In Spirit-led sharing there is always a principle involved. "Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom" (Luke 6:38).
Dig channels for the streams of love,
That they may broadly run;
For love has overflowing streams,
To fill them every one.
But if at any time thou cease
These channels to provide,
The very fount of love for thee
Will soon be parched and dried;
For thou must give, if thou would'st keep
That good thing from above:
Ceasing to give, we cease to have–
This is the law of love.
"The Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you, to the end He may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before God, even our Father" (I Thessalonians 3:12, 13).
"He said to me, My strength is sufficient, for it is only by means of conscious weakness that perfect power is developed" (2 Corinthians 12:9, Wms.).
Our Father does not test our faith so much as He exercises and develops it. In time, He makes us aware of our utter weakness; and, in time, we trust and rest in His all-sufficient strength.
"Until we are carried quite out of our depth, beyond all our own wisdom and resources, we are no more than beginners in the school of faith. Only as everything fails us and we fail ourselves, do we draw upon abiding strength. 'Blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee'; not partly in Thee and partly in himself. The devil often makes men strong, strong in themselves to do evil–great conquerors, great acquirers of wealth and power. The Lord on the contrary makes His servant weak, puts him in circumstances that will show him his nothingness, that he may lean upon the strength that is unfailing. It is a long lesson for most of us, but it cannot be passed over until deeply learned. And God Himself thinks no trouble too great, no care too costly to teach us this."
"Faith counts on the Word of God outside and apart from everything and everyone here. When you are in faith your life is centered in the Lord Jesus. The moment the heart is detained by anything here, faith is obstructed. The visible is antagonistic to the invisible. If you walk in the Spirit you will be sensible of this in a moment; the effects and influences of the visible are counter to the invisible. Eve had lost faith when she saw that the tree was good for food, and pleasant to the eyes. If she had kept faith–dependence upon God–she would not have looked, but she had parted with the faith which overcometh the world when she 'saw.' The moment one becomes occupied with the visible one has parted company with faith." -J.B.S.
"Since His power is so glorious, may you be strengthened with strength of every kind, and be prepared for cheerfully enduring all things with patience and longsuffering" (Colossians 1:11, Wey.).
"The Lord is faithful, who shall establish you, and guard you from evil" (2 Thessalonians 3:3, R.V.).
When once we see and accept His purpose for our lives to the extent that it becomes our will also, the details of His process cease to matter. "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him" (Job. 13:15).
"The one purpose our Father has in view, in all His ways, is to conform us to the image of His Son. This may explain our perplexities as to the past; it will govern our behavior in the present; it is to be our guide in the future. The chief concern of our Lord is not to instruct us about a multitude of details, not to explain to us the reason for the trials which we are called to pass through. He is working out everything to serve His one supreme aim in manifesting the character of His Son in His saints." -H.F.
"The God-given experiences of the Spirit's working within many a time passes away, and leaves the believer apparently dull and dead. This is only until the double lesson has been fully learned: (1) that a living faith can rejoice in the Living God, even when all feeling and experience appear to contradict the truth (Romans 8:28, 29); and (2) that the Divine life only predominates as the life of the old man is held in the place of death, inoperative (Romans 6:11a). The life of the Lord Jesus is revealed as His death works in us (2 Corinthians 4:11,12), and as in weakness and nothingness we look to Him (2 Corinthians 3:18)." -A.M.
"While our Father is dealing with someone in discipline, when He is applying the Cross in a life, be careful how you sympathize with him. You may be taking sides with him against God. By such sympathy, you may, indeed, draw him away from the work of the Cross."
"For we who live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh" (2 Corinthians 4:11).
"The law is not of faith" (Galatians 3:12).
The law will break you; grace will make you.
"Nothing can be more sure than the steps of one guided by the Spirit of God and the Word of God, and yet nothing more complicated than to have to walk in 'separation' from all that exists around. It is indeed difficult to have to wind one's way through things so perplexing and so complex as the religious systems of our own day. We have to avoid on the one hand organizations formed in imitation of things past (Israel-law), and on the other systems more characterized by anticipation of things future (Kingdom-law). We have to allow that such things were once given by God, and that they will yet again be introduced by Him; while invariably contending that they are positively opposed to His present working by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven." -J.L.H.
