October 8 Daily Devotional

Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed, lest he fall.

Another danger is the danger of self-confidence. God has given gifts to man and the danger is for man to rely upon himself and his gifts and to feel ... that he does not need God. Pride and self-assurance are a constant danger.... Then there is always the danger of being attracted by the world and its outlook and its way ... these things are so subtle. It is not that a man deliberately sits down and decides that he is going back into the world. It is something that happens almost imperceptibly. The world and its attractions are always there and a man slips into them almost without knowing it....

Yet another danger is that of resting on our oars .. . and so we do not grow. If we compare ourselves with what we were ten years ago, there is really no difference. We do not know God any more intimately, we have not advanced one step, we have not ‘grown in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord’. We are resting in a state of self-satisfaction.... As we go on year by year in the Christian life we ought to be able to say that we know God better than we used to, we should be able to say that we love Him more than once we did.... Do we know God better, are we really seeking Him more and more? God knows, the danger is to forget Him because we are interested in ourselves.... And so God in His infinite love chastises us in order... to bring us back to Himself, in order to safeguard us against these terrible dangers that are constantly threatening us and surrounding us. Let me put it to your experience. Can you say that you thank God for things that have gone against you? ... can you look back and say, ‘It is good for me that I was afflicted’, like the Psalmist in Psalm 119:71?

Spiritual Depression, pp. 243–4