After Katie knew herself to be a child of God, she found she had much to learn about herself, as well as about God. At first she was so happy, and the study of God’s Word gave her such real joy that she felt everything was quite changed to her.
There was also a change in her, for now she liked things that formerly she disliked, and she found herself wishing for quite different sorts of pleasures. Thus Jesus was teaching her heart to value Him. All His ways with His own, whether they are young or old, are for this purpose—to make Himself more dear to us—more necessary to us, and more known by us. If, therefore, we are not continually finding that He is more and more to us, we are not enjoying His great love to us as we might.
It was many months after Katie knew the Lord, that she began to be very unhappy about sin. She could not understand why, if Jesus had put all her sins away on the cross, as she believed He had, she should ever be troubled with evil thoughts and feelings, or why she should give way to frivolity or ill-temper— things which caused her very bitter pain and self-searching. She used to confess her sins to God, and own that Jesus had died to put her sins away. But, alas! when opportunity, came, she was sure to fail again; so that she began to think that she could not be a child of God at all, for she knew that God is holy, and cannot bear sin. She knew that she ought to be holy, too, for God has said, “Be ye holy, for I am holy.” The more she longed to be holy, the more she felt she was thoroughly unholy, and that everything in her was just the opposite of holiness. She did not know what to do. Her heart was like the ocean in a storm—it tossed up and down, and could find no rest.
At last, one day some unknown hand sent her a little book called, “Peace with God.” The title fell on her heart like music. “Peace” —what would she not give to have it? Katie thought.
“Peace with God;” how sweet the words sounded! She read the little book two or three times through, and felt soothed enough to take up her Bible. There wherever she turned over the leaves, something about peace was on the page.
“Peace be unto you.” “He hath made peace.” “Justified by faith, we have peace with God.” “The God of peace,” and many more. So Katie prayed that God would give her peace with Him, and that He would never let her lose it again.
Now she began to learn that she had a nature that was enmity to God, which means that the natural or carnal mind has a will which is not God’s will; that it dislikes God, and is opposed to everything that suits God and His holiness. Katie had learned before that she was a lost sinner, and the good Shepherd had found her, and taught her to know His voice; but it was a very terrible thing to find out that, although Jesus had loved her and given Himself for her, there was no good thing in her—that she had a nature that liked everything better than God, so that when the Spirit of God gave desires after holiness, the carnal mind was enmity. When she wished to do right, the frivolity, or evil-temper or selfishness of her carnal mind, was there, hindering her desire to do right.
This would be no sorrow to a person who had not a new nature born of God, or who did not know that he was washed in the blood of Jesus. But to one who does know this, and who longs to be like Jesus in thoughts and ways, it is a very great sorrow, and the heart says, “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” God answers this question in His Word. The deliverance is “through Jesus Christ our Lord?” How does He deliver? By His death.
O! what a wonderful fact is the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, and how it magnifies the great necessity for that Perfect One to die to put away my sins. But I needed more than the forgiveness of sins. I needed His death to deliver me from the power of sin—to deliver me from this nature which we have as children of Adam, the first man, which is corrupt according to deceitful lusts. In it dwells no good thing. It is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. Jesus died to deliver me out of that child-of-Adam state altogether, and to put me in a new state in Himself before God. This is peace!
Now, if I fail, is it sorrow? Surely it is, if my conscience is happy before God, but instead of making me doubt that Jesus has saved me, it makes me feel more deeply than ever how great, how necessary is His salvation. Those who see my failure, condemn me, and my own heart condemns me more than all. But it only drives me to hide my heart and conscience in the One who has delivered me; it drives me to find my place in Him who is my Savior. His presence is the only place where I can say, “There is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” Blessed place to abide “in Him” and He invites us to it. “Abide in Me.”
In the presence of God, there is peace; and in the grace of Christ I get power to deny the carnal mind. (Gal. 5:2525If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. (Galatians 5:25)).
How sweet the plea from all to flee
And shelter in my Savior!
O precious grace! in Him’s my place
In God’s eternal power.
Jesus the goal before my soul,
The One I know in glory,
While I’m on earth I’ll tell His worth
The saved one’s sweetest story.