Your will agrees with God, but in your flesh there is a disposition which renders you powerless to do what you know you ought to do. When the Lord is presented to the conscience, the first thing conscience does is to rouse the will, and the will always agrees with God.

You say - "But I do not know whether my will is in agreement with God." Look to Jesus and you will find that your will and your conscience are in agreement with Him every time. The thing in you which makes you say "I shan't" is something less profound than your will; it is perversity, or obstinacy, and they are never in agreement with God.

The profound thing in man is his will, not sin. Will is the essential element in God's creation of man: sin is a perverse disposition which entered into man. In a regenerated man the source of will is almighty. "For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure."

You have to work out with concentration and care what God works in; not work your own salvation, but work it out, while you base resolutely in unshaken faith on the complete and perfect Redemption of the Lord. As you do this, you do not bring an opposed will to God's will, God's will is your will, and your natural choices are along the line of God's will, and the life is as natural as breathing.

God is the source of your will, therefore you are able to work out His will. Obstinacy is an unintelligent 'wedge' that refuses to be enlightened; the only thing is for it to be blown up with dynamite, and the dynamite is obedience to the Holy Spirit.

Do I believe that Almighty God is the source of my will? God not only expects me to do His will, but He is in me to do it.

Beloved! this is our spirit’s deepest need. It is thus that we can learn to know God. It is thus that we receive spiritual refreshment and nutriment. It is thus that we are nourished and fed. It is thus that we receive the Living Bread. It is thus that our very bodies are healed, and our spirits drink in the life of our risen Lord, and we go forth to life’s conflicts and duties like the flower that has drunk in, through the shades of the night, the cool and crystal drops of dew. But the dew never falls on a stormy night, so the dews of His Grace never come to the restless soul.

We cannot go through life strong and fresh on constant express trains with ten minutes for lunch: we must have quiet hours, secret places of the Most High, times of waiting upon the Lord, when we renew our strength and learn to mount up on wings as eagles, and then come back to run and not be weary, and to walk and not faint.

The best thing about this stillness is that it gives God a chance to work.

“Anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his” (Hebrews 4:10); and when we cease from our thoughts, God’s thoughts come into us; when we get still from our restless activity, “God . . . works in [us] to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose” (Philippians 2:13), and we have but to work it out.

Beloved! let us take His stillness! A. B. SIMPSON

Jesus, Deliverer, come Thou to me; Soothe Thou my voyaging, Over life’s sea!

Once the Lord has given us great faith, He has been known to test it with long delays.

He has allowed His servants’ voices to echo in their ears, as if their prayers were rebounding from a contemptuous sky.

Believers have knocked at the heavenly gate, but it has remained immovable, as though its hinges had rusted.

And like Jeremiah, they have cried, “You have covered yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can get through” (Lamentations 3:44).

True saints of God have endured lengthy times of patient waiting with no reply, not because their prayers were prayed without intensity, nor because God did not accept their pleas.

They were required to wait because it pleased Him who is sovereign and who gives according to “his good purpose” (Philippians 2:13).

And if it pleases Him to cause our patience to be exercised, should He not do as He desires with His own?

No prayer is ever lost, or any prayer ever breathed in vain.

There is no such thing as prayer unanswered or unnoticed by God, and some things we see as refusals or denials are simply delays.

HORA TIUS BONAR: Christ sometimes delays His help so He may test our faith and energize our prayers.

Our boat may be tossed by the waves while He continues to sleep, but He will awake before it sinks.

He sleeps but He never oversleeps, for He is never too late. ALEXANDER MACLAREN

Be still, sad soul! lift up no passionate cry, But spread the desert of your being bare To the full searching of the All-seeing eye; Wait! and through dark misgiving, deep despair, God will come down in pity, and fill the dry Dead place with light, and life, and springlike air. JOHN CAMPBELL SHAIRP

Charles G. Finney once said: “When God commands you to do a thing, it is the highest possible evidence, equal to an oath, that we can do it.”

The thing that taxes Almightiness is the very thing that you as a disciple of Jesus Christ ought to believe He would do. Sometimes we must be shipwrecked upon the supernatural; we must be thrown upon God; we must lose the temporal—that we may find the Eternal.

“It is God who works” (Philippians 2:13). Men work like men and nothing more is expected of man than what man can do. But God worketh like a God, and with Him nothing is impossible.

There is for us a source of heightened power . A most sugge stive translation (Jam es Moffatt) of 1 Samuel 2:1 reads: My heart thrills to the Eternal; my powers ar e heightened by my God.

Amos was just a herdsman from Tekoa, but his powers were heightened by his God. It happened to Peter . It happened to Paul. Abrah am Lincoln faced the impossible when he set out to uproot the slave trade.

We are all in need of more powe r, more courage, more wisdom than we actually possess. This “plus extra” comes to him whose heart thrills over the Eternal, who daily waits for Divine resources.

“Difficulty” is a relative term. It all depends upon the power you have available. Difficulty diminishes as the power increases, and altogether vanishes when the power rises to Omnipotence. “Our sufficiency is of God.” All God’ s biddings are enablings. Always provided that we are on the line of God’ s written Word, in the current of His revealed purpose, there is nothing you may not trust Him for .

As one of a thousand you may just fail; But as “one, plus God,” you are bound to win.

Thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty: for it was perfect through my comeliness, which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord GOD.—We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.—The Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon us.

Blessed is every one that feareth the Lord ; that walketh in his ways. For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee.—Commit thy works unto the Lord , and thy thoughts shall be established.

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.—Our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every good word and work.

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.—Who hath wrought and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? I the Lord , the first, and with the last: I am he.

Sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ.—The very God of peace sanctify you wholly: and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.—He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.—Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?—The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me.

It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

As he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation.

He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.

If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him.

Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God.

Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.

Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything, as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God.

Teach me, O Lord, the way of thy statutes.

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

The God of peace, make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ.

The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost.—What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God?

It is God which worketh in you.

We know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which can not be uttered.

And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

He knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.—A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench.

The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole.—Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. I will; be thou clean.—Faith as a grain of mustard seed.

Cast not away . . . your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward.—Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.—Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord .—The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.—So run, that ye may obtain.

I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day.

Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you.

By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast.—Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning.

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.—Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.—Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God.

Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God.

God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.

It pleased the Father, that in him should all fulness dwell; and, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself.—Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.

I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord , thoughts of peace, and not of evil.—Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord : though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity? Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace.—Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.— Lord , thou wilt ordain peace for us: for thou also hast wrought all our works in us.

Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God.—A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven.—No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.—And I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me for ever.

Do not err, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

Lord , thou wilt ordain peace for us: for thou also hast wrought all our works in us.

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?—Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord ? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.—To love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.

Therefore turn thou to thy God: keep mercy and judgment, and wait on thy God continually.—Mary . . . sat at Jesus' feet, and heard his word. One thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.

It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

Faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.—Faith worketh by love.—He that soweth to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.—We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.—Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth.

Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power.—It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.