WHEN WE ARE IN A SAD STATE OF FEELING

“Grace is our strength and Christ our song!”

As Paul the Apostle wrote in 2 Corinthians 12:9 “For my strength is made perfect in weakness.” A primary qualification for serving God with any amount of success, and for doing God’s work well and triumphantly, is a sense of our own weakness. When God’s warriors march forth to battle, strong in our own might, when we boast, “We know that we shall conquer, our own right arm and our conquering sword shall get unto us the victory,” defeat is not far distant.

God will not go forth with us who marches in our strength. We who reckon on victory thus has reckoned wrongly, for “it is not by might, nor by power, but by Spirit, said the Lord of hosts.” We who go forth to fight, boasting of our prowess, shall return with our gay banners trailed in the dust, and our armor stained with disgrace. Those who serve God must serve Him in His own way, and in His strength, or He will never accept our service.

That which man doth, unaided by divine strength, God can never own. The mere fruits of the earth He cast away; He will reap that corn, that seed which was sown from heaven, watered by grace, ripened by the sun of divine love. God will empty out all that we have before He will put His own into us; He will first clean out our granaries before He will fill them with the finest of wheat.

The river of God is full of water; but not one drop of it flows from earthly springs. God will have no strength used in His battles but the strength which He himself imparts. Are we mourning over our own weakness and sad state of feeling? Let us take courage, for there must be a consciousness of weakness before the Lord will give us victory. Our emptiness is but the preparation for our being filled, and our casting down is but the making ready for our lifting up!

When we fall into a low, a sad state of feeling, we often try to lift ourselves out by chastening ourselves with dark and doleful fears. Such is not the way to rise from the dust, but to continue in it. As well chain the eagle’s wing to make it mount, so is doubt in order to increase our grace. It is not the law, but the gospel which saves the sinking soul at first; and it is not a legal bondage, but gospel liberty which can restore the fainting believer afterwards.

Slavish fear brings not back the backslider to God, but sweet wooing of love allures us to Jesus’ bosom. Are we thirsting for the living God, and unhappy because we cannot find Him to the delight of our heart? Have we lost our Joy to religion, and is this our prayer, “Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation”? Are we conscious also that we are barren, like the dry ground; that we are not bringing forth the fruit unto God which He had the right to expect of us; that we are not so useful in the world, as our heart desires?

Then here is exactly the promise we need to remember, “I will pour water unto him that is thirsty.”(Isaiah 44:3) We shall receive the grace we so much require, and we shall have it to the utmost reach of our needs. Water refreshes the thirsty; we shall be refreshed; our desires shall be gratified. Water quickens sleeping vegetable life: our life shall be quickened by fresh grace. Water swells the buds and makes the fruits ripen; we shall have fructifying grace: we shall be made fruitful in the way of God.

Whatever good quality there is in divine grace, we shall enjoy it to the full. All the riches of divine grace we shall receive in plenty; we shall be as it were drenched with it: and as sometimes the meadows become flooded by the bursting rivers, and the fields are turned into pools, so shall we be – the thirsty land shall be springs of water

Let us this day remember the stirring words of the Prophet Amos; “Let justice run down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.” Amos 5:24