February 5

"Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord." Lamentations 3:40.

LET the spiritual believer but take the history of a single week as the gauge of the general tenor of his life, and what a lesson does it read him of the downward, earthly tendency of his soul! Yes, in one short week how have the wheels lessened in their revolutions—how has the timepiece of his soul lost its power—how have the chords of his heart become unstrung! But his prayer is for Divine quickening. It is his anxious inquiry—What course am I to adopt when I find deadness in my soul, and cannot feel, nor weep, nor sigh, nor desire?—when to read and meditate, to hear and pray, seem an irksome task?—when I cannot see the Savior's beauty, nor feel Him precious, nor labor as zealously, nor suffer as patiently, for Him as I would? The answer is at hand—Look again to Jesus. This is the only remedy that can meet your case. Go direct to Christ; He is the Fountain-head, He is the living Well. May the Holy Spirit open your eyes to see, that while all emptiness exists in you, all fullness dwells in Jesus—there is a fathomless depth in the heart of Christ—of love unchangeable, of grace all-sufficient, of truth immutable, of salvation from all sin and trial and sorrow—commensurate with your need and vast as His own infinity. Never can your grace be too low, nor your frame too depressed, nor your path too perplexing, nor your sorrow too keen, nor your sin too great, nor your condition too extreme, for Christ; because He is both Divine and human: thus uniting the nature that can relieve with the nature that can sympathize. "Son of God! Son of man! how wondrous and glorious are You!"

Be very honest and diligent in ascertaining the cause of your soul's deadness. The correct knowledge of this is necessary to its removal; and its removal is essential to the effectual recovery of the inner life from its relapsed state. Is it indulged sin? Is it the neglect of private prayer? Is it worldliness, carnality, unwatchfulness? Any one of these would so grieve the Spirit of God within you, as to dry up the spirituality of your soul. Do not be beguiled with the belief that the real recovery has taken place, simply because that, conscious of your state, in meaningless regrets you acknowledge and deplore it. "The sluggard desires and has nothing." Observe, He has his desires, but nothing more, because with them he is satisfied. Let not this be your state. Seek earnestly, importunately, believingly, until you possess more abundantly life from Christ. Seek a gracious revival of the life of God in your soul. Seek a clearer manifestation of Christ, a renewed baptism of the Spirit, a more undoubted evidence of your conversion, a surer, brighter hope of heaven. Thus seeking, you will find it; and finding it, your "peace will flow like a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea." Oh the joy of a revived state of the inner life of God! It is the joy of spring succeeding to the gloom and chill of winter. It is the joy of the sunlight after a cloudy and dark day. "Lord, lift You up the light of Your countenance upon, us." " Turn us again, O Lord God of hosts; cause Your face to shine, and we shall be saved."