FORWARD
None But the Hungry Heart is a devotional
series that will help you in your Christian growth and walk with the Lord. The first issue
in this series was published in 1968 and the final issue was completed in 1987. For a
period of approximately 20 years, Miles Stanford has collected and categorized quotes from
some of the best authors in the realm of Christian growth. Contained at this site, you
will find the intimate truths of God's Word explained and expounded by His humble
servants.
Before God could use these men, He had to bring them to the end of
themselves. He had to teach them that self-confidence--no matter what it's form--could
only result in defeat. Many of these servants had to spend years of struggling in the
"self-life" before they learned to depend on the Risen Lord Jesus to be their
All in All. One such man was C.A. Coates. The following account reflects some of the
lessons that he learned in his own struggle with the flesh.
I had to see about some work being done the other day, and was
asking the contractor how much it would cost. 'It won't cost very much,' said he, 'because
we can use all the old material.' Now that is precisely what God could not do. There must
be a new start altogether with new material. God rejects the old material altogether and
begins entirely anew, and the one who is born again begins to learn the true character of
the old material--i.e. all that he is as a child of Adam and a man in the flesh--and to be
as dissatisfied with it as God is. You may see this in Job and Saul of Tarsus. One of them
said, "I abhor myself," and the other said, "I know that in me (that is, in
my flesh) dwelleth no good thing." Such language as this is the mark of one born
again. He identifies himself with that new "inward man" which is of God, and he
judges everything of a contrary nature to be sin. In itself this is not a happy
experience. It is not very pleasant for one who has been self-sustained and self-satisfied
in a moral and religious life to find that there is not one bit of good in him. Some may
discover this by a single flash of divine light, as in the case of Saul of Tarsus, and
others may have years of struggling and disappointment before they learn it, but it must,
and will, be learned sooner or later by every one that is born again.
You might be very well up in the doctrine of deliverance (Gal 2:20),
and yet all the time be secretly attempting to correct and improve yourself, and suffering
a good deal of private vexation and disappointment on account of the failure of your
attempts. I know how long I struggled on in this way myself, praying and striving to be
more holy and Christ-like, and continually disappointed with the result. I do not think
that it ever occurred to me in those days that I was trying to improve the man whom God
had set aside. It was at a moment when I was utterly discouraged, and ready to give up the
whole thing in complete despair, that God showed me how I was attempting to work upon the
old material which He could only condemn, and that my disgust and despair as to myself
were only a feeble echo of His. I shall never forget the joy of finding out that in the
depth of my disgust with myself I was thoroughly at one with God. God had ceased to look
for any good in me and had Christ before Him, the perfect and infinitely acceptable Object
of His heart; and I, in my nothingness, had ceased to look for good in myself, and was
tasting the deep joy of being in CHRIST, and free to have Him as my Object; while, as to
life, I entered in some degree into the blessedness of knowing that it was "not I,
but Christ liveth in me."
This discovery of the inability of self to please God is what turned
men such as Hudson Taylor, Andrew Murray and George Muller into instruments that could be
used by God. In order to do any lasting work for the Lord, we too will need to make that
same discovery. Only as we learn to abide in the Vine will we be a vessel that is It meet
for the Master's use." In None But the Hungry Heart, you
will be introduced to the heart beat of such men who "walked humbly with God"
and "placed no confidence in the flesh."
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