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The Sanctified Life
the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (
verses
10, 11
).
Here is a course by which we may be assured that we shall never
fall. Those who are thus working upon the plan of addition in obtaining
the Christian graces have the assurance that God will work upon the
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plan of multiplication in granting them the gifts of His Spirit. Peter
addresses those who obtained like precious faith: “Grace and peace be
multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our
Lord” (
verse 2
). By divine grace, all who will may climb the shining
steps from earth to heaven, and at last, “with songs and everlasting
joy” (
Isaiah 35:10
), enter through the gates into the city of God.
Our Saviour claims all there is of us; He asks our first and holiest
thoughts, our purest and most intense affection. If we are indeed
partakers of the divine nature, His praise will be continually in our
hearts and upon our lips. Our only safety is to surrender our all to Him
and to be constantly growing in grace and in the knowledge of the
truth.
Paul’s Shout of Victory
The apostle Paul was highly honored of God, being taken in holy
vision to the third heaven, where he looked upon scenes whose glories
he was not permitted to reveal. Yet this did not lead him to boastfulness
or self-confidence. He realized the importance of constant watchful-
ness and self-denial, and plainly declares, “I keep under my body, and
bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached
to others, I myself should be a castaway” (
1 Corinthians 9:27
).
Paul suffered for the truth’s sake, and yet we hear no complaints
from his lips. As he reviews his life of toil and care and sacrifice, he
says, “I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy
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to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us’ (
Romans
8:18
). The shout of victory from God’s faithful servant comes down
the line to our time: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or
peril, or sword? ...Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors
through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor
life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor
things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be