"With many Christians, it may be almost thought that the Lord Jesus was but the introduction to Moses. That His death procured the payment of sin's debt, so that the debt being paid, the believer might be in a position to keep the law, and that, accordingly, the law, and not the 'Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,' might be the believer's rule of life." -H.F.W.
"The walk of the believer should ever be the natural result of realized privilege, and not the constrained result of legal vows and resolutions–the proper fruit of a position known and enjoyed by faith, and not the result of one's own efforts to reach a position 'by works of law.' All true believers are a part of the Bride of Christ; hence, they owe Him those affections which become that relation. The relationship is not obtained because of the affections, but the affections flow out of the relationship." -C.H.M.
"For I, through the law, am dead to the law, that I might live unto God" (Galatians 2:19).
"Put on the whole armor of God " (Ephesians 6:11a).
My sovereign Father gives me a subservient Satan.
"Our Father has better thoughts for us than a portion here. He is educating us for a blessed and eternal rest, free from evil and all that could cause it, and He is bent on the blessing of His children; and moreover He is bound by His holiness to purge us suitably (though most graciously) for the place He has called us to. How often He lets Satan do this painful work, and try to sift us as Job! But the Father's hand and will are behind it all. He gives His saints up to Satan's hand to a certain point, but only so far as to bring the heart fully to a bearing before Himself." -J.N.D.
"It is a wonderful thing to see the way in which through the overruling power of the Father, the efforts of Satan against His people only bring them out the more distinctly in their own place of blessing."
"We cannot judge God's ways without judging God: we may love Him in His ways, but the moment we judge or question that which He has revealed, we get above God, we make ourselves gods, and we put Him in the place of the creature as subject to us. This brings our souls under the power of everyone that is more clever than ourselves: we are in their hands, and they can do what they please with us.
"Now the devil is more clever than we are. Therefore we ought to keep God ever in His place of God in our souls, lest Satan should make gods of us, and set us judging God Himself. If God be displaced, we get into the place of those who are irresponsible, and as creatures the prey of any more cunning than ourselves." -J.N.D.
"That ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil" (Ephesians 6:11b).
"In [this] freedom Christ has made us free–completely liberated us; stand fast then" (Galatians 5:1, Amp.).
We are never going to be able to stand before our Father in prayer and fellowship because we are fit in ourselves. We finally come to see that we are in His presence because of our position in His Son.
"The ground upon which our Father deals with us is grace. Every blessing we receive of Him as His children is undeserved. In all of our spiritual existence we are debtors to the rich, free, sovereign grace of our Father. And what is it we are privileged to enjoy on that ground, when we enter 'into this grace wherein we stand'? We then have a new position, and that position is the glorified Lord Jesus Christ.
"We are not only pardoned, but justified–made righteous; and this is not merely by that which He has done, or by what He has procured or bestows–but in what He is. 'As He is, so are we in this world' (1 John 4:17). The believer must never lose sight of this fundamental truth: that the basis of his fellowship with the Father is not his own personal holiness, or what the Lord Jesus is in him, but his judicial position before the Father, or what the Lord Jesus is for him. He, 'the Lord our righteousness,' is the foundation and source of everything–of walk as well as of position." -E.H.
"Most look to get victory in order to get peace, but it is peace already made by the Lord Jesus' work and risen life that is ours. Conflict we shall find, but we know that the Father is for us, and that makes all the difference." -J.N.D.
"Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us. . . righteousness" (1 Corinthians 1:30).
"That l may know Him" (Philippians 3:10).
It takes us years of trial and error to finally realize that nothing outside the Lord Jesus Christ can fully satisfy and rejoice our hearts. Joy in Him includes 'the fellowship of His sufferings.' So, 'rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings' (1 Peter 4:13).
"We sometimes have the idea that if we were going on rightly, things would be much smoother here for us. Hardly. There is a discipline to correct us and a discipline to develop us. If you are in a wrong path, as you seek the Lord, you will be corrected; but on the other hand, the more you are set for Him here, the more you will find that there is nothing for you here, though at the same time you are daily finding more in Him. 'We which live are always delivered unto death.' The more you enjoy the Lord Jesus who has been refused here, the more you are practically severed from all here." -J.B.S.
