The High Calling
If God has called you to be really like Jesus in all your spirit, he will draw you into
a life of crucifixion and humility.
He will put such demands of obedience that he will not allow you to follow other Christians.
In many ways he will seem to let other good people do things which he will not let you
do.
Other Christians and ministers who seem very religious and useful may push themselves,
pull wires and work schemes to carry out their plans, but you cannot do it; and if you attempt it, you will meet with such
failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you sorely penitent.
Others can brag on themselves, on their work, on their success, on their writings, but
the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing, and if you begin it, he will lead you into some deep mortification
that will make you despise yourself and all your good works.
Others will be allowed to succeed in making great sums of money, or having a legacy left
to them or in having luxuries, but God may supply you daily because he wants you to have something far better than gold, and
that is a helpless dependence on him that he may have the privilege of providing your needs day by day out of the unseen treasury.
The Lord may let others be honored and put forward and keep you hid away in obscurity
because he wants you to produce some choice, fragrant fruit for his coming glory, which can only be produced in the shade.
God will let others be great, but keep you small, he will let others do a work for him
and get the credit for it, but he will make you work and toil on without knowing how much you are doing; and then, to make
your work still more precious, he will let others get the credit for the work which you have done; this will make your reward
even greater when Jesus comes.
The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch on you with a jealous love, and will rebuke you
for little words and feelings or for wasting your time, which other Christians never seem distressed over.
So make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign, and has a right to do as he pleases
with his own.
He will not explain to you a thousand things which may puzzle your reason in his dealings
with you.
God will take you at your word; and if you absolutely sell yourself to be his slave he
will wrap you up in jealous love and let other people say and do many things that you cannot do or say.
Settle it forever that you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit and that he is to
have the privilege of tying your tongue, or chaining your hand or closing our eyes in ways that others are not dealt with.
Now when you are so possessed with the living God that you are, in your secret heart,
pleased and delighted over this peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit over your
life, you will have found the vestibule of heaven.
Author Unknown