Subdued

Before God can launch us out into the breadth and sweetness of His service, and entrust to us great things for Himself, we must be perfectly subdued in every part of our nature to His will and the disposition of His mind. We must be subdued in our hearts, in our wills, in our words, in our tempers, in our manners; subdued through and through so thoroughly that we will be flexible to all His purposes and plans. We must be so subdued that harshness, severity, criticism, sluggishness, laziness, impetuosity, and all wanting our way, even in religious matters, will be subdued out of us.

Conversion will not finish this work, and perhaps not in one case out of a thousand will the second work of grace produce this complete condition of teachable subjugation to God’s Spirit. Being able to preach strong sermons on sanctification will not do it, and neither camp meetings, conventions, Bible schools, nor the writing of books and editing of papers on Christian holiness will prove adaquate for this.

We must be subdued, not merely in our own opinion, not merely think ourselves subdued, not only subdued in the esteem of our friends and fellow workers, but subdued so perfectly that the all-seeing eye of God can look us through, and the omniscient One knows that we are subdued. God must conquer the man that He can trust with His great thoughts and plans. The Holy Ghost must saturate us with a divine conquest before He can use us to conquer other souls.

The Lord will begin to subdue us with gentle means; and if we sink lovingly and promptly into His mind, the work will be done; but if we have flint or iron in our nature, and it is necessary, He will use heroic means to put us between the millstones and grind us to powder, until He can mold us without any resistance to His purpose. The greatest difficulty in the way of God’s using His servants, even His zealous and ofttimes sanctified servants, is that they are not perfectly, universally, and constantly subdued under the power of God.

We must be so subdued as to stop meddling with other people’s matters that God has not entrusted us with, so subdued as not to be calling God’s servants hard names, and thrusting at Christians who are doing what they can in their various fields for the Master; so subdued that we can hold our tongues, and walk softly with God, keep our eyes upon Jesus, attend to our own work, and do God’s will promptly and lovingly, glad to have a place in His Kingdom and to do a little service for Him.

Oh! it is grand to be absolutely conquered by the Holy Ghost, and swing out a thousand miles from everybody and everything into the ocean of God’s presence, and work with Him in humility, without stumbling over others, without religious pevishness, and to bend with every plan God gives us.

When we are subdued in the sight of God, He will work miracles in us, and power in experience, in healing, in finance, in service, in gentleness, and in sweetness of the inner heart life; miracles of grace that will astonish us and surprise our friends, and utterly amaze our enemies, when they come to know the magnitude of what God has wrought.

Let us get subdued in every way, in everything; so subdued that we can keep still in God and see Him work out the great bright thoughts of His eternal mind in our lives.