Not only does man’s uncleanness render him unfit, and therefore powerless, to do God’s will; man’s very best is equally powerless. No matter how perfect the heart’s intentions may be, if it is man using his natural strength to do it, the result is failure.

What God wants today is first that we should know Christ as our life, and in addition, that the Spirit should work Christ into us, to become our characters.

It is not enough therefore just to preach the gospel for individual salvation. That must be done, and every one of us must seek to win men individually out of the world to faith in Jesus Christ; but let us understand the motive behind such work. It is not just that the sinner should be saved and should arrive at a place of security and contentment.

The call of Abraham has a special character, unique in the Old Testament. There was nothing quite like it, for this was God’s first great reaction to the Fall. It was the beginning of His answer to the problem of sin. Abraham was to reveal God as the Redeemer who calls men out of a world of idolatry to faith in Himself.

Therefore every believer can stand for God and for His will in the place where he lives and works. He can occupy that piece of territory and hold it for God.

When man fell, God took no immediate action. In Noah’s day He judged the world, but He made no move yet to redeem it. Not until Abraham did He begin to deal with the situation at its heart. Abraham was called so that through him God might deal with the whole terrible problem of sin.

Between Adam and Abraham, God worked with men as individuals. In Abraham God went further, and began to deal with the question of racial sin. God’s whole movement to undo the consequences of the Fall began with him.

Abraham displays the purpose of God in His choice of us sinners. Isaac shows us the life of God made available to us in the gift of His Son. Jacob sets forth the ways of God in the Holy Spirit’s handling of us to conserve and expand what we have received. He cuts short our old, self-willed nature, to make way for our new nature in Christ to work in

The characteristic of those who truly know God is that they have no faith in their own competence, no reliance upon themselves.