No Guile!

If you don't have a copy of the little book by Horatius Bonar titled Follow The Lamb please do yourself a favor and get a copy it is such a rich treasure of spiritual blessing that every Christian should read and meditate on it at least once a year.

Watch against special sins; or things that have 'the appearance of evil'; or things that lead into evil, and discredit 'that worthy name by which you are called' (1 Thess 5:22; James 2:7). If you have a bad temper, watch against that. If you have a rude way of speech, a cold, distant, repulsive manner, or are ill to please, look well to these, and 'be courteous' (1 Peter 3:8). If you are covetous in disposition, or shabby in your dwellings, or niggardly in your givings, take care; 'the love of money is the root of all evil.' If you are slovenly in your dress, or untidy in your person, or unpolite in your demeanour, set yourself to rectify these blemishes. If you are lazy, luxurious, given to the good things of this life, or selfish, disobliging, unneighbourly, rude, blunt, unbrotherly, look to your Pattern, and see if these things were in Him. If you are fickle, and frivolous, and flippant, greedy of jokes, carried away with immoderate laughter, be upon your guard. If you are romantic and sentimental, take care lest the indulgence of such a temperament should land you in peevishness, self-pity, and a cowardly avoidance of the common duties of life. If you are censorious, captious, fault-finding, proud, domineering, supercilious, and sulky, get the unclean spirit cast out forthwith. If you be a gossip, or a gadabout, or a busy-body in other men's matters, take care, for at such crevices Satan creeps in. If you be secretive and cunning, with a certain littleness or slyness in your nature, which never lets you forget your own interests, beware! Christ was not such; Paul was not such. Be frank, open, manly. Remember the summing-up of David's picture of the blessed man, 'in whose spirit there is no guile' (Psa 32:2). Be not 'Jacob,' a man of guile; but Israel, a noble prince—'an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile' (John 1:48). —Horatius Bonar (1808-1889)

Excerpt taken from "Follow the Lamb" by Horatius Bonar (1808-1889)