that he could not banish the vision of the glory-crowned peak, the arch-adversary sought to becloud the pathway to it. Knowing that they would not surrender their faith in the distant haven he essayed to confuse, by a maze of misleading lines, the chart that guided weary seekers to it. As for a thousand years he had blinded the way to the heart-resting peace with God, so now he diligently set himself to darken the path to the heart-keeping peace of God. Error and false teaching of divers and manifold forms swarmed to the becloudment. Perfectionism; sanctification of the flesh; eradication of inbred sin from that in which a holy God declares there "dwelleth no good thing"; holiness teaching with much of truth, yet such serious error in the ignoring and wresting of God's word as has led to pitiable disappointment, and spiritual disaster;--all these have hung about the true pathway to fullness of life in Christ, as the mist and mirage beset the toiling traveler eager to reach his journey's end.

"Pray ye." - Matt. 9: 38. The Word of the Father is a call to Prayer. Everywhere in His Word God calls His children to the prayer life. "Ask, and ye shall receive." "And He spake a parable unto them that men ought always to pray and not to faint." "Pray, that ye enter not into temptation." "Enter into thy closet, shut the door and pray to thy Father." "After this manner therefore pray ye." "Pray ye the Lord of the Harvest." "Pray without ceasing." "Brethren, pray for us." "I will therefore that men pray." "Is any afflicted, let him pray." The example of the Son is a Call to Prayer. Christ's earthly life was one of unceasing prayer. He prayed at His baptism. He prayed before sending out His disciples. He prayed at the grave of Lazarus. He prayed for Peter that his faith might not fail He prayed on the Mount of Transfiguration. He prayed when they would have made Him King. He prayed at the last supper. He prayed in Gethsemane. He prayed on the cross for His enemies.

Some have His indwelling life only as the trickling stream with scarce enough to keep and refresh them at times of test and stress, and never knowing what His fulness means. Others there are in whom the words of Jesus are joyously fulfilled: "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly" (more aboundingly). Not only are they filled with the Spirit in their own inner life, but they overflow in abundant, outgiving blessing to the hungry and thirsty lives about them that seek to know the secret of their refreshing. Sorrow comes, but it cannot rob them of their great peace. Dark grow the days, but their child-like faith abounds more and more. Heavily fall the afflictive blows but like the oil well which, under the blow of the explosive, gives forth a more abundant flow because of the very shattering of its rocky reservoir, so their lives only pour out an ever increasing and enriching volume of blessing upon those about them.