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IN TOUCH WITH GOD    by Edward Heppenstall

 
Keeping Spirituality Alive SEPTEMBER 25

CHARACTER THAT CANNOT BE HID

A city that is set on a hill cannot he hid. Matt. 5:14.

There is a certain type of religious experience that clamors for recognition, but the Christian faith is discredited by a desire for show. Christ abhorred any kind of religious parade. He was deaf to applause. He sought not honor from men. It was enough to have His Father's approval, His love, and approbation. Christ avoided publicity. He sought the solitude of the wilderness for prayer. When people wanted to make Him king He retired to a private place. What a rebuke to man's self-assertion, to the advertising of himself.

Genuineness of character, goodness, purity, are all self-revealing. This is true, in a large measure, of genius. A greatly gifted man needs not to proclaim his extraordinary abilities. They will proclaim themselves. If a man is a genuine Christian everyone having fellowship with him will know him to be such.

The hidden violets proclaim their presence in every passing breeze. The lark, hidden in the light of the sun, fills all the landscape with music. Christian character is all the more penetrating arid convincing for its loveliness, all the more captivating for its humility, all the more renowned for its purity. The man who has Christ within cannot hide himself.

The apostle John was banished to the Isle of Patmos. But far from sinking from view in that solitary sea, he stands today before the world amid sublime prophecies in the book of Revelation. Enemies drove Martin Luther into Wartburg castle to hide; bur there, in translating the Scriptures into German, he became the attraction of all eyes and minds. Bunyan's enemies consigned him to Bedford jail. There he began to write Pilgrim's Progress and became one of the foremost of the immortals of Christendom.

Men of surpassing Christian love and faith need not be concerned lest they should be overlooked or forgotten. They are the last to be ignored. The man of genuine goodness is the very last to be slighted. He who knows the deep things of God will be sought out far and wide. A man of genuine prayer will ever be sought for intercession with God.

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