11.04 God as Life

IV. GOD AS LIFE

We must recover the sense of God as Life. Do we really believe that true life can only be realized through union of will and mind with God? Then surely we must see in the habits which acts of sin have formed, in the tendencies within us of selfishness, of self-conceit, of jealousy, of uncharitableness, of impurity, of ambition, forces which are inevitably separating us at this moment from life, the true life in God forces which, if they are not sternly checked and controlled may nay, must ultimately withdraw us wholly from Him; and to be separated from God is the outer darkness and the death.

You watch the working of a germ of disease in the human body: for a long time its influence is scarcely marked; the other members of the body discharge their functions naturally and freely; there is the full capacity of sensation, of thought, of action; but at last, and too often without warning, the disease reaches some vital point and all is over. In the same way our desires, thoughts, habits of evil, may go on for years combined with a sqnse of honour, with probity of life, even with reality of prayer and acts of communion with God; but unless they are dealt with and controlled, sooner or later and the pity of it is we cannot tell when they may reach the vital point, and then the spirit falls from God Who alone is its life. “The soul that sinneth it shall die.”

TAGS: [Parables]