Beware of any work for God which enables you to evade concentration on Him.

A great many Christian workers worship their work.

The one concern of a worker should be concentration on God, and this will mean that all the other margins of life, mental, moral and spiritual, are free with the freedom of a child, a worshipping child, not a wayward child.

A worker without this solemn dominant note of concentration on God is apt to get his work on his neck; there is no margin of body, mind or spirit free, consequently he becomes spent out and crushed.

There is no freedom, no delight in life; nerves, mind and heart are so crushingly burdened that God's blessing cannot rest.

But the other side is just as true - when once the concentration is on God, all the margins of life are free and under the dominance of God alone.

There is no responsibility on you for the work; the only responsibility you have is to keep in living constant touch with God, and to see that you allow nothing to hinder your co-operation with Him.

The freedom after sanctification is the freedom of a child, the things that used to keep the life pinned down are gone.

But be careful to remember that you are freed for one thing only - to be absolutely devoted to your co-Worker.

We have no right to judge where we should be put, or to have preconceived notions as to what God is fitting us for.

God engineers everything; wherever He puts us our one great aim is to pour out a whole-hearted devotion to Him in that particular work.

"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might."

The plowing and harrowing are painful processes. And surely the Divine Plowman is at work in the world as never before. He plows by His Spirit, by His Word, and by His providences. Though painful be the processes of cultivation, they are essential.

Could the earth speak, it would say, “I felt the hard plow today; I knew what was coming; when the plow-point first struck me, I was full of pain and distress and I could have cried out for very agony, for the point was sharp and driven through me with great energy; but now, I think, this means the blade, the ear, the full corn in the ear, the golden harvest and harvest-home.”

When the plow of God’s providence first cuts up a man’s life, what wonder if the man should exclaim a little; yea, if he should give way to one hour’s grief! But the man may come to himself, ere eventide, and say, “Plow on, Lord! I want my life to be plowed all over, that it may be sown all over, and that in every corner there may be the golden grain or the beautiful flowers. Pity me that I exclaimed when I first felt the plowshare. Thou knowest my frame; Thou rememberest that I am dust. But now I recollect; I put things together; I see Thy meaning; so drive on, Thou Plowman of Eternity!”

He does not use the plow and harrow without intention. Where God plows, He intends to sow. His plowing is a proof He is for and not against you.

“For, behold, I am for you, and I will turn unto you, and ye shall be tilled and sown” (Ezekiel 36:9 KJV).

Let us never forget that the Husbandman is never so near the land as when He is plowing it, the very time when we are tempted to think He hath forsaken us.

His plowing is a proof that He thinks you of value and worth chastening, for He does not waste His plowing on the barren sand. He will not plow continually, but only for a time and for a definite purpose. Soon He will close that process. “When a farmer plows for planting, does he plow continually? Does he keep on breaking up and working the soil?” (Isaiah 28:24). Verily, No! Soon, aye soon, we shall, through these painful processes and by His gentle showers of grace become His fruitful land.

“The desolate land will be cultivated. . . . They will say, ‘This land that was laid waste has become like the garden of Eden’, and thus we shall be a praise unto Him” (Ezekiel 36:34–35).

Come ill, come well, the cross, the crown, The rainbow or the thunder—

I fling my soul and body down For God to plow them under.

“A PRINCE OF THE CAPTIVITY” BY JOHN BUCHAN

Ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's.—I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me.—I am his.—The Son of God . . . loved me, and gave himself for me.

Ye are not your own, ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.—The Lord hath taken you, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, even out of Egypt, to be unto him a people of inheritance, as ye are this day.

Ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building.—Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.—A spiritual house, an holy priesthood.

They shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels.—All mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them.—The glory of his inheritance in the saints.

They brought great stones, costly stones, and hewed stones, to lay the foundation of the house.—The house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither: so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was in building.

Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house.—Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.—Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God.

Ye are God's building.—Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.—Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.