The Sight of Faith.
"As seeing Him who is invisible."--Heb. xi. 27.
If we were always doing everything just as if we saw Him, whom having not seen we love, how different our lives would be! How much happier too! How brave, and bright, and patient we should be, if all the time we could really see Jesus as Stephen saw Him! And by faith, the precious faith which God is ready to give to all who ask, we may go on our way with this light upon it, "as seeing Him who is invisible."
These words were said of Moses; and this seeing Him by faith had three effects. First, "he forsook Egypt;" it made him ready to give up anything for his God, and God's people. It made him true and loyal to God's cause. What did He care for anything else, so long as he saw "Him who is invisible?" Secondly, it took away all his fear. What was "the wrath of the king" to him, when Jehovah was by his side? Of what should he be afraid? Thirdly, it enabled him to "endure," to wait patiently for forty years in the desert, and then to work patiently for forty years in the wilderness; and only think how strength-giving that sight of faith must be which enabled him to endure everything for eighty years!
Try for yourself to-day what was such great and long help to Moses. Ask God, before you go down-stairs, for faith, "the eye of the soul," so that you may walk all day long "as seeing Him who is invisible." When you are tempted to indulge in something wrong,--idleness or carelessness, or selfishness,--this will help you to give it up at once, and forsake it; for how can you give way to it when your eye meets His? When something makes you afraid, this will make you brave and peaceful; for how can you fear anything when your God is so near? When lessons, or work, or even having to be quiet with nothing to do, seem very tiresome, and you are tempted to be impatient, and perhaps cross, this will help you to endure and not only so, but to feel patient; for how can you be impatient when you are looking up to Him, and He is looking down on you all the time!
"God will not leave me all alone,
He never will forsake His own;
When not another friend I see,
The Lord is looking down on me."
29. Twenty-Ninth Day.
No Weights.
"Let us lay aside every weight."--Heb. xii. 1.
If you were going to run a race, you would first put down all the parcels you might have been carrying. And if you had a heavy little parcel in your pocket, you would take that out, and lay it down too, because it would hinder you in running. You would know better than to say, "I will put down the parcels which I have in my hands, but nobody can see the one in my pocket, so that one won't matter!" You would "lay aside every weight."