License

I have written an e-book, Does the Bible Really Say That?, which is free to anyone. To download that book, in several formats, go here.
Creative Commons License
The posts in this blog are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You can copy and use this material, as long as you aren't making money from it. If you give me credit, thanks. If not, OK.

Sunday, September 10, 2017

Impressions, by Martin Wells Knapp, 65

In a previous excerpt, Knapp stated that there are four features of "impressions" from God. These are Scriptural; Right (consistent with good morals); Providential (in harmony with God's will); and Reasonable. His discussion of the result of living by "Convictions from Above," according to Christ's example, continues:

Was it not reasonable also that Jesus should further enforce the truth of His gospel by practicing what he preached? Did He not do this? What a contrast in this particular between Him and the hypocritical pretenders of that age and this! He not only proclaimed the importance of prayer, fasting, self-denial, and personal work, but faultlessly exemplified these and all other truths which He preached. In these and all other particulars of His wonderful life He was always in harmony with an
enlightened reason. Calm, self-possessed, and luminous with holy light, He shines forth the great central sun in the gospel system, marred by no spots of ridiculous speech or action. May His misguided followers who are prompted to do absurd things in His name study more clearly this phase of His character, and then aim to be like Him.

4. Jesus' Life was Always in Harmony with Providential Events. Providential opportunities to perform the deeds the Spirit prompted Him to do sprang up as by magic before His coming steps.
 

He came in contact with the occasions and persons essential to His success as naturally as a magnet draws the steel. He never was guilty of the inconsistency of feeling that it was God's will that He should do things which God's providences did not allow Him to do. Forbidding circumstances, such as appall timid souls that know not the secret of God's full grace and guidance, to Him, as to all who will follow in His steps, proved golden chariots to bear Him up the heights of victory. Infuriated fellow-townsmen, ecclesiastical intrigue, and Roman power combined were unable to stop Him in the discharge of a single duty, but each in its way were made to contribute to His glory. He walked so fully in the providential path marked out for Him that there was not a single jar between Him and the events He daily met. Thus His life proves a forceful reminder that the door of providential opportunity always swings open before him whom God leads. May we continue to look to the "Model Man" until, like Him, our lives are thus adjusted to God's providential dealings.

Jesus Always Fully Met the Conditions of Being Divinely Led. His humanity reposed in the lap of the Divine. Dead to the world, saved from self, filled with the Spirit, always putting the interests of the kingdom first, and unhesitatingly following every prompting from above, no matter how great the cost to Himself, the life of Jesus hangs in the gallery of the centuries as "Man's Perfect Model" of meeting the conditions of heavenly guidance.

 
Excerpted from Impressions, by Martin Wells Knapp. Original publication date, 1892. Public domain. My source is here. The previous post in the series is here.

No comments: