The Lamp

It’s a common error of Christian workers to give too much, beyond their capacity. They need to save some strength for themselves, for their Lord. When they are tired, they need to rest. When they are weary, sometimes they just need to retire from the fray and give the battle to others. They need to know when to fight and when to be still, when to give and when to save, when to work and when to rest, when to give to others and when to pray. When they save others, indeed themselves they cannot save, but there are times when they must save themselves if they are going to save others and still others and yet others.

Sometimes they need to choose between that which is good and that which is best for the kingdom. Most of all, they must save their best for the Lord, give their best to their Bridegroom and save the first place for Him. We need to give first place to Him, His fellowship, and His love. We all need to learn to rest in His arms and not to work so hard in our own strength. We all need to learn to save our best for our Lord.

“In quietness and confidence shall your strength be.”2 “Cast thy burden on the Lord and He shall sustain thee!”3 “Come unto Me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”4 Sometimes we try to carry too much, to do too much. We need to leave more for the Lord. “Cast thy burden on the Lord, for He shall sustain thee. Trust in the Lord, and do good, and verily thou shalt be fed and thy days shall be long in the land,”5 for He shall sustain thee.

“For strength comes from the Lord, who giveth to all abundantly and upbraideth not.”6 “For if ye ask for bread, will He give you a stone? And if ye ask for fish, will He give you a serpent? Therefore if ye know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that love Him,”7 to sustain them.

We all need to learn to depend more on the Lord, to leave more to the Lord. We can’t do everything; it’s humanly, physically impossible to do it all! You just have to do what you can day by day, and leave the rest to the Lord. If you can’t do it, He has to. “He knows, He loves, He cares. Nothing His truth can dim. He gives the very best to those who save the best for Him.”

Help each of us to learn how to apportion our time so we can save the very best for You, Lord, and rest from our labors in Your arms, so that You can give us Your strength, the strength which can only be found in Your arms and Your love, as we give our very best to You.

“And ye shall find rest to your soul.” Not many people understand that the soul is a body with a spirit.8 If we don’t rest in the Spirit, we can wear out in body, and we need to learn to rest in the Spirit to save our bodies, so that we’ll have strength to minister to others. For strength comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth and our bodies, and He knows what we need most of all: peace, fellowship with Him, and feeding on His Word.

We must first be partakers of the fruits before we can feed others. We can’t feed others if we have not fed ourselves. We must first feed our own souls before we can break bread for others. We cannot give it all and have nothing left to give, lest we burn out and have no oil left for our Bridegroom.9 We must seek first the King and His kingdom, then shall all these other things be added unto us by His power, His strength, His kingdom, His might, in His time, if we give first place to Him.10

We can’t afford to burn ourselves out in service to others, until we have nothing left for ourselves or the King. We need to learn to save first place for Him and our times of communion with Him. We belong to Him first of all. The first place must belong to Him and peace, quietness, rest, feeding and fellowship with the Lord. For we cannot do the Master’s work without the Master’s power. We must save first place for Him and His Word, His love, and His power, and from this shall our strength come. We cannot do it alone in our own strength.

It must be the oil that burns and not the wick, for the wick burning without oil can destroy itself. We have to let Him burn to light the way, and not try to burn of ourselves, or we can eventually burn out and have no light left for our Master. The flame burns so beautifully and brightly and clearly, so strong with oil. But it gets so smoky and confused and stinky when it just burns the wick.

The wick must be deeply immersed in the oil. Most of the wick is in the oil; only a tiny little tip of it is exposed to the air and to the flame. It’s mostly oil that burns and very little of the wick, almost none, and the oil flows freely through a wick that is deeply soaked in the oil. Then it is the oil that burns and not the wick, and gives bright, pure, clear light to all the house in the beauty of His perfection, in the holiness of His light.

For the life that I now live, I live by the strength of the Lord that liveth in me. It is not I that live, but Christ that liveth in me.11 It is not I that burn, but Christ must burn within me, to give pure light, smokeless light, clear light, beautiful light.

When I was a boy, they had these beautiful kerosene lamps in every home on every table, and they had a lovely glass bowl full of oil so you could see the level of the oil in the lamp so you knew when to replenish it. You could tell when the oil was getting low and when too much of the wick was out of the oil, for the lamp would get smoky when there wasn’t enough oil to really soak the wick.

The lamp burned best when full of oil. In other words, it was the oil that burned and not the wick. Not I that burn, but Christ that burns in me!

Isaiah said “Come! Why spend ye your substance for that which is not meat and your strength for that which is not bread? Come and buy of me. Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? And your labor for that which satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.”12

Sometimes we try too hard, we work too hard trying to do everything ourselves, when we need to let the Lord do the burning, to let Him flow through us. Let Him burn.

I’ve found a refuge from life’s care in Jesus,
I am hiding in His love divine;
He fully understands my soul’s deep longing,
And He whispers softly, “Thou art Mine.”

Jesus, only Jesus,
Only He can satisfy.
Every burden becomes a blessing
When I know my Lord is nigh.
—A. B. Christiansen

I have found no satisfaction in the fleeting joys of earth;
I have hewed me broken cisterns that have mocked me by their dearth.
All the springs my soul has tested failed to meet my deepest need.
Christ alone has met my longing, He has satisfied indeed!

Christ is not a disappointment! Every longing in my breast
Finds, in Him, complete fulfillment, He has brought me into rest.
I have tested Him and proved Him more than all I’d dreamed He’d be
Christ is not a disappointment, He is all in all to me!
—C. W. Waggoner

Leave it there! Leave it there!
Cast thy burden on the Lord and leave it there.
If you’ll trust and never doubt,
He will surely bring you out,
Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there.
—Charles Tindley

So just leave it with the Lord, knowing that only He can solve the problems and only He can do the work. So many take their burdens to the Lord and lay them on the altar, and then pick them right back up again and walk off with them. We cannot solve the problems. He has to do it. You need to let go and let God. All you have to do is just let the Lord shine through. Just let the oil flow. Let the Lord flow. Let Him do it. Let the Lord do it!

Particularly with people who have a lot of drive and dynamism in the natural, it’s hard for them not to just really boom boom boom, push things through in their own strength. But natural force has its limits. Men of force are men of faults, and often the biggest fault is to keep on going in their own force or strength instead of letting the Lord do it.

May the Lord bless and keep you and make you a great blessing to many—in His strength by His power!

Then we’ll give all the glory to Jesus
And tell of His love, His wonderful love.
We’ll give all the glory to Jesus,
And tell of His wonderful love.
—Author Unknown

Originally published March 1983. Adapted and republished January 2014.
Read by Simon Peterson.

1 NIV.

2 Isaiah 30:15.

3 Psalm 55:22.

4 Matthew 11:28–30.

5 Psalm 37:3.

6 Psalm 121:2; James 1:5.

7 Matthew 7:9–11.

8 Genesis 2:7.

9 Matthew 25:1–13.

10 Matthew 6:33.

11 Galatians 2:20.

12 Isaiah 55:1–2.

The Lamp

By David Brandt Berg