November 2

“If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the Father chastens not?” Hebrews 12:7

AS our chastenings are marks of our sonship, equally so are our consolations. The kindly view the Spirit gives of our Father’s dispensations—the meek submission of the will, the cordial acquiescence of the heart, and the entire surrender of the soul to God, which He creates, supplies us with indisputable ground for drawing a conclusion favorable to the reality of our being the children of God. There is a depth of sympathy and a degree of tenderness in God’s comforts, which could only flow from the heart of a father—that Father, God Himself. “As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him.” Sweet to know that the correction and the consolation, the wounding and the healing, flow from the same heart, come from the same hand, and bears each a message of love and a token of sonship. Is the God of all comfort sustaining, soothing, and quieting your oppressed, chafed, and sorrowful heart? Oh, it is the Spirit’s witness to your adoption.

Bending to your grief, and associating Himself with every circumstance of your sorrow, He seeks to seal on your softened heart the deeper, clearer impress of your filial interest in God’s love. And oh, if this overwhelming bereavement—if this crushing stroke—if the bitterness and gloom of this hour, be the occasion of the Spirit’s gentle, gracious lifting you from the region of doubt and distress, as to your sonship, into the serene sunlight of your Father’s love, so that you shall question, and doubt, and deny no more your acceptance in the Beloved, and your adoption into His family, will you not kiss the rod, and love the hand, and bless the heart that has smitten? Do not forget that the inward seal of adoption is testified by the outward seal of sanctification, and that if the Spirit of Christ is in your heart, the fruits of the Spirit will be exhibited in your life. Then, thus meek, and gently, and lowly, like the Savior, separated from the world, that you live not, and joy not, as the world does—in the secret chamber of your soul you shall often hear the voice of God, saying, “I will be a Father unto you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”