|
"Now
thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ."
(II Cor. 2 :14.)
When you are forgotten or neglected or purposely set at naught, and
you smile inwardly, glorying in the insult or oversight-that is
victory.
When your good is evil spoken of, when your wishes are crossed, your
taste offended, your advice disregarded, your opinions ridiculed,
and you take it all in patient loving silence-that is victory. When
you are content with any food, any raiment, any climate, any
society, any solitude, any interruption by the will of God-that is
victory.
When you can lovingly and patiently deal with any disorder, any
irregularity, any unpunctuality or any annoyance-that is victory.
When you never care to refer to yourself in conversation or to
record your own good works or to itch after commendation; when you
can truly love to be unknown-that is victory. When you can stand
face to face with waste, folly, extravagance, spiritual
insensibility, and endure it as Jesus endured it-that is victory.
When like Paul, you can throw all your suffering on Jesus, thus
converting it into a means of knowing His overcoming grace, and can
say with a surrendered heart, "Most gladly therefore do I take
pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in
persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake"-that is victory (See
II Cor. 12:7-10).
When death and life are both alike to you through Christ, and to do
His perfect will, you delight no more in one than the other-that is
victory; for through Him you may be able to say, "Christ shall be
magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death." (Phil.
1:20.)
The perfect victory is to "put on the Lord Jesus Christ" and thus to
triumph over self. (Rom. 13:14). "In all these things we are more
than conquerors through him that loved us." Rom. 8:37.
-Selected |
