If Jesus Christ is to regenerate me, what is the problem He is up against?

I have a heredity I had no say in; I am not holy, nor likely to be; and if all Jesus Christ can do is to tell me I must be holy, His teaching plants despair. But if Jesus Christ is a Regenerator, One Who can put into me His own heredity of holiness, then I begin to see what He is driving at when He says that I have to be holy. Redemption means that Jesus Christ can put into any man the hereditary disposition that was in Himself, and all the standards He gives are based on that disposition: His teaching is for the life He puts in. The moral transaction on my part is agreement with God's verdict on sin in the Cross of Jesus Christ.

The New Testament teaching about regeneration is that when a man is struck by a sense of need, God will put the Holy Spirit into his spirit, and his personal spirit will be energized by the Spirit of the Son of God, "until Christ be formed in you." The moral miracle of Redemption is that God can put into me a new disposition whereby I can live a totally new life.

When I reach the frontier of need and know my limitations, Jesus says - "Blessed are you." But I have to get there. God cannot put into me, a responsible moral being, the disposition that was in Jesus Christ unless I am conscious I need it.

Just as the disposition of sin entered into the human race by one man, so the Holy Spirit entered the human race by another Man; and Redemption means that I can be delivered from the heredity of sin and through Jesus Christ can receive an unsullied heredity, viz., the Holy Spirit.

This is not a very gratifying endorsement of Elijah. Doubtless the man’s heart swelled with eagerness to start a great reformation; his mind expanded with dreams of world-empire. To flee now, when the audacious approach to the king has been made, is to contradict all accepted methods of operation.

Nothing now but solitude? But God knows His plans and Elijah, his servant. There is wholesome truth here. To trust where we cannot trace is to give our God the full sovereignty that He longs for. The most formidable barrier in His dealings with His children is their self-will. “Let him do what is good in his eyes” (1 Samuel 3:18) is not resignation but triumphant faith, if we trust.

And so by the Kerith Ravine the lonely man abides. It is lost time in the judgment of the flesh-depending critics; here is a thread in the fabric of society capable of great accomplishment, doing nothing. But they who argue so fail to see what God is to do. If we weigh things in the scales of human reasoning, we shall always deal with economics and expediency; but no time is lost if God can have His way. The real truth is, that He is to come into the life of His servant to better qualify him for a more vital revelation of Himself, for with God “the worker is more than the work.”

There may be many dear saints of God who doubt their saintship because their activities have been taken from them. Circumstances have closed in upon them; doors have been shut in their faces; funds for the prosecution of their work have ceased. It may be that, physically exhausted, they lie on their beds wondering why He can consent to so unreasonable a situation. Be assured of one thing: Elijah is not to remain in obscurity and inactivity for all time. Our error lies in mentally fixing our future according to present conditions. Let us arouse ourselves from this deadly coma. There is always the afterward of His gracious promising. KENNETH MACKENZIE

He knows, and loves, and cares!

“My immediate response was not to consult any human being,” says Paul (Galatians 1:16), and he went away into a desert place. A desert place . . . and rest!

The LORD will . . . satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land. . . . You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.

Travelers are enthusiastic over a species of palm tree which grows in South America. They call it the rain tree. This tree has the remarkable power of attracting, in a wondrous degree, atmospheric moisture, which it condenses and drops on the earth in refreshing dew. It grows straight up in the parched and arid desert and daily distributes its refreshing showers, with the result that around it an oasis of luxuriant vegetation soon springs up.

The floodgates of heaven refuse to open, the fountains cease to flow, the rivers evaporate —all true, but the rain tree, getting its moisture from above, renews the garden which it has created about its base, and gives the weary traveler shade and fruit, a new life and a delightful rest!

God would have us to be like the rain tree growing alongside the desert highways of the world—sources of new spiritual life. God Himself is our atmosphere, and we carry our atmosphere with us wherever we go.

This atmosphere is proof against all infection, and to breathe it is constant health.

Christ’s power was in His separateness. He did not withdraw Himself from the world but lived in the very midst of it. No man ever came into such close external contact with the devil. Jesus was not a recluse. He was social—mingling with men, yet He kept intact His separateness from the world. He was Jesus! Men felt this! This was His power!

In the secret of Christ’s power, we see the secret of our power. If we are to have any power in the world we must become partakers of His holiness; we must be separated with Him and be kept separated and set apart to the same great life.

The angel, grateful for each borrowed sense, Gazed at the sight: A girl so white, With slender fingers tense Upon the table edge (around his head The smell of new-baked bread) The while unhurried tones fell low, and clear, And near.

Alone, yet not alone, yet not alone, She fell not prone; But leaning a little against the wall, The while the sun grew late, She knew . . . she knew . . . she knew—why all Her life she had been separate.

“THE ANNUNCIATION” BY FLORENCE G. MAGEE

“To reveal his Son in me” (Galatians 1:16).