CELEBRATE A LIFE LIVED
Adam and Eve had this self-life in the purity of their creation; they had organs of sense. It was to these that Satan made his appeals; to the feelings in their self-life, not to the feelings in the divine life of their soul.
The will of sense—for such it might be called—overpowered that higher will of the soul, and they yielded to the will of sense as aroused by temptation. We who are pure in heart have this same will of sense. Those who look upon the instructions herein as trifling will do so to their own spiritual injury.It is natural for us to avoid hardship and suffering.
FUNERAL TRADITIONS
It is wrong only when it conflicts with the will of God. It is not wrong for you to avoid burning at the stake unless it be God’s will that you should thus end your life.
If God wills you to burn at the stake you must not seek to avoid the ordeal. If we do not watch carefully and live close to God and keep our body under, the will of sense will grow strong and cause us to avoid hardships even when God wills us to undergo them.
Be careful that you do not mistake the impulse of sense for the divine will. One may say he does not believe it to be God’s will that he undergo this suffering when it may be only his own humanity. Out of human sympathy we may try to dissuade our brother from doing the will of God. At Caesarea certain brethren tried, out of mere sympathy, to persuade Paul not to go to Jerusalem, where, it was prophesied, he should be bound and delivered to the Gentiles.
CEMETERY SERVICES
It is blessed and glorious to be a Christian. No other life is so beautiful and pure; no other life is so tranquilly peaceful; no other is so full of rest, happiness, and satisfaction.
The Christian, however, does not go to heaven on flowery beds of ease. His pathway is not strewn with roses all the way; there is now and then a thorn. It is not sunshine all the time; now and then a shadow falls. To win heaven he must fight.
This is not confined to the greater affairs of life, such as burning at the stake, but includes the little affairs of every-day life
How easy it is for man to conclude it is the will of God for him to do a certain thing when perhaps it is only the will of sense! Remember, God’s ways are not as our ways. It seems to be a most reasonable thing to the minister that he should go home to his family.
How easy it is for him to believe it is God’s will that he should go! At least, it has been so many times with the writer. He has too often obeyed the human desire and disobeyed God. Such disobedience, if such it may be called, is not sin, since the will of God is not known, but it is being led by the impulse of sense and is detrimental to spirituality.
A sanctified man is tempted to impatience. He feels a sense of impatience, not carnal, but as an impulse of sense in the self-life. When some one does something contrary to your pleasure or wishes, you may have feelings of displeasure or impatience.
Why Plan Ahead
Pugilists go through much training in preparation for the actual contest. So we are to watch constantly. Keep the soul in a defensive attitude.
The very exercise of holding up the shield and keeping the soul in watchings makes it strong for the battle. If you do not exercise your soul in earnest prayer each morning, Satan will likely catch you that day unprepared.
Benifits of Plannning in Advance
But do not make the mistake of thinking that you are so strong in God that the little evil thought, or the feeling of pride or impatience, or the little act of intemperance, is of no consequence. It is these little things that sap away the spiritual strength.
- Get after the very least of them and put them to death.
- Seek to have your life wholly free from imperfections
- You will daily advance in the divine life.
- Sometimes line upon line is needful.
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His whole manner of life was truly holy. His life is the ideal life. If we would live holy, we must live as he lived. The artist has his ideal before him, and with touches of the brush here and there upon his canvas he forms an exact image of the ideal.
The restoring of life to the dead is no more beautifully holy than the laying of his hands upon the heads of children and blessing them.
His memorable Sermon on the Mount no more portrays the loveliness of his character than does his conversation with the woman by the wayside well. It is the little things in every-day life, if attended to and kept in the meekness and the solemnity of the Spirit of Christ, that make life truly beautiful and holy.