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Struggling with Passions


Wednes­day. [I. Cor. 10:12-22; Matt. 16:20-24] When the Ho­ly A­pos­tles con­fess­ed the Sav­iour to be the Son of God, He said, I must… suf­fer… and be killed. The work had rip­en­ed; it re­main­ed on­ly to com­plete it through the death on the cross. The same thing oc­curs in the course of a Chris­tian’s mor­al prog­ress. While he is strug­gl­ing with his pas­sions, the en­e­my still hopes some­how to tempt him; but when pas­sions have set­tled down and the en­e­my no long­er has e­nough pow­er to awak­en them, he pres­ents ex­ter­nal temp­ta­tions, all sorts of wrong­ful ac­cu­sa­tions, more­over, the most sen­si­tive. He tries to plant the thought: “So what did you work and strug­gle for? No good will come of it for you.” But when the en­e­my thus pre­pares a war from with­out, the Lord sends down the spir­it of pa­tience to his strug­gler, there­by pre­par­ing a live­ly read­i­ness in his heart for all sorts of suf­fer­ing and hos­til­i­ty be­fore the en­e­my can man­age to stir up trou­ble. As the Lord said a­bout Him­self, I must suf­fer, spir­i­tu­al strug­glers al­so feel a sort of thirst for sor­rows. And when the suf­fer­ing and hos­til­i­ty come, they meet them with joy, and drink them in like a thirsting man drinks cooling wa­ter.


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