If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself,
and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes
to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My
sake will find it.
(Matthew 16:24-25)
If God has called you to be truly like Jesus in all your spirit,
He will draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility. He
will put on you such demands of obedience that you will
not be allowed to follow other Christians. In many ways, He
seems to let other good people do things which He will not
let you do.
Others who seem to be very religious and useful may push
themselves, pull wires, and scheme to carry out their
plans, but you cannot. If you attempt it, you will meet with
such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you
sorely penitent.
Others can brag about themselves, their work, their
successes, their writings, but the Holy Spirit will not allow
you to do any such thing. If you begin to do so, 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 only on a day-to-day
basis, because He wants you to have something far better
than gold, a helpless dependence on Him and His unseen
treasury.
The Lord may let others be honored and put forward while
keeping you hidden in obscurity because He wants to
produce some choice, fragrant fruit for His coming glory,
which can only be produced in the shade.
God may let others be great, but keep you small. He will let
others do a work for Him and get the credit, but He will
make you work and toil without knowing how much you are
doing. Then, to make your work still more precious, He will
let others get the credit for the work which you have done;
this to teach you the message of the Cross, humility, and
something of the value of being cloaked with His nature.
The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch on you, and with a
jealous love rebuke you for careless 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, and that
He may not explain to you a thousand things which may
puzzle your reason in His dealings with you.
God will take you at your word. If you absolutely sell
yourself to be His slave, He will wrap you up in a jealous
love and let other people say and do many things that you
cannot. Settle it forever; you are to deal directly with the
Holy Spirit, He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue
or chaining your hand or closing your eyes in ways which
others are not dealt with. However, know this great secret
of the Kingdom: When you are so completely 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,
the high calling of God.
By G.D. Watson
G.D.Watson (1845-1924) was a Wesleyan Methodist
minister and evangelist based in Los Angeles. His
evangelistic campaigns took him to England, the West
Indies, New Zealand, Australia, Japan and Korea. He also
wrote several books.
