and in need of all things.' Men come to
Jesus Christ by many ways, thank God, and I care little by what road
they come so long as they get there, nor do I insist upon any
stereotyped order of religious experience. But of this I am very sure:
that unless we abandon confidence in ourselves, because we have seen
ourselves in the light of God's law, we have not learned all that we
need nor laid hold of all that Christ gives. Let us measure ourselves in
the light of God, and we shall learn that we have to take our places
beside Job, when the vision of God silenced his protestations of
innocence. 'I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine
eye seeth Thee; wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.'

That self-distrust should pass into glorying in Christ Jesus. If a man
has learned his emptiness he will look about for something to fill it.
Unless I know myself to be under condemnation because of my sin, and
fevered, disturbed, and made wretched, by its inward consequences which
forbid repose, the sweetest words of Gospel invitation will pass by me
like wind whistling through an archway. But if once I have been driven
from self-confidence, then like music from heaven will come the word,
'Trust in Jesus.' The seed dropped into the ground puts out a
downward-going shoot, which is the root, and an upward-growing one,
which is the stalk. The downward-going shoot is 'no confidence in the
flesh,' the upward-going is 'glorying in Christ Jesus.'

But that word suggests the blessed experience of triumph in the
possession of the Person known and felt to be all, and to give all that
life needs. A true Christian should ever be triumphant in a felt
experience, in a Name proved to be sufficient, in a power which infuses
strength into his weakness, and enables him to do the will of God. It is
for want of utter self-distrust and absolute faith in Christ that
'glorying' in Him is so far beyond the ordinary mood of the average
Christian. You say, 'I hope, sometimes I doubt, sometimes I fear,
sometimes I tremblingly trust.' Is that the kind of experience that
these words shadow? Why do we continue amidst the mist when we might
rise into the clear blue above the obscuring pall? Only because we are
still in some measure clinging to self, and still in some measure
distrusting our Lord. If our faith were firm and full our 'glorying'
would be constant. Do not be contented with the prevailing sombre type
of Christian lif