Every week I read things that I think are helpful. Often I recommend these resources to others or quote a particularly helpful statement from an author. Occasionally I read something that so convicts me and challenges me I go back to it again and again.
Such is the case with a brief piece written by G.D. Watson (1845-1924). Watson was a Wesleyan Methodist who ministered in Los Angeles. I post it in its entirety with the prayer that you will meditate on it and allow it to search your own heart.
OTHERS MAY, YOU CANNOT
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.
Scott,
Thank you for this. I wonder if G D Watson would be able to preach this in this post modern world? I for one would ”quietly” shout AMEN, while keeping my seat for fear of being ostracized. God will bless any servant-leader who is intent on pleasing the Lord above self. The only difference is that most Christians take God’s blessing as being of gold, luxury or status.
Once again, outstanding post!
Powerful! So true and we need to all remember this! Thank you for posting it! Liz Patton
AMEN! We don’t deserve the least of his mercies let alone the great heights of his blessings. Thank God he loves us so, brother.
Yes, those words are good! Many years ago, when I was a teenager, I read those words as a tract for Christians, and have given out a few of those tracts recently!