Or Four Steps to Jesus.
FLORENCE felt that she must be a Christian. Her heart was heavy with the knowledge that it was sinful. For many days she had been carrying this burden alone. She did not think she could speak to anyone about it. She had been away in her bedroom alone, and prayed many times, and still all was dark and heavy in her little heart. “O, if I knew how to believe,” she would say to herself. “And Mr. M— says it is easy. If I could only ask him. At length a thought struck her. “If I cannot talk with him, I can write him a little note.”
When Mr. M— found an envelope directed to him, which someone had quietly laid on the large Bible in his study, he was surprised to find it a note from his little friend Florence. When he read it he was very glad, too. “The dear child, what can I say to her?” he thought. Then he closed the door, and asked, as if he were a little child, going to a father, to be guided in answering that note. And I think he was. He began it with Florence’s own question, and this is what he wrote:
“‘How shall I come to Jesus?’ The desire to come now is the first step.
“Feeling my sinfulness and danger and need of His help is the second step.
“Feeling that He is both able and willing to help and save me is the third.
“And then asking Him to do for me what I cannot possibly do for myself is the fourth.
“Four steps to Jesus. That is all. Perhaps I should say there is but one, and that very short. Out of the heart gushes the prayer, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner,’ and on the wings of the prayer the soul flies to the Saviour, in a moment, saying, ‘Here, Lord; I give myself to Thee: ‘tis all that I can do.’
“This seems to be the short, the simple, and only way to the Saviour. May my dear Florence find it so.”
Florence read the note very carefully.
“I think it is the third step I need,” she said. “I have tried the first and second, and fourth, and I do and will believe He is able, yes, and willing to save me.” So taking the third step, and then trying the fourth, it was not very long before Florence felt that in her heart she had found the answer to her own earnest question, “How shall I come to Jesus?” “Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.” (Jno. 6:3737All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. (John 6:37).)
ML 03/11/1917