Others May — You Cannot.

Others May — You Cannot.
by G.D Watson

"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live;
yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I
live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." - Galatians 2:20

Others can brag on themselves, and their work, on their success, on their writings, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing, and if you begin it, He will lead you into some deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good works.

The Lord will let others be honored and put forward, and keep you hid away in obscurity because He wants to produce some choice fragrant fruit for His glory, which can be produced only in the shade.

Others will be allowed to succeed in making money, but it is likely God will keep you poor because he wants you to have something far better than gold and that is a helpless dependence on Him; that He may have the privilege of supplying your needs day by day - out of an unseen treasury.

God will let others be great, but He will keep you small. He will let others do a great work for Him and get credit for it, but He will make you work and toil on without knowing how much you are doing; and then to make your work still more precious, He will let others get the credit for the work you have done, and this will make your reward ten times greater when He comes.

The Holy Spirit will put strict watch over you, with a jealous love, and will rebuke you for little words and feelings, or for wasting your time, which other Christians never seem distressed over.

So make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign, and has a right to do what He pleases with His own, and He will not explain to you a thousand things which may puzzle your reason in His dealing with you. He will wrap you up in a jealous love, and let other people say and do many things that you cannot do or say.

Settle it forever, that you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit, and that He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue, or chaining your hand, or closing your eyes, in ways that others are not dealt with.

Now, when you are so possessed with the Living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this particular personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit over your life, you will have found the vestibule of heaven.

I know the Devil delights when I feel left out by God. I know he rejoices when I question God and His ways and seeds of doubt are readily planted. And when I feel like I have been pushed to one side by God, cheated out of my inheritance, and so, so, so, alone - trumpets of victory are blown in the darkness.

He is the father of lies. Of guilt, doubts, worthlessness. Deceit, pride, envy. And I know he roams my life, looking for areas where his demons can set to work, where he can begin to creep in unnoticed and start to destroy. His tools are doubts, delighting in overwhelming worthlessness, inciting fear and rejection; how heavy are his chains of guilt and bondage! And what victory he gains when we do not fight back, self-controlled and alert against the wiles of him who prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for one to devour! He laughs when we are blind and stupid, not realising that he must flee when we stand firm.

The father of worthless idols knows the Father of All that is Good, and even his demons know that there is one God - and they tremble! The god of this world knows that the God of the Universe has good plans for my life - and so he tries to steal. Steal away my faith, my trust, my confidence in His justice. So he tries to kill - my hope in the Lord, that He is faithful to all His promises, loving towards all He has made. And he tries to destroy - all my efforts done for the Lord, making them seem worthless and futile, and as if God had forgotten me.

But the Devil will get no victory in this life of mine.. I stand on His Word. That I am born of God, overcoming this world, not living of it. That He who is loving and faithful gives what is needed to His creatures at the proper time, in His time, and satisfies the desires of every living thing. That I am arranged in this part of the body right where He wants me to be - I cannot be an eye and desire to be an ear, or say that I am not part of the body because I do not have the same role as the feet, or say to the neck that I do not need it. Because if we were all an ear, where would the sense in that be? And if we were all one part, where would the body be? For the body is made up of many parts - but it is one with Christ as it's life.

And He tells me that those parts of the body which seem to be weaker are in fact, indispensable... And the parts which are unseen, thought as less honourable, we treat with special honour.

The Lord does not see things as man sees,
He looks beyond the outward appearances
and into the heart.


(2 Peter 5:8, James 2:19, John 10:10, Psalm 145:13-16, 1 Corinthians 12:12-27, 1 Samuel 16:7)