Search Ourselves
"AS THY DAYS, so shall thy strength be" (Deuteronomy 33:25).
Whenever we turn the glasses within, and search ourselves thoroughly, how pained we always are at the meager progress that we are making in the better life. We look around us and see certain personalities who are growing and expanding and triumphing in a remarkable way in the Christian life, as it seems to us, and then we look at ourselves and behold how little the progress, how meager the growth, how few the attainments that we have made and are making in the Christian life.
And then here is another whose culpable weakness, it may be, is envy. Oh, what a terrible besetment that is! The Bible asks the question: "Who can stand before envy?" It is as rottenness in one's bones. Envy is incipient murder. Envy eats up every noble thing. If a man finds envy anywhere in his life, he should pluck it out and fling it away, as he would fling away the deadl cobra, seeking to coil about his heart.
Uncharitableness
Another man's handicap is the temptation to uncharitableness. What a serious handicap that is! In His fundamentally revolutionary Sermon on the Mount, Jesus uses the searching words "Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." And then He asks a biting question: "Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye" - a mote is a tiny splinter - "Why beholdest thou the tiny little splinter in thy brother's eye, and considerest not the beam" - that is, the big log - "considerest not the big log that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite," said Jesus, "first cast out the beam" - the big log - "out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote" - the splinter - "out of thy brother's eye." Oh, if you have the tendency to harshness, to censoriousness, to uncharitableness, put it utterly away, it is so disastrous in its blinding and blighting effect on life!
This Gracious Promise
Let me ask you to look a little more closely at this gracious promise, with which I would fain fortify your heart and mine this day. "As thy days, so shall be thy strength." Whose is the promise? It is the promise, in essence, which God makes to His friends, times without number, here in this Holy Book, by direct statement, and by implication. That is the unending promise of God all through this Book. Now, since, that is God's promise, His pledge, that pledge is well grounded. There are promises human. They are often frail, they often come short; they often break. But this is God's promise, and when we know it is God's promise we can rest upon it with all the tranquility and peace with which a child lies back upon its mother's heart. Yes, it is God's promise.
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George W. Truett (1867-1944) - The First Baptist Church grew into the largest church in the world at the time. Dr. Truett served as president of the Southern Baptist Convention.
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