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Read Ebook: Lady Athlyne by Stoker Bram
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Ebook has 85 lines and 7220 words, and 2 pages
HOPE AND HOLINESS 1
SORROW ACCORDING TO GOD 8
GIVING AND ASKING 20
RICH YET POOR 27
WILLING AND NOT DOING 36
ALL GRACE ABOUNDING 42
GOD'S UNSPEAKABLE GIFT 50
A MILITANT MESSAGE 57
SIMPLICITY TOWARDS CHRIST 65
STRENGTH IN WEAKNESS 74
NOT YOURS BUT YOU 83
GALATIANS
FROM CENTRE TO CIRCUMFERENCE 91
THE EVIL EYE AND THE CHARM 100
LESSONS OF EXPERIENCE 109
THE UNIVERSAL PRISON 116
THE SON SENT 126
WHAT MAKES A CHRISTIAN: CIRCUMCISION OR FAITH? 136
'WALK IN THE SPIRIT' 153
THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT 162
BURDEN-BEARING 171
DOING GOOD TO ALL 180
THE OWNER'S BRAND 189
PHILIPPIANS
LOVING GREETINGS 200
A COMPREHENSIVE PRAYER 206
A PRISONER'S TRIUMPH 211
CITIZENS OF HEAVEN 233
A PLEA FOR UNITY 244
THE DESCENT OF THE WORD 253
THE ASCENT OF JESUS 260
WORK OUT YOUR OWN SALVATION 268
COPIES OF JESUS 281
A WILLING SACRIFICE 287
PAUL AND TIMOTHY 295
PAUL AND EPAPHRODITUS 305
PREPARING TO END 311
THE LOSS OF ALL 321
THE GAIN OF CHRIST 328
SAVING KNOWLEDGE 336
LAID HOLD OF AND LAYING HOLD 348
THE RACE AND THE GOAL 359
THE SOUL'S PERFECTION 369
THE RULE OF THE ROAD 381
WARNINGS AND HOPES 391
HOPE AND HOLINESS
Having therefore these promises . . . let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.'--2 COR. vii. 1.
It is often made a charge against professing Christians that their religion has very little to do with common morality. The taunt has sharpened multitudes of gibes and been echoed in all sorts of tones: it is very often too true and perfectly just, but if ever it is, let it be distinctly understood that it is not so because of Christian men's religion but in spite of it. Their bitterest enemy does not condemn them half so emphatically as their own religion does: the sharpest censure of others is not so sharp as the rebukes of the New Testament. If there is one thing which it insists upon more than another, it is that religion without morality is nothing--that the one test to which, after all, every man must submit is, what sort of character has he and how has he behaved--is he pure or foul? All high-flown pretension, all fervid emotion has at last to face the question which little children ask, 'Was he a good man?'
The Apostle has been speaking about very high and mystical truths, about all Christians being the temple of God, about God dwelling in men, about men and women being His sons and daughters; these are the very truths on which so often fervid imaginations have built up a mystical piety that had little to do with the common rules of right and wrong. But Paul keeps true to the intensely practical purpose of his preaching and brings his heroes down to the prosaic earth with the homely common sense of this far-reaching exhortation, which he gives as the fitting conclusion for such celestial visions.
Looking out over that wide region, Paul saw scattered over godless masses a little dispersed company to each of whom the sacred name of Saint applied. They had been deeply stained with the vices of their age and place, and after a black list of criminals he had had to say to them 'such were some of you,' and he lays his finger on the miracle that had changed them and hesitates not to say of them all, 'But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.'
The first thing, then, that every Christian has is a cleansing which accompanies forgiveness, and however his garment may have been 'spotted by the flesh,' it is 'washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb.' Strange cleansing by which black stains melt out of garments plunged in red blood! With the cleansing of forgiveness and justification comes, wherever they come, the gift of the Holy Spirit--a new life springing up within the old life, and untouched by any contact with its evils. These gifts belong universally to the initial stage of the Christian life and require for their possession only the receptiveness of faith. They admit of no co-operation of human effort, and to possess them men have only to 'take the things that are freely given to them of God.' But of the subsequent stages of the Christian life, the laborious and constant effort to develop and apply that free gift is as essential as, in the earliest stage, it is worse than useless. The gift received has to be wrought into the very substance of the soul, and to be wrought out in all the endless varieties of life and conduct. Christians are cleansed to begin with, but they have still daily to cleanse themselves: the leaven is hid in the three measures of meal, but ''tis a life-long task till the lump be leavened,' and no man, even though he has the life that was in Jesus within him, will grow up 'into the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ' unless, by patient and persistent effort, he is ever pressing on to 'the things that are before' and daily striving to draw nearer to the prize of his high calling. We are cleansed, but we have still to cleanse ourselves.
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