Others May; You Cannot

If God has called you to be really like Jesus in all your spirit, He will draw you into a life of crucifixion & humility & will put you in such demands of obedience that you will not be allowed to follow other Christians…& in many ways He will appear to let other good people do things which He will not let you do.

Other Christians & ministers who seem very religious & useful may push themselves, pull wires & work schemes to carry out their plans but you cannot do it…& if you attempt it, you will meet with such failure & rebuke from the Lord as to make you sorely penitent.

Others may brag on themselves, on their work, on their success, on their writings, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing, & if you begin it, He will lead you into some deep mortification that will make you despise yourself & all your good works.

Others will be allowed to succeed in making money, or having a legacy left to them or in having luxuries, but it is likely God will keep you poor, because He wants you to have something better than gold, & that is a helpless dependence on Him, that He may have the privilege of supplying your needs day by day out of an unseen treasury.

The Lord will let others be honored & put forward & keep you hidden away in obscurity because He wants to reproduce some choice, fragrant fruit for His coming glory, which can be produced only in the shade.

He will let others be great, but keep you small. He will let others do a work for Him & get the credit for it, but He will make you toil & work on without knowing how much you’re doing. And then to make your work even more precious, He will let others get the credit for the work which you have done, & thus will make your reward ten times greater when Jesus comes.

The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch over you, with a jealous love & will rebuke you for little words & feelings or for wasting your time, which other Christians never seem distressed over. So make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign, & has a right to do as He pleases with His own. He will not explain to you reason in His dealings with you. He will take you at your word; & if you absolutely see yourself to be His slave, He will wrap you up in a jealous love & let other people say & do many things that you cannot do or say.

Settle it forever that you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit & that He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue or chaining your hand or closing your eyes, in ways that He does not deal with others. And when you are so possessed with the living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased & delighted over this peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship & management of the Holy Spirit over your life, you have found the vestibule of Heaven.

You know at times it may seem unfair that others can do things that you cannot do, but just remember that God has a purpose & plan for your life that only you can fulfill. I know in my life that the Lord won’t allow me to say or even do some things that other Christians can say or do, but that’s not because the Lord is unfair, but I realized that my plan & purpose that the Lord has for me won’t allow it. But everything comes back to trust. Do you trust God with your life? Do you trust His timing? Just remember…others may; you cannot…