Jukes: bondage and darkness

Thursday, November 14, 2019
    Commemoration of Samuel Seabury, First Anglican Bishop in North America, 1796
Meditation:
    ... everything that does not come from faith is sin.
    —Romans 14:23b (NIV)
Quotation:
    The fall was simply this, that some creature, that is, something which is not God, took His place with man; and man, trusting the creature more than God, walked in its light or darkness rather than in fellowship with God. Righteousness comes back when man by faith is brought to walk with God again, and to give Him His true place by acting or being acted upon in all things according to His will. Anything therefore not of faith is sin. And all such sin is bondage. Self-will is bondage, for ... self-will or independence of God means dependence on a creature; and we cannot be dependent on a creature, be it what it may, without more or less becoming subject to it. What has not been given up for money, or for some creature’s love? But who has ever thus served the creature more than the Creator without awaking at last to feel he is a bondman? I say nothing of the worse bondage which comes from our self-will, in the indulgence of our own thoughts, or passions, or affections. Even the very energies of faith, while, as yet unchastened, it acts from self, ... may only bring forth more bondage... Who but God can set men free? And He sets them free as they walk with Him. All independence of Him is only darkness.
    ... Andrew Jukes (1815-1901), The New Man and the Eternal Life, London: Longmans, Green, 1881, p. 121 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 14:23; Gen. 3:1-7; Gal. 4:3-9; 1 John 3:4
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your gift of faith liberates me from bondage to self-will. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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