O Lord God! the Holy One of Israel and his Redeemer! I worship before Thee in deep humility. I confess with shame that I so long sought Thee more as the Redeemer than as the Holy One. I knew not that it was as the Holy One Thou hadst redeemed, that redemption was the outcome and the fruit of Thy Holiness; that a participation in Thy Holiness was its one purpose and its highest beauty. I only thought of being redeemed from bondage and death: like Israel, I understood not that without fellowship and conformity to Thyself redemption would lose its value.
Most holy God! I praise Thee for the patience with which Thou bearest with the selfishness and the slowness of Thy redeemed ones. I praise Thee for the teaching of the Spirit of Thy Holiness, leading Thy saints, and me too, to see how it is Thy Holiness, and the call to become partaker of it, that gives redemption its value; how it is for Thyself as the Holy One, to be Thine own, possessed and sanctified of Thee, that we are redeemed.
O my God! with a love and a joy and a thanksgiving that cannot be uttered, I praise Thee for Christ, who has been made unto us of Thee sanctification and redemption. In Him Thou art my Redeemer, my Holy One. In Him I am Thy redeemed, Thy holy one. O God! in speechless adoration I fall down to worship the love that passeth knowledge, that hath done this for us, and to believe that in one who is now before Thee, holy in Christ, Thou wilt fulfil all Thy glorious purposes according to the greatness of Thy power. Amen.
1. 'Redemption through His blood.' The blood we meet at the threshold of the pathway of Holiness. For it is the blood of the sacrifice which the fire of God consumed, and yet could not consume. That blood has such power of holiness in it, that we read, 'Sanctified by His own blood.' Always think of holiness, or pray for it, as one redeemed by blood. Live under the covering of the blood in its daily cleansing power.
2. It is only as we know the Holiness of God as Fire, and bow before His righteous judgment, that we can appreciate the preciousness of the blood or the reality of the redemption. As long as we only think of the love of God as goodness, we may aim at being good; faith in God who redeems will waken in us the need and the joy of being _holy in Christ_.
3. Have you understood the right of property God has in what He has redeemed? Have you heard a voice say, _Mine. Thou art Mine._ Ask God very humbly to speak it to you. Listen very gently for it.
4. The holiness of the creature has its origin in the Divine will, in the Divine election, redemption, and possession. Give yourself up to this will of God and rejoice in it.
5. As God created, so He redeemed, to sanctify. Have great faith in Him for this.
6. Let God have the entire possession and disposal of you. Holiness is His; our holiness is to let Him, the Holy One, be all.
[2] See Note A on Holiness as Proprietorship.
Sixth Day.