Do you ever feel like I do? Do you feel sometimes that God can’t possibly use you or be glorified in you until sanctification has run a more thorough course? Do your failings and inconsistencies discourage you? Samuel Rutherford reminded me this morning of God’s power:
I am laid low, when I remember what I am, and that my outside casteth such a lustre, when I find so little within. It is a wonder that Christ’s glory is not defiled, running through such an unclean and impure channel. But I see that Christ will be Christ, in the dreg and refuse of men. His art, his shining wisdom, his beauty speak loudest in blackness, weakness, deadness, yea, in nothing. I see nothing, no money, no worth, no good, no life, no deserving, is the ground that Omnipotency delighteth to draw glory out of. (Letters, 135-136)
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Everyday!
But I also draw some comfort, inspiration and encouragement from John Newton,
“”I am not what I ought to be. Ah! How imperfect and deficient! I am not what I wish to be. I abhor what is evil, and I would cleave to what is good. I am not what I hope to be. Soon, soon, shall I put off, with mortality, sin and imperfection. Though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say, I am not what I once was, a slave to sin and Satan; and I can heartily join with the apostle and acknowledge, By the grace of God I am what I am.”
We must persevere!
JP
Amen, brother! Praise God!
I concur Will and JP. I love reading about those dead theologians. They had such insight and they’re struggles are our struggles too. I am also encouraged by the apostle Paul in Romans 7.