“If we would be preserved blameless, let us remember that God’s will for us is not a hard and impossible task but a reasonable; practicable and gentle standard, and that He is not continually frowning upon us because we cannot reach some astonishing height, or imitate some prodigy of martyrdom and service, but He expects of us a simple, faithful life in the quiet sphere which He has assigned to us; and that we are truly blameless in His sight when we are following, moment by moment, His perfect will in life’s duties as they meet us. He adapts the standard of duty according to our circumstances and ability. The parent expects less of the lisping child than the teacher does of the older student or the employer does of the full-grown man. God knows our strength and capacity, and His will is adapted to our growth, and His “yoke is easy and his burden light.” Therefore, let us not reprove ourselves because we have not yet reached some ideal that, by and by, we shall have attained to. Are we meeting His will today and saying “yes” to His claims as the moments pass? Then, indeed, we are blameless in His sight. At the same time, let us not allow this comfort to allure us to a false extreme. If, on the other hand, God is pressing us forward by His Spirit to higher reaches, let us not be content with less, for we shall not be blameless unless we press forward, that we may apprehend all for which we are apprehended of Christ Jesus. With many of us, God is not finding fault for actual disobedience, perhaps, but for shortcoming and a too easy content with past attainments. The great question is, Are we obedient to the voice of His Spirit as He calls us onward, step by step?”
A.B. Simpson (1843 - 1919)
Simpson is the founder of the Christian Missionary Alliance Movement that began in Canada with a desire to promote missions and global evangelism. He was used powerfully of the Lord to unify many brothers and sisters in a common purpose of fulfilling the great commission.A.W. Tozer joined with the Missionary Alliance denomination because of the teachings of A.B. Simpson and specific his writings on holiness: "A Larger Christian Life." He wrote many hymns and added a great emphasis on the person of Jesus Christ in church-life.
FOUNDER OF THE Christian and Missionary Alliance, Albert Benjamin Simpson was born in Canada of Scottish parents. He became a Presbyterian minister and pastored several churches in Ontario. Later, he accepted the call to serve as pastor of the Chestnut Street Presbyterian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. It was there that his life and ministry were completely changed in that, during a revival meeting, he experienced the fullness of the Spirit.He continued in the Presbyterian Church until 1881, when he founded an independent Gospel Tabernacle in New York. There he published the Alliance Weekly and wrote 70 books on Christian living. He organized two missionary societies which later merged to become the Christian and Missionary Alliance.
Albert Benjamin Simpson was a Canadian preacher, theologian, author, and founder of The Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA), an evangelical protestant denomination with an emphasis on global evangelism.
In December 1873, at age 30, Simpson left Canada and assumed the pulpit of the largest Presbyterian church in Louisville, Kentucky, the Chestnut Street Presbyterian Church. It was in Louisville that he first conceived of preaching the gospel to the common man by building a simple tabernacle structure for that purpose. Despite his success at the Chestnut Street Church, Simpson was frustrated by their reluctance to embrace this burden for wider evangelistic endeavor.
Simpson’s heart for evangelism was to become the driving force behind the creation of the C&MA. Initially, the Christian and Missionary Alliance was not founded as a denomination, but as an organized movement of world evangelism. Today, the C&MA denomination plays a leadership role in global evangelism.