Exercising yourself

"Thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting."
Daniel 5:27

It is well frequently to weigh ourselves in the scale of God's Word. You will find it a holy exercise to read some psalm of David, and, as you meditate upon each verse, to ask yourself, "Can I say this? Have I felt as David felt? Has my heart ever been broken on account of sin, as his was when he penned his penitential psalms? Has my soul been full of true confidence in the hour of difficulty as his was when he sang of God's mercies in the cave of Adullam, or in the holds of Engedi? Do I take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord?"

Then turn to the life of Christ, and as you read, ask yourselves how far you are conformed to his likeness. Endeavour to discover whether you have the meekness, the humility, the lovely spirit which he constantly inculcated and displayed. Take, then, the epistles, and see whether you can go with the apostle in what he said of his experience. Have you ever cried out as he did--"O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Have you ever felt his self-abasement? Have you seemed to yourself the chief of sinners, and less than the least of all saints? Have you known anything of his devotion? Could you join with him and say, "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain"?

If we thus read God's Word as a test of our spiritual condition, we shall have good reason to stop many a time and say, "Lord, I feel I have never yet been here, O bring me here! give me true penitence, such as this I read of. Give me real faith; give me warmer zeal; inflame me with more fervent love; grant me the grace of meekness; make me more like Jesus. Let me no longer be found wanting,' when weighed in the balances of the sanctuary, lest I be found wanting in the scales of judgment." "Judge yourselves that ye be not judged."

Charles Spurgeon' Morning and Evening Devotionals (June 12)

Remember

Verse 5. Remember. How others may be affected I do not ask. For myself, I confess, that there is no care or sorrow, by which I am so severely harassed, as when I feel myself guilty of ingratitude to my most kind Lord. It not seldom appears to be a fault so inexplicable, that I am alarmed when I read these words, inasmuch as I consider them addressed to myself, and others like me. Remember, O ye forgetful, thoughtless, and ungrateful, the works of God, which he hath done to us, with so many signs and proofs of his goodness. What more could he have done, which he hath not done?—Folengius.

From the additional notes to Psalm 105 in The Treasury of David, by Charles Spurgeon.  

The following entry about Folengius' life seems to have been translated from another language (his books were on the Index of books that Catholics were prohibited from reading for a time):


Jean Baptist F O L E N G I O 
entered into a Benedictine monastery in his native city, 

where his talents and industry obtained for him a high re

putation for proficiency in literature and sacred criticism, 

while the excellence of his disposition rendered him an 

object of general esteem. He was selected to fill the most 

important and distinguished stations in his order, and he 

was afterwards chosen by Pope Paul IV. as visitor of the 

Benedictine foundations in Spain. When he had per

formed this task, he returned to his native country, 

and devoted himself almost wholly to theological studies, 

in the course of which he conceived the hopeless project 

of uniting Catholics and Protestants in one communion. 

After a life spent in the service of his fellow creatures, he 

died in 1559, in his seventieth year. He left behind him 

many theological writings, of which the principal were "Com

mentaries upon the Epistles of St. James, St. Peter, and 

the first Epistle of St. John," published in 1551, in 8vo; 

also a "Commentary upon the Psalms." These works 

must have had more than common merit in respect to libe

rality of sentiment, as they were prohibited by his church. 

His "Commentary on the Psalms" indeed was reprinted 

in 1585, but revised and abridged. Dupin says that he 

"writes purely and nobly," and Thuanus had reason to say, 

"that no man will ever repent the reading of his Commentaries." 

Efficiency

Revival in the Church comes not from increased efficiency in organization but from waiting upon God. Not that efficiency is not necessary, but no amount of efficiency can breathe life into a body from which the Spirit has departed.

William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible: the letters to Timothy, Titus and Philemon, pge 263. [Revised edition 1984]