Real Good Thing!

“First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear” Mark 4:28
 
John Newton: “By way of distinction, I assigned to [the first state] the characteristic of desire, to [the second state] that of conflict. I can think of no single word more descriptive of the [third and final] state than contemplation.”

This third state, the mature Christian, is what we should all be longing and striving for. And unfortunately we cannot get here without striving, without struggling through the trials, the temptations and the lapses into sin that come in the first two states. In this state we are no less, and certainly no more saved than in the others. We are all in the same state of complete and absolute dependence on the sufficiency of Jesus to rescue us. But, “His heart has deceived him so often, that he is now in a good measure weaned from trusting to it; and therefore he does not meet with so many disappointments. And having found again and again the vanity of all other helps, he is now taught to go to the Lord at once for “grace to help in every time of need.” Thus he is strong, not in himself, but in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.”