Blessed Lord! who art my sanctification, I come to Thee now with a very
special request. O Thou who didst in Thine own body bear our sins on the
tree, and of whom it is written, 'We have been sanctified through the
offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all,' be pleased to reveal
to me how my body may to the full experience the power of Thy wonderful
redemption. I do desire in soul and body to be holy to the Lord.
Lord! I have too little understood that my body is the temple of the
Holy Ghost, that there is nothing in it that can be matter of
indifference, that its every state and function is to be holiness to the
Lord. And where I saw that this should be so, I have still sought myself
to guard from the enemy's approaches these the walls of the city. I
forgot how this part of my being too could alone be kept and sanctified
by faith, by Thy taking and keeping charge of what faith entrusted to
Thee.
Lord Jesus! I come now to surrender this body with all its needs into
Thy hands. In weariness and nervousness, in excitement and enjoyment, in
hunger and want, in health and plenty, O my holy Saviour, let my body be
in Thy keeping every moment. Thou callest us, 'being made free from sin,
to present our members as servants of righteousness unto
sanctification.' Saviour! in the faith of the freedom from sin which I
have in Thee, I present every member of my body to Thee: I believe the
Spirit of life in Thee makes me free from the law of sin in my members.
Whether living or dying, be Thou magnified in my body. Amen.
1. In the tabernacle and temple, the material part was to be in
harmony with, and the embodiment of, the holiness that dwelt
within. It was therefore all made according to the pattern
shown in the mount. In the two last chapters of Exodus, we have
eighteen times 'as the Lord commanded.' Everything, even in the
exterior, was the embodiment of the will of God. Even so our
body, as God's temple, must in everything be regulated by God's
word, quickened and sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
2. As part of this holiness in the body, Scripture mentions dress.
Speaking of the 'outward adorning of plaiting the hair, of
wearing jewels, or the putting on of apparel,' as inconsistent
with 'the apparel of a meek and quiet spirit,' Peter says,
'After this manner aforetime _the holy women_, who hoped in
God, adorned themselves.' Holiness was seen in their dressing;
their body was the temple of the Holy Spirit.
3. 'If ye through the Spirit do make dead the deeds of _the body_,
ye shall live.' His quickening energy must reign through the
whole. We are so accustomed to connect the spiritual with the
ideal and invisible, that it will need time and thought and
faith to realize how the physical and the sensible influence
our spiritual life, and must be under the mastery and
inspiration of God's Spirit. Even Paul says, 'I buffet _my
body_, and bring it into bondage, lest I myself should be
rejected.'
4. If God actually breathed His Spirit into the body of Adam
formed out of the ground, let it not be thought strange that
the Holy Spirit should now animate our bodies too with His
sanctifying energy.
5. 'Corporeality is the end of the ways of God.' This deep saying
of an old divine reminds us of a much neglected truth. The
great work of God's Spirit is to ally Himself with matter, and
form it into a spiritual body for a dwelling for God. In our
body the Holy Spirit will do it, if He gets complete
possession.
6. It is on this truth of the Holy Spirit's power in the body that
what is called Faith-healing rests. Through all ages, in times
of special spiritual quickening, God has given it to some to
see how Christ would make, even here, the body partaker of the
life and power of the Spirit. To those who do see it, the link
between Holiness and Healing is a very close and blessed one,
as the Lord Jesus takes possession of the body for Himself.
Twenty-fourth Day.