"It is a solemn moment when one who has been going on for years with a flourishing profession wakes up to the fact that his heart is entirely unsatisfied. I believe we have very little idea how natural feelings may be mixed up with what we think is our spiritual joy. Many go on happily because their surroundings are happy, and they have no opposition to speak of–perhaps in a Christian family, or in a happy Christian fellowship. They are carried along by the stream of compatible things around them.
"But anything that outwardly contributes to our joy will sooner or later fail us. Our Father loves us too well to allow us to rest in anything or anyone short of Himself–not even Christian fellowship, or what people call 'the means of grace.' He wants to be so known by us that He becomes the deep eternal spring of satisfaction and joy for our hearts." -C.A.C.
"Give your mind to the things above" (Colossians 3:2).
"Having. . . boldness to enter into the Holiest" (Hebrews 10:19).
We are to draw nigh in faith where we already are in position.
"Instead of the priest coming out to bless, as in Judaism, we are to go in for blessing. There are no barriers now. The Father has removed every hindrance and now it is for me to go in and abide. The teachers of Christendom have practically stitched up the veil which He rent. The rent veil in the Gospels is the Father's coming out, but the rent veil in Hebrews is the believer's going in." -J.B.S.
"Judaism has all the sanction of a divine origin and the splendor of an imposing ritual; yet, for the early Christians, all this was a weight to be laid aside, a useless encumbrance, a positive hindrance. And we have the same hindrance to lay aside today, for Christianity has been perverted into a modified kind of Judaism, in which people are occupied with religious things on earth, and thus hindered from running the race to heaven." -C.A.C.
"Typical of the past, there is a great deal of Judaising in Christianity today. The Ten Commandments have a place assigned to them as the sine qua non, the recognition of which was necessary for true religion while man was in the flesh and under law. To insist on their having that place now tends to bring men into fearful bondage, and to hinder them getting into the full liberty of the children of the Father." -G.V.W.
"Judaism, in its full results, is the manifestation that God is come down to man upon the earth; and this will again be displayed in the millennial days of Israel's blessing. But Christianity is based upon the wondrous fact that man, in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, is gone up to the Father into the heavens."
"Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith" (Hebrews 10:22).
"To him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness" (Romans 4:5).
There is no work involved in our receiving the Lord Jesus for life, and there should certainly be no self-effort involved in the manifestation of His life in and through us. The principle is the same, from re-birth to maturity.
"'Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ' (1 Corinthians 15:57). That is grace. That is the test of the real or the counterfeit. Just remember this: any victory over the power of any sin whatsoever that you have to get by working for it is counterfeit. Any victory that you have to get by trying for it is false. If you have to work for your freedom, it is not the real thing, it is not that which the Father offers you in His Son."
"The effortless life is not the will-less life. We use our will to believe, or receive, but not to exert effort in trying to accomplish what only the Father has done. Our hope for freedom from the power of sin is not 'Christ plus my efforts,' but 'Christ plus my receiving.' To receive victory from Him is to believe His Word that solely by grace He is, this moment, freeing us from the dominion of sin. And to believe on Him in this way is to recognize that He is doing for us what we can never do for ourselves." -C.G.T.
"The Father has left us as much dependent on the Lord Jesus' work for our deliverance as for our forgiveness. It is wholly because we died with Him on the Cross, but unto sin and unto the whole legal principle, that sin's power for those in Him is broken."
"Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt" (Romans 4:4).
"That. . . the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him (Christ)" (Ephesians 1:17).
The object of the Christian life is that we may center in the Object of the Father–His Beloved Son.
"If we go on with the Father, sweet as is the assurance that we belong to Him, yet the uppermost thought will in the long run be Himself. We shall come back to His Person. We shall in our praises weave with them what the Lord Jesus has done, suffered, and won for us; but the primary thought in our hearts is, not what we have gained, however true, but what He has been for us and what He is for us, yes, what He is in Himself." -J.B.S.
"There is usually only occupation with the Lord Jesus for the relief of the conscience, and if so, where does it stop? It stops when the relief is gained. But if He is the object of the heart, you will never be satisfied but in fellowship with Him where He is."
