11-21. Association—Transformation
“Looking away (from all that will distract) to Jesus” (Heb. 12:2, Amp.).
Since we are morally colored by the human company we keep, whether high or low, think of the importance of continually associating with the Lord Jesus on high, and having Him as the center of our love and interest (2 Cor. 3:18).
“As babes in Christ we are left for a season in the old surroundings, because the time is not yet ripe for us to know our high calling, and the discipline needed for the heirs of God. The Father waits for His babes until they are weaned, and able to bear the detaching from things necessary at first.
“Many chafe over the long years of training, they know not for what cause. The souls who are yet under ‘tutors and governors’ need sorely to learn how to wait for the Father and rest in His will. Let us remember that circumstances are planned by Him to fit us for the calling He has in view for each of us, in the economy of His purpose. Let us wait until we know His pattern for our life lest, in our impatience, we seek to throw aside the very things permitted of Him to fit us for some special service in His vineyard.”
“Multitudes of believers are sick and tired of trying to be good. Paul rests our feet on the right path to goodness. He had learned from experience that goodness is not caught by pursuit but by association; not by struggling to obey laws and rules, but by living in the Lord Jesus’ presence. By steadily looking at Him, we are changed into His likeness.”
“Our Father will not deliver us from bondage unless we want Him to; therefore He must permit pressure to come upon us in one way or another, so as to bring us to the point of asking Him to do for us what He has been ready and able to do all the time.”
“All things are yours. . . and ye are Christ’s and Christ is God’s” (1 Cor. 3:21, 23).