Direction By Impulse
Building up yourselves on your most holy faith. - Jude 20
<http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?version=31&search=Jude+20>
There was nothing either of the nature of impulse or of cold-bloodedness
about Our Lord, but only a calm strength that never got into panic. Most of
us develop our Christianity along the line of our temperament, not along the
line of God. Impulse is a trait in natural life, but Our Lord always ignores
it, because it hinders the development of the life of a disciple. Watch how
the Spirit of God checks impulse, His checks bring a rush of self-conscious
foolishness which makes us instantly want to vindicate ourselves. Impulse is
all right in a child, but it is disastrous in a man or woman; an impulsive
man is always a petted man. Impulse has to be trained into intuition by
discipline.
Discipleship is built entirely on the supernatural grace of God. Walking on
the water is easy to impulsive pluck, but walking on dry land as a disciple
of Jesus Christ is a different thing. Peter walked on the water to go to
Jesus, but he followed Him afar off on the land. We do not need the grace of
God to stand crises, human nature and pride are sufficient, we can face the
strain magnificently; but it does require the supernatural grace of God to
live twenty-four hours in every day as a saint, to go through drudgery as a
disciple, to live an ordinary, unobserved, ignored existence as a disciple
of Jesus. It is inbred in us that we have to do exceptional things for God;
but we have not. We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things, to be
holy in mean streets, among mean people, and this is not learned in five
minutes.
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Victoria E Gilkerson