"I know of no arguments, and I am acquainted with no power, that will move the heart to devotedness except the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Himself and His love. It is possible to read books by the score, and to listen to the most faithful and blessed ministry for years on end, and yet never know the Lord Jesus as a present loving Object in heavenly glory. It is nigh impossible to see and know Him there by faith without a resulting intense desire to be wholly devoted to Him here." -C.A.C.
"We have a new Person before us as the Object of our faith and affections; and as we drop ourselves and have the Lord Jesus as our Object, He is formed in us. What has been judicially accomplished at the Cross has its fruition by the Spirit in our souls, and it is by that principle that we grow." -C.A.C.
"For it pleased the Father that in Him (Christ) should all fullness dwell" (Colossians 1:19).
9-10. BIRTH: SAVIOR; GROWTH: SPIRIT
"Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh" (Galatians 5:16).
We receive life by reliance upon the Savior; we grow in that life by reliance upon the Spirit.
"Many think that because of faith they are cleared of everything before God through the Cross, and therefore by faith they are clear of everything in themselves. But that is the error of 'holiness by faith.' The objective (position) is that we are clear before the Father; the subjective (condition) is that we are cleared from ourselves by the growth ministry of the Holy Spirit."
"As you by faith in the positional facts realize that you are in the Father's presence, you will not try to depend upon any sense of His presence. You know His presence because you know that your position in the Christian life is a life of faith in the facts–nothing else. That the Father forces you to live by faith so as to draw you into His presence–not you, by sense, trying to draw Him into yours." -M.J.S.
"We are, naturally, suspicious of any offer to make us happy in God. Because our moral sense, our natural conscience, tells us of our having lost all right even to His ordinary blessings. But in the Word of our Father, faith reads our abundant title to be near to Him and happy with Him, though natural conscience and our sense of the fitness of things would have it otherwise. Faith feeds where the moral sensibilities of the natural mind would count it presuming even to tread." -J.G.B.
"The moment we walk by sight we are outside of faith. The Father would never have us outside of faith; hence, even in answering faith, He so answers it that we need it again the next moment, even while we are enjoying the results of it." -J.B.S.
"Faith is. . . the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1).
9-11. RECEPTION AND RESISTANCE
"For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works" (Hebrews 4:10).
Besides the rest of reception, there is also the rest of resistance. Any time there is effort involved in the matter of resisting sin, we can be sure that we are depending to some extent upon the flesh, instead of resting in the finished work of the Cross.
"The question is 'How are we to meet sin?' 'Reckon yourselves dead unto sin.' The moment that you begin to fight with it–no matter how resolutely you may struggle against it–that moment you begin to experience sin as your master. For it is then that we forsake our true position, which is one of freedom from sin as a master.
"Let it be remembered we are to fight 'the good fight of faith,' which consists of resting in our position of freedom, and not in obtaining that position. We are to fight not for it, but from it. He alone has obtained it. It is our Father's free gift. Let us be fully abiding in the One who is Life, and sin when it acts, will find us dead to it." -E.H.
"Calvary is the secret of it all. It is what the Lord Jesus did there that counts, and what He did becomes a growing force in the life of the believer when it is seen, and rested in by faith. This is the starting point from which all godly living must take rise. We shall never know the fact of the Lord Jesus' victory in our lives until we are prepared to count upon His work on the Cross as the source of our personal freedom from the dominion of sin and the old man within. There is no liberty for us that was not first His. The beginning of spiritual growth is faith in that fact."
"Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty with which Christ hath made us free" (Galatians 5:1).
9-12. FROM EXPOUNDER TO EXPONENT
"Now we have received. . . the Spirit who is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God "(1 Corinthians 2:12).
The Holy Spirit ministers the truth of the Word via the mind, that we may share the One who is Truth via the heart.
"If you do not know the Bible as the very Word of God, all is lost! Where have you learned anything from the Lord distinctly, but where every counter influence was inadmissible–in the sacred enclosure of His own Word and Presence, where nothing to qualify what He says can exist?"
