2 Corinthians 4:16-18 For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. The "outward man" is the visible, mortal man, which feels the exhaustion of endurance and endeavour. There is no magic fountain in which we can wash and be young. But the inward man must not decay. Its faculties are to be perennially vigorous — the inner eye clear, the hearing acute, the sensibility delicate, the step firm, the voice that of them who overcome. If this power and freshness are to be preserved the inward man must be "renewed day by day." I. ONLY THROUGH HABITUAL DEVOTION CAN THE FACULTIES OF THE SOUL BE PRESERVED AND PERFECTED. Darwin wrote — "Up to the age of thirty, or beyond it, poetry... gave me great pleasure. Formerly pictures gave me considerable and music very great delight. But now for many years I cannot endure to read a line of poetry... I have also almost lost my taste for pictures or music... My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts .... If I had to live my life again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week, for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have become active through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature? Note here — 1. That mental faculties may be entirely extirpated by disuse. This is true touching spiritual gifts. Spiritual sensibility, imagination, sympathy, aspiration, may be starved and lost by men utterly immersed in secular life, and if the perishing of the aesthetic sense is a melancholy loss, as Darwin felt it to be, the loss of the diviner faculty, by which we appreciate the eternal beauty and glory of the moral universe, is yet infinitely more deplorable. 2. That constant culture is necessary to keep the intellectual faculties alive. And if we are to preserve the precious affinities, and energies of our deepest nature we must constantly stir up the gift that is in us — contemplating the highest beauty, listening to the music of eternity, holding loving fellowship with the perfect life and righteousness. II. THE LINES OF DEVOTION IN WHICH WE MUST HABITUALLY EXERCISE OURSELVES. 1. "Day by day" we must instruct and elevate our mind by communion with God's Word. Goethe said that every man should, every day, see at least one fine work of art, hear one sweet strain of music, read one beautiful poem. But we not only need the daily bread of mental delight, we need also daily manna for our spirit. Here, then, we must be spiritually mindful, and eat uninterruptedly immortal bread. Observe in Psalm 119. the continuousness of the Psalmist's fellowship with the God of truth. The virtue of this continuousness is implied in the closing words of our Lord (John 15:3-7). The full beauty and fruition of the branch is dependent upon its complete and constant identification with the tree. The Orientals express the persistence of the friendship of the noble in their saying, "When the lotus is broken its fibres still remain," and whilst the frailest thread of connection remains the flower does not at once miss all its bloom; so even in the believer's declensions Christ still insinuates fresh energy into the soul by secret fibres of union; yet the full beauty and fruitfulness of life are soon missed if we permit our fellowship with the truth in Jesus to become limited and irregular. We are often deeply anxious about the outer world, its clouds, temptations, etc., but really our concern lies chiefly with the depth and force of the life within us. The authorities declare that it is not so much a matter of atmosphere with the London trees as it is of soil and draining; let the trees be right at the roots, and they will battle triumphantly with poisoned air. "Being rooted and grounded in love" and knowledge, we may defy all storms and deadly atmospheres, and put on and ever wear all the beauty of the summer (Psalm 1:3). 2. "Day by day" we must purify our soul in fellowship at God's throne. No greater mistake could be made than to allow the vigour of a church to decline with the idea that periodical revival services would recover lost ground. And in our personal life we must not expect by extraordinary devotion to recover in an hour what we have neglected in a week. Only through constant communion with God can we perfect and preserve the purity of our spirit. We must attend to our toilet every day, many times a day, if we are to continue altogether presentable. And this is equally true of our inward life, with its thousand possibilities of defilement. The housekeeper cannot afford to let the furniture be tarnished with the design of restoring all things to brightness by some energetic periodical cleansing; the house can be maintained in true purity and comeliness only through daily industry and thoroughness. Thus is it also with character. What do days of neglect mean in a garden? What do days of neglect mean on shipboard? And the days of dulness and faithlessness in our life leave results of secret flaws and failures of character which many days of humiliation and painful striving may hardly retrieve. We must meet the wear and tear of probation by constant renewal in secret intercourse with God. 3. "Day by day" we must make the best of life's opportunities. (1) We must make the best of life's opportunities in getting good. The moral wealth of life is not minted out of great occasions and extraordinary circumstances only, but through the wise economy of routine. Most people know about the gold and diamonds of Brazil; and yet the exports of sugar and coffee from that country in one year are of more value than all the gold and jewels found in it in half a century. (2) And in doing good there must be the same faithful, systematic improvement of small opportunities. As Miss Havergal writes: "The bits of wayside work are very sweet. Perhaps the odd bits, when all is done, will really come to more than the seemingly greater pieces: the chance conversations with rich and poor, the seed sown in odd five minutes." Our condemnation is that we let the days slip away despising the many simple chances they give for speaking kind words, doing little graceful acts by the wayside and the hearth. The wealth and beauty of the world spring not from the rare aloe whose scarlet splendour flames out once in twenty, fifty, or a hundred years; but from the grass which grows upon the mountain, and which is green the year round. We sometimes see a man in a comparatively small way of business; he makes the very least noise, and yet when he dies everybody is astonished by the large fortune he leaves behind him. So it is spiritually. Solomon appointed the priests to their service, the Levites, and the porters, "as the duty of every day required." And it is by accomplishing our service "as the duty of every day requires" that we become "rich toward God." (W. L. Watkinson.) Parallel Verses KJV: For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. |
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