The testimony of the Church.
· George Mueller’s Secret.
In his classic biography, George
Mueller of Bristol, A. T. Pierson writes:
A “chance
remark”—there is no chance in
a believer’s life—made by the brother at whose house he was abiding at
Plymouth, much impressed him. Referring to the sacrifices in Leviticus, he said
that, as the refuse of the animals was never offered upon the altar, but only
the best parts and the fat, so the choicest of our time and strength, the best
parts of our day, should be especially given to the Lord in worship and
communion. George Muller meditated much on this, and determined, even at the
risk of damage to bodily heath, that he would no longer spend his best hours in
bed. Henceforth he allowed himself but seven hours sleep and gave up his
after-dinner rest. This resumption of early rising secured long seasons of
uninterrupted interviews with God, in prayer and meditation on the Scriptures,
before breakfast and the various inevitable interruptions that followed. He
found himself not worse but better, physically, and became convinced that to
have lain longer in bed as before would have kept his nerves weak and, as to
spiritual life, such new vitality and vigour accrued from thus waiting upon God
while others slept, that it continued to be the habit of his afterlife.
This is a somewhat
short post today. But perhaps it is
enough to give us matters on which we ought to meditate, with a view to getting
rid of the “toxic thoughts and ideas that infiltrate it every day” and
establishing or increasing our determination for “private devotion.”
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