I will realize that the war with my self-life is daily, even hourly. I cannot reach a state in which the war ends and I am permanently delivered. Not in this life. The self-life is natural to human beings, and after each victory over self, the old tendency begins to turn me back to the fleshpots. It is an everlasting war, a relentless struggle, a continuous fight. But it is not hopeless. Christ imparts His life to neutralize the self-life; and as I trust Him, He puts it to death. But I must keep trusting Him to keep putting it to death, or else it will return to damage me.
I will always be prepared to justify my attitudes, motives, and behavior before God. Instant confession is my means of keeping myself clean in the light. I must keep short accounts with God and be ready to give an explanation to Him on demand.
I will not demand that God explain Himself to me at any time, for this is characteristic of the unregenerate man. I must be willing to let God be unreasonable, in my view, if necessary, because He is not concerned with my understanding but with my faith. The unregenerate man sees contradiction in the world and demands that God justify Himself before him; the believing man makes no such demand but believes God supremely. He is only concerned with keeping himself justified before God.
I will endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. The soldier executes the will of his officer. This means the soldier must be other-directed and othercompelled. To look inward is fatal to the man of war, but to look upward is both his salvation and joy. I will at all times seek to “please Him who called me to be a soldier” (see 2 Timothy 2:4).
“So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord. His going forth is as certain as the dawn; and He will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain watering the earth” (Hosea 6:3).
Daily with the King 