August 2 Daily Devotional

He is a sovereign Lord

Do not think in terms of bargains and rights in the Kingdom of God. That is absolutely fatal. There is nothing so wrong as the spirit which argues that because I do this, or because I have done that, I have a right to expect something else in return.... I know very good evangelical Christian people, who seem to be thinking like that. ‘Now’, they say, ‘if we pray for certain things, we are bound to have them ... if we pray all night for revival we must have revival.’ I have sometimes described this as the ‘penny in the slot’ idea of Christianity.... But that surely is to deny the whole principle which our Lord is teaching.... What would the position be if we could command these things at will? But we cannot. Let us get rid of this bargaining spirit.... The Holy Spirit is Lord, and He is a Sovereign Lord. He sends these things in His own time and in His own way ... we must realize that we have no right to anything at all. ‘But’, says someone, ‘does not Paul teach about judgement and rewards in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, in the fifth chapter?’ Certainly he does, and he does so likewise in 1 Corinthians 3, and our Lord Himself in the twelfth chapter of Luke talks about those who are beaten with many stripes and those who receive few stripes and so on. Well, what of that? The reply is that even the rewards are of grace. He need not give them, and if you think you can determine and predict how they are to come you will be quite wrong. Everything is of grace in the Christian life from the very beginning to the very end. To think in terms of bargains and to murmur at results, implies a distrust of Him, and we need to watch our own spirits lest we harbour the thought that He is not dealing with us justly and fairly.

Spiritual Depression, pp. 129–30