“He purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit” (John xv. 2).
One day we passed a garden. The gardener had finished his pruning, and the wounds of the knife and saw were beginning to heal, while the warm April sun was gently nourishing the stricken plant into fresh life and energy. We thought as we looked at that plant how cruel it would be to begin next week and cut it down again. It would bleed to death. Now, the gardener’s business is to revive and nourish into life. Its business is not to die, but to live. So, we thought, it is with the discipline of the soul. It, too, has its dying hour; but it must not be always dying. Rather reckon ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin and alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord Everlasting.
Breathe Thine own breath through all my mortal frame, Help me Thy resurrection life to claim, Which, ’mid all changes, still abides the same, And lead me in the way Everlasting.
Give me the heavenly foretaste here, I pray; Let faith foredate the everlasting day, And walking in its glory all the way, O, lead me in the way Everlasting!
“And the remnant of the oil ... shall pour upon the head” (Lev. xiv. 18).
In the account of the healing of the Hebrew leper there is a beautiful picture of the touching of his ears, hands and feet, with the redeeming blood and the consecrating oil, as a sign that his powers of understanding, service, and conduct were set apart to God, and divinely endued for the Master’s work and will.
But after all this, we are significantly told that “the rest of the oil” was to be poured upon his head.
The former anointing was from the oil in the hand of the priest, but the latter was to be from the log, or vessel of oil itself. It was to be literally emptied over him, until he was bathed with all its contents.
It is a figure of the large and boundless baptism of the Holy Ghost. It speaks of something more even than the ordinary experiences of the consecrated Christian. It tells of the abundant and redundant supply which God has for us out of His illimitable fulness.
Have we received “the rest oil”? Are we _filled_ with the Spirit, and letting the overflow bless others?
“Without Me ye can do nothing” (John xv. 5).
How much can I do for Christ? We are accustomed to say.—As much as I can. Have we ever thought we can do more than we can?