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I could quote hundreds of passages from the Holy Scriptures to show that God keeps His people and that there is nothing in earth or in hell that can harm a trusting soul.

I am convinced that anyone who brings up the question of consequences in the Christian life is only a mediocre and common Christian!

QUESTION: I am a Christian, but I do not feel as strong love for Christ as I know I should. What can I do about this? The fact that you mourn your lack of love is all in your favor. No one is likely to deplore the coldness of his heart unless there is some warmth there already.

I am convinced that anyone who brings up the question of consequences in the Christian life is only a mediocre and common Christian!

No one has any right to believe that he is indeed a Christian unless he is humbly seeking to obey the teachings of the One whom he calls Lord. Christ once asked a question (Luke 6:46) that can have no satisfying answer, "Why do you call me, `Lord, Lord,í and do not do what I say?"

It is almost unbelievable how far we will go to avoid obeying God. We call Jesus "Lord" and beg Him to rejuvenate our souls, but we are careful to do not the things He says. When faced with a sin, a confession or a moral alteration in our life, we find it much easier to pray half a night than to obey God.

It will take more than talk and prayer to bring revival. There must be a return to the Lord in practice before our prayers will be heard in heaven. We dare not continue to trouble God's way if we want Him to bless ours. Joshua sent his army up to conquer Ai, only to see them hurled back with bloody losses.

The great deficiency to which I refer is the lack of spiritual discernment, especially among our leaders. How there can be so much Bible knowledge and so little insight, so little moral penetration, is one of the enigmas of the religious world today.

Someone wrote to me recently asking what I meant by a statement which occurs in the booklet Paths to Power, which I wrote some years ago. The passage reads: ''No one was ever filled with the Holy Spirit without knowing it. The Holy Spirit always announces Himself to the human consciousness.''

What made David run? What makes the child run and shout with glee on a summer morning? What brings the lover to the door where his beloved dwells? David was a God-intoxicated man. He had gazed on God until he was enraptured and that rapture he could not always contain. While still a young man, in the presence of the holy Ark he let himself go in an ecstatic dance that delighted God as much as it outraged the coldhearted Michal.

One thing taught throughout the Bible, and particularly in the New Testament, is that the Christian life is a progression, a journey of the redeemed soul toward God. Another is that Satan stands to resist every step and to hinder the journey in every way possible. To advance against his shrewd and powerful opposition requires faith and steadfast courage. The epistles call it "confidence."

We must be careful, however, that we do not . . . Create the impression that sin is an accident, a disease, a poison unintentionally imbibed. If sin is a disease it is like alcoholism, one that is chosen, bought and voluntarily swallowed. A steer is not responsible for poisoning himself on locoweed, but men are endowed with intelligence and ability to distinguish good from evil; they are therefore not to be excused either for their sin or for the terrible results of it.

In the dealings of God with men, hope has held a noble place. The expectation that Messiah would come cheered Israel in her years of victory and kept her from despairing in her periods of captivity and dispersal.

There are missionaries who are born adventurers; while wholly consecrated to Christ and utterly devoted to the glory of God, they are for all that very much in love with the physical excitement that accompanies missionary activities in some parts of the world. These have done excellent work and must be classed with the true servants of Christ and messengers of the cross.

Just as the book of Psalms is a lyric commentary on the Old Testament, set to the music of warm personal devotion, so our great Christian hymns form a joyous commentary on the New Testament.

I could quote hundreds of passages from the Holy Scriptures to show that God keeps His people and that there is nothing in earth or in hell that can harm a trusting soul. The past is forgiven, the present is in God's keeping and a thousand bright promises give assurance for the future.