His Purposes Meet Without a Shade of Variation Part I

“If the Holy Spirit dwells in us there will be a strange accordance with God’s working in the world around us.  There is a divine harmony between the Spirit and Providence.  There is a double presence of the Lord for the consecrated believer.  He is present in the heart, and is mightily present in the events of life.

“How marvelously,” wrote one, “God can fit things together and His purposes meet without a shade of variation.  Look at that beautiful scene in the temple when the infant Jesus was brought in to be presented before the Lord.  Just at the right moment old Simeon was there to receive Him by the intimation of the Holy Ghost; and we read further still that, at the same instant, the aged Anna, also coming in, recognized her coming Savior and joined in the welcome testimony.

“Look at Peter and Cornelius.  Just the moment Peter had been prepared for the commission, messengers were waiting at the door to take him to Joppa. God had it all arranged and He had but to carry out the plan.

“The Acts of the Apostles is the book of providences under the control of the Holy Ghost.  We see in that wonderful book how everything moves at the bidding of the ascended Christ and the Holy Spirit.

“Look at Philip and the eunuch of Ethiopia.  In the height of his work in Samaria, the evangelist is called away by the voice of God to go down into the desert.  Everything looked the other way.  The work seems to require him there, and yet he obeys and leaves thousands of seeking souls and a whole city moved to its depth by the Holy Ghost, to go down into a desert.  So God sometimes calls us from the most useful position to what seems a waste of time.  But God has stepped before Him.  This Ethiopian prince has been up to Jerusalem, seeking after the truth and has not found the need of his heart.  They meet on the way, but for a few moments, perhaps, or a passing hour; but in that hour an eternity has been decided for that man, and not for him alone, but perhaps for the whole nation to which he was to return with the strange and glorious tidings of salvation.

“Look at Paul’s wondrous life.  What a romance of providence, culminating in the marvelous voyage to Rome, which is a sort of picture in miniature of the whole church in her perilous journey through the seas of time.  Everything tried to baffle and hinder, but through everything God led him, and used the very things that seemed to be against him for the furtherance of the gospel, making all things work together for good to him and for the glory of His own great name.”

Everything is included in the plan of God.  Not only all things in general, but everything in particular.  The theologians love to call it the particular providence of God.  That means his plan in reference to the minutest details of human life, and the most significant things that happen…”

Part II to come…

Excerpted from Charles E. Cowman, Missionary-Warrior, by Lettie Cowman