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Daily Devotionals
Music For the Soul
Devotional: December 19th

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DETACHMENT FROM OLD ASSOCIATIONS

By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed to go out unto a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. - Hebrews 11:8

Every great purpose requires restriction in other directions. A man cannot learn to play the fiddle unless he will consent to shear off a good many hours of leisure, and give them to it. There is nothing worth doing to be done except upon condition of resolutely stopping eyes and ears to attractions that lie round us. Jesus Christ demands no more than the artist pays for success in his art, no more than the man of business pays for making his wealth, no more than the student pays for attaining the mastery of his science; and that is, that everything else shall be subordinated, and, if necessary, shall be thrown aside, in order to secure the one aim. And when He said, " No man can follow Me that does not take up his cross and deny himself," He was just putting into language the experience that Abraham and his company had to go through when, if ever they were to go into the land of Canaan, they had to go out of the land of Haran. Always subordinated, and often cast aside, must everything else be if Christian men are to make God what He ought to be - their aim and end. The compass in an iron ship gets deflected by the iron round it, and so the resolute pointing of our spirits towards God gets drawn aside and warped by the many things that lie round us. Therefore rigid self-control and the continual effort to regard all external things mainly as means to an end, and possibly as hindrances thereto, are absolutely essential for success in the Christian life.

There is no patent way of getting to God. There is no easier path to be trodden to-day than of old. There are no rails laid to travel without effort to heaven by. We have still to journey in the old pilgrim fashion which Abraham set, and thereby became "the father of the faithful." "They went forth "- and unless we are prepared to leave behind us native country and companionship, such as Abraham left behind him in Haran, and to dwell, if needful, in a wilderness and a solitude, we shall never see " the land that is very far off." It is near us if we will forsake self and the things seen and temporal, but it moves away and recedes from us when we turn our hearts to these.

A mournfully large number of professing Christians have lost the very notion of progress, and content themselves with saying, "Oh! we shall always be imperfect; as long as we are here in this world, we cannot make it any different." No! you cannot make it different in that respect; but if you are not growing at all, ask yourself if you are living at all. Do not be content, as so many are, to be like invaders, who have pitched their tents, and after years of occupation have been unable to advance beyond the strip of shore which they seized at first, while all the interior lies unconquered and in arms against them.

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