TILL YOU ARE ENTIRELY HIS
Let your endurance be a finished product, so that you may be finished and complete, with never a defect. James 1:4

Many of us are all right in the main, but there are some domains in which we are slovenly (one who is careless in his habits, appearance, etc. untidy). It is not a question of sin, but of the remnants of the carnal life which are apt to make us slovenly. Slovenliness is an insult to the Holy Ghost. There should be nothing slovenly, whether it be in the way we eat and drink, or in the way we worship God. Not only must our relationship to God be right, but the external expression of that relationship must be right. Ultimately God will let nothing escape, every detail is under His scrutiny. In numberless ways God will bring us back to the same point over and over again. He never tires of bringing us to the one point until we learn the lesson, because He is producing the finished product. It may be a question of impulse, and again and again, with the most persistent patience, God has brought us back to the one particular point; or it may be mental wool-gathering, or independent individuality. God is trying to impress upon us the one thing that is not entirely right. We have been having a wonderful time this Session over the revelation of God's Redemption, our hearts are perfect towards Him; His wonderful work in us makes us know that in the main we are right withHim. "Now," says the Spirit, through St. James, "let your endurancebe a finished product." Watch the slip shod bits - "Oh, that will have to do for now." Whatever it is, God will point it out withpersistence until we are entirely His.

THE DISCIPLINE OF DISILLUSIONMENT
Jesus did not commit Himself unto them for He knew what was in man.
John 2:24-25

To be deceived by disillusionment may leave us cynical and unkindly severe in our judgment of others, but the disillusionment which comes from God brings us to the place where we see men and women as they really are, and yet there is no cynicism, we have no stinging, bitter things to say. Many of the cruel things in life spring from the fact that we suffer from illusions. We are not true to one another as facts; we are true only to our ideas of one another. Everything is either delightful and fine, or mean and dastardly, according to our idea. The refusal to be disillusioned is the cause of much of the suffering in human life. It works in this way - if we love a human being and do not love God, we demand of him every perfection and every rectitude, and when we do not get it we become cruel and vindictive; we are demanding of a human being that which he or she cannot give. There is only one Being Who can satisfy the last aching abyss of the human heart, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Why Our Lord is apparently so severe regarding every human relationship is because He knows that every relationship not based on loyalty to Himself will end in disaster. Our Lord trusted no man, yet He was never suspicious, never bitter. Our Lord's confidence in God and in what His grace could do for any man, was so perfect that He despaired of no one. If our trust is placed in human beings, we shall end in despairing of everyone.

DISPOSITION AND DEEDS
Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 5:20

The characteristic of a disciple is not that he does good things, but that he is good in motive because he has been made good by the super-natural grace of God. The only thing that exceeds right-doing is right-being. Jesus Christ came to put into any man who would let Him a new heredity which would exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. Jesus says - If you are My disciple you must be right not only in your living, but in your motives, in your dreams, in the recesses of your mind. You must be so pure in your motives that God Almighty can see nothing to censure. Who can stand in the Eternal Light of God and have nothing for God to censure? Only the Son of God, and Jesus Christ claims that by His Redemption He can put into any man His own disposition, and make him as unsullied and as simple as a child. The purity which God demands is impossible unless I can be remade within, and that is what Jesus has undertaken to do by His Redemption. No man can make himself pure by obeying laws. Jesus Christ does not give us rules and regulations; His teachings are truths that can only be interpreted by the disposition He puts in. The great marvel of Jesus Christ's salvation is that He alters heredity. He does not alter human nature; He alters its mainspring.

THE SPIRITUAL SAINT
That I may know Him.
Philippians 3:10

The initiative of the saint is not towards self-realization, but towards knowing Jesus Christ. The spiritual saint never believes circumstances to be haphazard, or thinks of his life as secular and sacred; he sees everything he is dumped down in as the means of securing the knowledge of Jesus Christ. There is a recklessa bandonment about him. The Holy Spirit is determined that we shall realize Jesus Christ in every domain of life, and He will bring us back to the same point again and again until we do. Self-realization leads to the enthronement of work; whereas the saint enthrones JesusChrist in his work. Whether it be eating or drinking or washing disciples feet, whatever it is, we have to take the initiative of realizing Jesus Christ in it. Every phase of our actual life has its counterpart in the life of Jesus. Our Lord realized His relationship to the Father even in the most menial work. "Jesus knowing...that He was come from God, and went to God...took a towel...and began to wash the disciples' feet."The aim of the spiritual saint is "that I may know Him." Do I know Him where I am to-day? If not, I am failing Him. I am here not to realize myself, but to know Jesus. In Christian work the initiative is too often the realization that something has to be done and I must do it. That is never the attitude of the spiritual saint, his aim is to secure the realization of Jesus Christ in every set of circumstances he is in.

