October 20: Kept From to Be Kept For

Narrator: Chris Genthree
 •  2 min. read  •  grade level: 5
SA 27:3{ER 4:20{The sanctified and Christ-loving heart cannot be satisfied with only negative keeping. We do not want only to be kept from displeasing Him, but to be kept always pleasing Him. Every "kept from" should have its corresponding and still more blessed "kept for." We do not want our moments to be simply kept from Satan's use, but kept for His use; we want them to be not only kept from sin, but kept for His praise. Do you ask, "But what use can He make of mere moments?" I will not stay to prove or illustrate the obvious truth that, as are the moments so will be the hours and the days which they build. You understand that well enough. I will answer your question as it stands.
Look back through the history of the Church in all ages, and mark how often a great work and mighty influence grew out of a mere moment in the life of one of God's servants; a mere moment, but overshadowed and filled with the fruitful power of the Spirit of God. The moment may have been spent in uttering five words, but they have fed five thousand, or even five hundred thousand. Or it may have been lit by the flash of a thought that has shone into hearts and homes throughout the land, and kindled torches that have been borne into earth's darkest corners. The rapid speaker or the lonely thinker little guessed what use his Lord was making of that single moment. There was no room in it for even a thought of that. If that moment had not been, though perhaps unconsciously, "kept for Jesus." but had been otherwise occupied, what a harvest to His praise would have been missed!
O precious blood! Lord, let it rest on me!
I ask not only pardon from my King.
But cleansing from my Priest. I come to Thee
Just as I came at first-a sinful, helpless thing.
O Savior, bid me "go and sin no more,”
And keep me always 'neath the mighty flow
Of Thy perpetual fountain; I implore
That Thy perpetual cleansing I may fully know.