By Mrs Jessie Penn-Lewis.

“Do not fret because of evil men” “Do not fret”

“Do not fret - it only leads to evil" (Ps.37 v1, 7&8).

The Psalmist repeats the warning three times. The root of the word fret is the Saxon word ‘fretan’, to ‘gnaw’, or ‘eat up’. How true this is, fretting eats away at our spiritual rest. Fretting over the wrong doing of others around us, fretting when “men succeed in their ways, and they carry out their wicked schemes” (v7), fretting until it ends in sin and evildoing in ourselves.

We may think, ‘Yes, I can rest and trust God in everything He sends me, but it is the worry that I may be doing it wrong that causes me to fret. Were my motives pure, did I obey God? Am I co-operating with Him as I should? Am I hindering God?’

The Spirit-taught knowledge of Galatians 2 v20, "I have been crucified with Christ" is the only cure. There is no other source of healing, no other way of deliverance but the death of Christ at Calvary. 

The subtle “I” that we doubt and fear was crucified with Him. If we truly believed this we will understand what is meant by “anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from His" (Heb. 4 v10). The rest of ceasing from myself to find my all in Him.

But what is the practical outworking of this in experience? Accepting the fact that in Christ I have died, I now hand over my whole being to His control and He undertakes the management and responsibility, not so much by working on me from outside but by taking control within. He becomes the indwelling life and power. From now on I am to accept that I have died, and now I rest, moment by moment, upon His faithfulness in working out His will through the weakness of the “earthen vessel”.

"Continue to work . . . for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose” (Phil.  2 v12-13).

Trusting hour by hour, in childlike faith that God is working in us to do His will, there comes a calm, unquestioning, restful assurance, which puts oil upon the wheels of daily life.

But if we have accepted the deliverance of Calvary, and have in simple faith counted ourselves crucified with Christ, what are we to do in the hour of temptation when the old worry and fever and fuss attack us, when we are conscious of the pressure of the adversary seeking to drive us into the old restlessness and fretting?

It is then that we need to take God's side against ourselves. To remind the Lord that we have been crucified with Him and that He is now the Living One within us. To remind Him that He has undertaken the responsibility and that now is the time for Him to prove His own word and keep the "earthen vessel” under His calm control. But there is a very important condition that we must not pass over, which we can find in Isaiah 26 v3, “You will keep in perfect peace the one whose mind or imagination is stedfast, because he trusts in You”. 

Much of the worry and fret that troubles us comes from our imagination. We imagine a thousand things that never happen. If we are to know God’s perfect peace in actual reality, we will need not only to accept the crucifixion of the worrying “I”, and count upon the indwelling of the Risen Lord, but to definitely commit to Him the “mind” and “imagination”, that He may keep it steadfast on Him. It has been said that if we would only learn to live "now" we would cut up a thousand temptations by the roots. We must refuse to look back, or to look forward. If we trust the indwelling Christ to hold the restless “imagination” within His power, He will prove that He is able to keep in perfect peace the soul that relies upon Him.

May the Eternal Spirit make real to us day by day the power of the Cross of Jesus and the new life in union with the Risen Lord, a life in which Jesus Himself undertakes to be in us and work through us all that He desires from us, as we rest upon Him, and learn to say with Paul, “I labour, struggling with all His energy, which so powerfully works in me” (Col. 1 v29).

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The  Editor’s  Letter.

My Dear Friends,

Greetings in the precious Name of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

In the last three editions of the magazine we have looked at the wonder of ‘Christ was Crucified’, ‘Christ is Risen and Ascended’ and ‘Christ is Coming Again’. In this edition we will seek to look at our response to these wonderful facts as we ‘Run with Patience’ the course set before us.

Jesus is alive, He loves us and wants to share each step of the way with us, but this raises the question, are we willing to share all of our lives, step by step, its joys and sorrows, with Him? 

God is faithful, the Bible makes this clear, and how wonderful it is to find the reality of this in daily life. To be able to share this with others as they see the reality of God’s love and faithfulness being worked out in our lives.

May we discover afresh the wonder of the fact that He goes with us into all the circumstances of life, and allow Him to work out His will and purpose in us to the glory of His Name and the proclamation of Jesus in a needy world.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

Yours in the Saviour’s Name,

Michael Metcalfe.

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