We Love God!

God: "I looked for someone to take a stand for me, and stand in the gap" (Ezekiel 22:30)

Life on earth would not be worth much if every source of irritation were removed. Yet most of us rebel against the things that irritate us, and count as heavy loss what ought to be rich gain. We are told that the oyster is wiser; that when an irritating object, like a bit of sand, gets under the “mantle” of his shell, he simply covers it with the most precious part of his being and makes of it a pearl. The irritation that it was causing is stopped by encrusting it with the pearly formation. A true pearl is therefore simply a victory over irritation. Every irritation that gets into our lives today is an opportunity for pearl culture. The more irritations the devil flings at us, the more pearls we may have. We need only to welcome them and cover them completely with love, that most precious part of us, and the irritation will be smothered out as the pearl comes into being. What a store of pearls we may have, if we will!
Richard Seume

Page 43

Page 43 Notice that the mind has something to do with discovering God’s moral will. Remember that under the New Covenant, the Law of God is written in our minds (Heb. 8:10). However, our minds need to be renewed. If we offer ourselves as a living sacrifice to the Lord, and we renew our minds, Paul says that we will know and approve the perfect will of God. As natural creatures, we have a certain way of thinking. We have a way of reasoning that we inherited from this world. The Lord’s thoughts are not man’s thoughts. In fact, they are directly opposed to the thinking of this present world. Yet as we renew our mind, we begin to think the way He thinks and our spiritual instincts become sharper. Our understanding and our judgment become shaped by the Lord’s mind. And His will becomes obvious to us. We become intuitively aware which actions are pleasing to Him and which are not. This is maturity. Again, I’m speaking of the moral will of God. Paul made mention of this process when he spoke to the Corinthians. He told them that because they were living like natural people in the world (unsaved people), they were spiritual babes and couldn’t understand the things of the Spirit. But the spiritually mature are those who are able to exercise spiritual discernment and judgment (1 Cor. 2:6-3:3). To put a finer point on it, instead of giving us orders and commands, the Lord desires for us to have a mind. ,Let this mind be