#126 Our task now is just this
From Meditations on the Epistles of John, by Samuel Froehlich
(I John 4:13-19) Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us.
Only then do we learn to know God when His own Spirit is in us and bears witness that we are His children. (Romans 8) And because we cannot live a holy life in the midst of ungodly and sinful men without this Spirit of power and love, we are deceived too if we think that we can be saved without this witnessing of the Holy Spirit, as the people all do. Have we another spirit than that of the world, then we must live different than all other men, and for that reason we are hated by the world. This we must bear patiently.
Our task now is just this: That we believe and obey the testimony of the Spirit, which illumines our eyes so that we may look to God and acknowledge Him in all the ways on which He leads us on to perfection; so that we may never doubt or murmur but be of abounding faith and convinced that for those who love God and are called according to His purpose all things must work together for good. That they stand in grace and have the hope of inheriting the future world must suffice, though they have a thorn in the flesh and Satan’s angel to plague them, for the sake of the great revelation which has become their portion in God. (II Corinthians 12)
We cannot be wrong about this. We are merely to accept what God gives us and obey as He leads us and not do as the children of Israel did in the wilderness, who doubted in each new trial and had learned nothing from the previous signs and wonders of God for the reason that they knew Him only outwardly and not inwardly. But once we have received the divine Leader and guiding Star (Compass) in us, we are no longer dependent upon outward signs, and though the whole horizon be darkened, the light of the Holy Spirit still gleams in our hearts and by such solace are we lifted above all unforeseen occurrences of this earthly life, whose billows dash against our soul to all but swallow us. Yet God is within, and His city shall abide merry and glad with its streamlets, where are the tabernacles of the most High. (Psalm 46) And though the outer man and what is soulful of us must vanish under the striking, the inner man nevertheless is renewed from day to day.
This now is our combat on earth: That we yield not to the fleshly lusts that strive against the soul, nor yet to the sensitiveness of our soul in suffering, but by the spirit control and overcome the same, that it may retain its freedom and the soul, at the same time, may be sanctified, together with our body.