Category Archives: Alexander Maclaren

Willing to Will as God Wills

Posted on by under Alexander Maclaren, Wilbur M. Smith

Practical conformity to God’s will cannot be attained by our own efforts. We cannot will to will as God wills, but we can turn ourselves to Him and ask Him to put the power within us to subdue the evil conqueror, the rebels, and make us masters of our own troubled spirits. There is only one power that can draw us out of the land of rebellious disobedience where the famine and the rags are, and that is the convicting Spirit of God which is given to all them that desire Him and will lead them in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. If He be my God… and therefore longing to have me obedient, He will not withhold what is needed to make me so.

Alexander Maclaren in Wilbur M. Smith, Peloubet’s Select Notes on the International Bible Lessons for Christian Teaching (Boston: W. A. Wilde Co., 1948), 287.

This Do in Remembrance of Me

Posted on by under Alexander Maclaren

Remember that Christ’s commandment not to be conformed to the world is the consequence of his commandment to be conformed to himself.  ‘Thus did I not’ comes second; ‘this one thing I do’ comes first.  You will misunderstand the whole genius of the gospel if you suppose that, as a law of life, it is perpetually pulling men short up, and saying: don’t, don’t, don’t!  There is a Christianity of that sort which is mainly prohibition and restriction, but it is not Christ’s Christianity.  He begins by enjoining: ‘This do in remembrance of me,’ and the man that has accepted that commandment must necessarily say, as he looks out on the world, and its practices: ‘So did I not because of the fear of God.’

Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture: Second Kings, Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1977), 369.

Our Will vs. God’s Will

Posted on by under Alexander Maclaren

He who does not intend to obey does not wish to know the law.  If we have no longing to know what the will of the Lord is, we may be very sure that we prefer our own to His.  If we desire to know it, we shall desire to understand the book which contains so much of it.  Any true religion in the heart will make us eager to perceive, and willing to be guided by the will of God, revealed mainly in the Scripture, in the person, works, and words of Jesus, and also in waiting hearts by the Spirit, and in those things which the world calls ‘circumstances’ and faith names ‘providences’.

Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture: Second Kings, Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1977), 374.

This One Thing I Do

Posted on by under Alexander Maclaren

Remember that Christ’s commandment no to be conformed to the world is the consequence of His commandment to be conformed to Himself.  ‘Thus did I not’ comes second; ‘this one thing I do’ comes first.  You will misunderstand the whole genius of the Gospel if you suppose that, as a law of life, it is perpetually pulling men short up, and saying: Don’t, don’t, don’t!  There is a Christianity of that sort which is mainly prohibition and restriction, but it is not Christ’s Christianity.  He begins by  enjoining: ‘This do in remembrance of me,’ and the man that has accepted that commandment must necessarily say, as he looks out on the world, and its practices: ‘So did I not because of the fear of God.’

Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture: Second Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1977), 369.

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