p. 4 | LIVING CLOSE TO GOD by Theodore L. Cuyler

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 30, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 50.

LIVING CLOSE TO GOD.

By Theodore L. Cuyler

The Rev. T. L. Cuyler, in the New York Evangelist, says: "If you ask what we gain by living close to God, I would answer that we gain fresh supplies of strength. The strength of yesterday will not suffice for to-day any more than yesterday's food will sustain me if I neglected to eat my breakfast this morning. God means that we shall be kept in constant dependence, therefore he metes out 'strength equal to the day.' The manna must fall fresh every morning. Lord, give us day by day our daily bread. No Christian can live on an old experience or an old promise made to God in years gone by, or on the divine help that was furnished to him in a past emergency. A new conflict requires a new and immediate interposition of the divine aid. The Christians of Laodicea may once have been healthy and happy; they ceased to live near to God, and he 'spewed them out of his mouth.'

"Security depends upon living close to Jesus. The soldier who keeps the ranks on the march, and behind the ramparts during the assault, is commonly safe; the stragglers are apt to be picked up by the enemy. To this latter class in our churches belong the casualties and the disgraceful desertions which so often shock and shame us. Among this class

of backsliders are the ready victims of the tempter—the men who betray pecuniary trusts, and the weak-kneed time-servers who succumb in times of hard pressure, and those deserters who slip away from God's worship through broken Sabbaths, and all the votaries of self-indulgence who are mostly found in the haunts of 'Vanity Fair.' Drifting away from God, they fall into the hands of the adversary. Need a Christian ever slip or stumble? Need he ever walk in the dark, or lose the roll of his assurance?—No; not if he lives close to Christ, so close that the Shepherd's eye is ever on him, and the light of Christ's countenance illumines his path, and the Almighty arm is ever within reach. Brother, if you or I ever lose Christ, it is not because he has driven us away, or hidden himself from us; it is because we have been drawn away from him."