Morning, July 11
Go To Evening Reading
“After that ye have suffered awhile, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen,
settle you.”
1 Peter 5:10
You have seen the arch of heaven as it spans the plain: glorious are
its colours, and rare its hues. It is beautiful, but, alas, it passes away, and lo, it is not. The fair colours
give way to the fleecy clouds, and the sky is no longer brilliant
with the tints of heaven. It is not established . How can it be? A glorious show made up of transitory sun-beams and
passing rain-drops, how can it abide? The graces of the Christian
character must not resemble the rainbow in its transitory beauty,
but, on the contrary, must be stablished, settled, abiding. Seek,
O believer, that every good thing you have may be an abiding thing.
May your character not be a writing upon the sand, but an inscription
upon the rock! May your faith be no “baseless fabric of a vision,” but may it be builded of material able to endure that awful fire
which shall consume the wood, hay, and stubble of the hypocrite. May
you be rooted and grounded in love. May your convictions be deep,
your love real, your desires earnest. May your whole life be so settled
and established, that all the blasts of hell, and all the storms of
earth shall never be able to remove you. But notice how this blessing
of being “stablished in the faith” is gained. The apostle’s words point us to suffering as the means employed—“ After that ye have suffered awhile .” It is of no use to hope that we shall be well rooted if no rough
winds pass over us. Those old gnarlings on the root of the oak tree,
and those strange twistings of the branches, all tell of the many
storms that have swept over it, and they are also indicators of the
depth into which the roots have forced their way. So the Christian
is made strong, and firmly rooted by all the trials and storms of
life. Shrink not then from the tempestuous winds of trial, but take
comfort, believing that by their rough discipline God is fulfilling
this benediction to you.