Friday, December 31, 2010

It is in these storms

(Philpot, "Christ Jesus the Lord Received and Walked In")

The very storms through which the believer passes,
will only strengthen him to take a firmer hold of Christ.
As the same wind that blows down the poplar tree, only
establishes the oak tree; so the very storms which
uproot the shallow professor, only root the child of
God more firmly in Christ.

Though these storms may shake off some of his
leaves, or break off some of the rotten boughs, they
do not uproot his faith--but rather strengthen it.

It is in these storms that he learns . . .
more of his own weakness, and of Christ's strength;
more of his own misery, and of Christ's mercy;
more of his own sinfulness, and of superabounding grace;
more of his own poverty, and of Christ's riches;
more of his own desert of hell, and of his own title to heaven.

It is in these storms that the same blessed Spirit who
began the work carries it on; and goes on to engrave
the image of Christ in deeper characters upon his heart;
and to teach him more and more experimentally--the
truth as it is in Jesus.



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