I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not, how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. For I might seek to set the truth before the unconverted, I might seek to benefit believers, I might seek to relieve the distressed, I might in other ways seek to behave myself as it becomes a child of God in this world; and yet, not being happy in the Lord, and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day, all this might not be attended to in a right spirit.
George Muller

CLXXII. The Natural and the Spiritual.

1 COR. xv. 46. “That was not first which is spiritual, but that
which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.”

THE method of God’s working is upward progress. The
imperfect precedes the perfect. Such is God’s method in
the natural world and also in the spiritual.
I. Have regard to the dispensations of revealed religion
—first the law, then love.
II. This upward progress is seen in Christian experience
and in the development of Christian character.
III. This upward progress is seen in the increase of the
spiritual kingdom in the world.
Can Divine progress be continued? Can Christianity
live? Yes; for—
1. It has lived and increased in spite of the most deter-
mined opposition. The heavens are not going to fall, good
things are not going to die.
2. We have the old promise of the Holy Ghost. The
progress is not rapid. But let the Church of God calm
her heart Above all things, let us not be afraid.
Thomas Jones

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