ONE OF GOD'S GREAT DON'TS
Fret not thyself, it tendeth only to evil doing.
Psalms 37:8

Fretting means getting out at elbows mentally or spiritually. It is one thing to say "Fret not," but a very different thing to have such a disposition that you find yourself able not to fret. It sounds so easy to talk about "resting in the Lord" and "waiting patiently forHim" until the nest is upset - until we live, as so many are doing, in tumult and anguish. Is it possible then to rest in the Lord? If this "don't" does not work there, it will work no where. This "don't"must work in days of perplexity as well as in days of peace, or i tnever will work. And if it will not work in your particular case, it will not work in anyone else's case. Resting in the Lord does not depend on external circumstances at all, but on your relationship to God Himself. Fussing always ends in sin. We imagine that a little anxiety and worry are an indication of how really wise we are; it is much more anindication of how really wicked we are. Fretting springs from a determination to get our own way. Our Lord never worried and He was never anxious, because He was not "out" to realize His own ideas; He was "out" to realize God's ideas. Fretting is wicked if you are ac hild of God. Have you been bolstering up that stupid soul of yours with the idea that your circumstances are too much for God? Put all "supposing" on one side and dwell in the shadow of the Almighty. Deliberately tell God that you will not fret about that thing. All our fret and worry is caused by calculating without God.

THE CONCENTRATION OF PERSONAL SIN
Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips. Isaiah 6:5

When I get into the presence of God, I do not realize that I am a sinner in an indefinite sense; I realize the concentration of sin in a particular feature of my life. A man will say easily - 'Oh, yes, I know I am a sinner'; but when he gets into the presence of God he cannot get off with that statement. The conviction is concentrated on- I am this, or that, or the other. This is always the sign that a man or woman is in the presence of God. There is never any vague sense of sin, but the concentration of sin in some personal particular. God begins by convicting us of the one thing fixed on in the mind that is prompted by His Spirit; if we will yield to His conviction on that point, He will lead us down to the great disposition of sin underneath. That is the way God always deals with us when we are consciously in His presence. This experience of the concentration of sin is true in the greatest and the least of saints as well as in the greatest and the least of sinners. When a man is on the first rung of the ladder of experience, he may say - I do not know where I have gone wrong; but the Spirit ofGod will point out some particular definite thing. The effect of the vision of the holiness of the Lord on Isaiah was to bring home to him that he was a man of unclean lips. "And he laid it upon my mouth, and said Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged." The cleansing fire had to be applied where the sin had been concentrated.

THE CONDITIONS OF DISCIPLESHIP

If any man come to Me, and hate not ... he cannot be My
disciple.

Luke 14:26,27,33

If the closest relationships of life clash with the claims of Jesus
Christ, He says it must be instant obedience to Himself. Discipleship
means personal, passionate devotion to a Person, Our Lord Jesus
Christ. There is a difference between devotion to a Person and
devotion to principles or to a cause. Our Lord never proclaimed a
cause; He proclaimed personal devotion to Himself. To be a disciple
is to be a devoted love-slave of the Lord Jesus. Many of us who call
ourselves Christians are not devoted to Jesus Christ. No man on earth
has this passionate love to the Lord Jesus unless the Holy Ghost has
imparted it to him. We may admire Him, we may respect Him and
reverence Him, but we cannot love Him. The only Lover of the Lord
Jesus is the Holy Ghost, and He sheds abroad the very love of God in
our hearts. Whenever the Holy Ghost sees a chance of glorifying
Jesus, He will take your heart, your nerves, your whole personality,
and simply make you blaze and glow with devotion to Jesus Christ.

The Christian life is stamped by 'moral spontaneous originality,'
consequently the disciple is open to the same charge that Jesus
Christ was, viz., that of inconsistency. But Jesus Christ was always
consistent to God, and the Christian must be consistent to the life
of the Son of God in him, not consistent to hard and fast creeds. Men
pour them selves into creeds, and God has to blast them out of their
prejudices before they can become devoted to Jesus Christ.