“As the hart panteth after the waterbrooks, so panteth my soul after Thee,
O God” (Ps. xlii. 1).
First in order to a consecrated life there must be a sense of need, the
need of purity, of power, and of a greater nearness to the Lord. There
often comes in Christian life a second conviction. It is not now a sense
of guilt and God’s wrath so much as of the power and evil of inward sin,
and the unsatisfactoriness of the life the soul is living. It usually
comes from the deeper revelation of God’s truth, from more spiritual
teaching, from definite examples and testimonies of this life in others,
and often from an experience of deep trial, conflict and temptation in
which the soul has found its attainments and resources inadequate for the
real issues and needs of life. The first result is often a deep
discouragement and even despair, but the valley of Achor is the door of
hope, and the seventh chapter of Romans with its bitter cry, “O wretched
man that I am,” is the gateway to the eighth with its shout of triumph,
“The Spirit of life in Christ hath made me free from the law of sin and
death.”