“They which receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness shall
reign in life” (Rom. v. 17).
Precious souls sometimes fight tremendous battles in order to attain to
righteousness in trying places. Perhaps the heart has become wrong in some
matter where temptation has been allowed to overcome, or at least to turn
it aside from its singleness unto God; and the conflict is a terrible one
as it seeks to adjust itself and be right with God, and finds itself
baffled by its own spiritual foes, and its own helplessness, perplexity
and perversity. How dark and dreary the struggle, and how helpless and
ineffectual it often seems at such times! It is almost sure to strive in
the spirit of the law, and the result always is, and must ever be,
condemnation and failure. Every disobedience is met by a blow of wrath,
and discouragement, and it well nigh sinks to despair. Oh, if the tempted
and struggling one could only understand or remember what perhaps he has
learned before, that Christ is our righteousness, and that it is not by
law but by grace alone, “For sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye
are not under the law, but under grace.” That is the secret of the whole
battle.