Steps into the Blessed Life

THERE is a Christian life, which, in comparison with that experienced by the majority of Christians, is as summer to winter, or, as the mature fruitfulness of a golden autumn to the struggling promise of a cold and late spring. It is such a life as Caleb might have lived in Hebron, the city of Fellowship; or the Apostle John was living, when he wrote his epistles. It may be fitly termed the Blessed Life.And the Blessedness of the Blessed Life lies in this: that we trust the Lord to do in us and for us what we could not do; and we find that He does not belie His word, but that, according to our faith, so it is done to us. The weary spirit, which has vainly sought to realize its ideal by its own strivings and efforts, now gives itself over to the strong and tender hands of the Lord Jesus; and He accepts the task; and at once begins to work in it to will and to do of His own good pleasure, delivering it from the tyranny of besetting sin, and fulfilling in it His own perfect ideal.This Blessed Life should be the normal life of every Christian; in work and rest; in the building-up of the inner life, and in the working-out of the life-plan. It is God's thought not for a few, but for all His children. The youngest and weakest may lay claim to it, equally with the strongest and oldest. We should step into it at the moment of conversion; without wandering with blistered feet, for forty years in the desert; or lying, for thirty-eight years, with disappointed hopes, in the porch of the House of Mercy.But since many have long ago passed the moment of conversion, without entering the Blessed Life, it may be well to show clearly, what the first step must be, to take us within its golden circle. Better take it late than never.