It is time to die to self-seeking, self-centeredness, self-love, self-aggrandizement, self-fulfillment, self-will.

The purpose of our redemption is not that we may be victorious and at peace, it is that God and Christ may be victorious and at peace in us. Let us abandon at once our self-seeking and seek rather the pleasure of God. Then we will find rest in God and He will find rest in us (John 14:23).

The above verse would appear to indicate we can walk in any direction we desire and God is bound to give us what we want. However, this promise must be interpreted in the context of the preceding verse, "to the land that I do give to them." The concept is, if we walk where God directs us to walk, then the Lord gives the land to us as our inheritance.

We have to do the walking. It is the soles of our feet that do the treading. The overcoming Christian life depends for its success on the proper balance of cooperation between the Lord and us. If we attempt to make the Lord do all the walking our Christian growth slows to a halt. If we attempt to do all the walking, we may accomplish many things but they will have little or no eternal value.

It is "the sword of the Lord, and of Gideon."

Jesus said, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work" (John 5:17). There are two witnesses described in the eleventh chapter of the Book of Revelation: Christ, and the Body of Christ—the two Lampstands of God.

The Christian Era is a long record of these two extremes. Some of the believers are waiting for God to do it all, while the denominations are attempting to build the Kingdom of God with money and their own group effort.

When God can find an individual or a group that will exercise the trust and patience required for the cooperation of God and man in the work of evangelism, or in achieving individual sainthood, great and eternal good is brought forth.

Christ works and we work. Whatever He says to do, we do. We do not rush about in the blindness of the flesh; neither do we cease our intense seeking of the Lord's will or our diligent application to the necessary tasks before us. We learn to walk with the Lord. He is the giant Helper. We are the tiny helpers. Both must work together if the Kingdom of God is to be established in the earth.

From the wilderness and this Lebanon even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your coast. (Joshua 1:4)

God spoke to Abraham concerning the same area of land:

In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates: (Genesis 15:18)

To be continued.