Does that mean we have to be &emiésaints'to enter: into' worship? God forbid. The one thing we do know'is.that this Father of ours spends: himself seeking for the lost sheep. His only Son was known as the "friend of; publicans and sinners." It doesn't mean we have to be semi-saints, but it does mean that mer must come before Him honestly just as we are. If God is to become in facta Father to us, we must answer His love, not By pretending to some spiritual exaltation which we dos not at all feel, but by honestly opening, our lives to him right at the point where we, now stand, with all our hopes and fears and difficulties and sin, be they small or great. On that basis, and on no other is it possible for His power to penetrate and mould our ordinary existence. No father can endure a son who comes to him pretending that he is something, different from what he really is, If he does that, it makes it impossible for his father to help him. The son knows what his real problems and hopes are, but he refuses to disclose them.
When we do answer His call by coming to Him thus, quite simply and in good faith, what happens? First of all, we know we are-home, where we belong. Human nature is so constituted that it never finds real inner rest and peace,—that poise of spirit which nothing is able to unbalance,—short of knowing God as Father. Our husbands or wives, our friends or children, our home or our work, are all a comfort and often a source of strength to.us. Still "they shall perish, but thou shalt endure." No one of them can meet that gnawing sense of. insecurity, frustration or fear, which at times gets hold of us and makes us almost wish that we were dead. No one but God the Father is able to do that "Our hearts are, restless till they resting: thee,"—St. Augustine hit the nai] on the head with these words. "Come unto me all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you......and ye shall find rest unto your' souls."
Him as Father First, then, we are home. Secondly, we know where we are wrong. We are always trying to excuse ourselves and prove that we were right. Left to ourselves, we can invariably find a moral reason for doing just exactly what we want. But in the presence of His love our defences are down, and He is able to give us new understanding of ourselves. It is no good asking Him for forgiveness in general. His forgiveness is specific. What have you done or failed to do? Where have you been wrong Thirdly, we know that He alone can turn our wrong to right, our weakness to strength, our ugliness to beauty. The stern righteousness of the Lord is unalterably opposed to evil. in ourselves and in the world. But it is coupled with a boundless mercy which in Christ has come to grips with human sin and broken its hold over human life. He empowers us to be done with this evil or that evil and liberates us from its clutches.
With Him as Father we become free men for the first time; commonplace existence is exalted to His side ordinary happenings take' on a ne resonance and richness; and the child begins to be transformed into the likeness of the Father.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.