By G. D. Watson
"If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it."
(Matthew 16:24-25)
If God has called you to be truly like Jesus in all your spirit, He will draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility. He will put on you such demands of obedience that you will not even be allowed to follow other Christians. In many ways, He seems to let other good people do things which He will not let you do.
Others who seem to be very religious and useful may push themselves, pull wires, and scheme to carry out their plans, but you cannot. If you attempt it, you will be met with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you sorely penitent.
Others can brag about themselves, their work, their successes, their writing; but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing. If you begin to do so, He will lead you into deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good works.
Others will be allowed to succeed in making great sums of money, or having a legacy left to them, or in having luxuries, but God may supply you on only a day to day basis, because He wants you to have something far better than gold - a helpless dependence on Him and His unseen treasury.
The Lord may let others be honored and put forward while keeping you hidden in obscurity because He wants to produce some choice, fragrant fruit for His coming glory - fruit which can only be produced in the shade.
God may let others be great, but keep you small. He will let others do a work for Him and get the credit, but He will make you work and toil without ever knowing how much you are doing. Then, to make your work still more precious, He will let others get the credit for the work which you have done; this is to teach you the message of the Cross, humility, and something of the value of being cloaked in His nature.
The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch on you. With a jealous love He will rebuke you for careless words and feelings, or for wasting your time, which other Christians never seem distressed over. So make up your mind that God is infinite and sovereign and has a right to do as He pleases with His own, and that He may not explain to you a thousand things that may puzzle your reason in His dealings with you.
God will take you at your word. If you absolutely sell yourself to be His slave, He will wrap you up in a jealous love, and let other people say and do many things that you cannot. So settle it forever; you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit, and He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue or chaining your hand or closing your eyes in ways which others are not dealt with.
However, know this great secret of the Kingdom: When you are so completely possessed with the Living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit over your life, you will have found the portal of heaven, the high calling of God.
G.D. Watson (1845-1924) was a Wesleyan Methodist minister and evangelist based in Los Angeles. His evangelistic campaigns took him to England, the West Indies, New Zealand, Australia, Japan and Korea. He also wrote several books.