"I must not only be an expounder of the truth, but an exponent of it. There should be the sense, I have learned that word for myself. It is not just being able to describe it, or to put it in correct dispensational order; but having that word for myself from the Spirit."
"The mistake with many saints in the present day is that they think because they can describe a truth, that therefore they have learned it. When a truth is really accepted, the conscience demands that there should be accordance with it."
"The Scriptures tell me what the Father gives me, but they do not give it to me. The Spirit applies the Word to me in its divine meaning, and then I possess what Scripture tells me is mine through God's grace. For instance, the Word tells me that if I behold the Lord's glory I shall be transformed. It doesn't transform me, however clearly I may see what it states. It communicates to me a very great thing, but it is the Spirit who makes it experiential to me." -J.B.S.
"Changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. " (2 Corinthians 3.18).
"In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature" (Galatians 6:15).
It required nothing less than the Cross to liberate us from the law.
"The law is not our 'rule of life' for the simple reason that it was the Israelite's. The Christian not being a Jew, the law is not for him. 'Holy, just and good' it is, but the Christian's rule of life is 'in Christ. . . a new creature' (Galatians 6:15). The believer's place and rule is to walk as a 'pilgrim and stranger' upon the earth. The law has nothing of this. Had it been fulfilled, it would have made earth morally a paradise; and will, when written upon Israel's heart in millennial days. But strangership on earth and a heavenly walk, it never taught." -F.W.G.
"The Christian is on larger, higher, firmer ground than that on which Israel after the flesh stood. The law is good if a man use it lawfully; and its lawful application is expressly not to form, guide, and govern the walk of the righteous, but to deal with the lawless and disobedient, ungodly and sinful, unholy and profane, and, in short, with whatever is contrary to sound doctrine (1 Timothy 1:9,10)." -F.W.G.
"Any aspect of life or conduct which is undertaken in dependence on the energy and ability of the flesh is, to that extent, purely legal in character, whether it be the whole revealed will of God, the actual written commandments, or the exhortations of grace. Dependence on the arm of flesh is consistent with pure law; dependence on the power of God is demanded under pure grace." -L.S.C.
"Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty with which Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage" (Galatians 5:1).
"Study to show thyself approved unto God" (2 Timothy 2:15a).
There is as much error produced in failing to divide the Word at all, as there is in wrongly dividing it.
"Covenant Theology, at the utmost, is forgiveness of sins and divine favor enjoyed; and all that concerns their position in the Lord Jesus is ignored, or alas! guarded against as dangerous. Men are placed under the New Covenant which does not go beyond remission of sins and the law written in the heart. But being in Christ, and knowing it by the Holy Spirit, and what it involves now has dropped out of their creed altogether."
"We are come 'to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant' (Hebrews 12:24). We are not come to the new covenant, but to Jesus the Mediator of it. I am associated with Him who is the Mediator; that is a much higher position than if we merely come to the covenant. He will make this new covenant with Israel on the millennial earth." -H.S.
"Non-dispensational teachers have endeavored to bring over the many promises of the physical and material aspects of kingdom salvation into the present dispensation, giving hope of material prosperity and physical health, as well as political peace. Failure to realize these promised goals has caused many to lose faith and to become bitter toward God Himself. The failure, of course, is not of God, but of teachers who have refused to rightly divide the Word of Truth."
"Calvin attempted by discipline of Church and State to make everyone live like a Christian–as did the Puritans. As a result, this effort resulted in the need to use the Old Testament rather than the New as an ethical guide."
"A workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of truth" (2 Timothy 2:15b).
"You. . . hath He reconciled" (Colossians 1:21).
Our Father's Cross-love was personal; we were there in the Son. Our Father's heart-love is personal; we are hidden there in the Son.
"Have you ever thought of the Father dealing with you not as to what you are in yourself, but as to where He has positioned you in His Son? Have you ever thought that it is the affections of the Father's heart which flow down to us where we are, seeing us in the Son, not in our poor wretched selves? What we are in the old man is not the thing to scan, but what we are, and where we are, in the Son; and what there is in the living affections of the Father, who has raised us up together with His Son, and has given us all heavenly blessings in Him." -G.V.W.
"Nothing can make up for a lack of personal acquaintance with the Lord Jesus. Intimacy with Himself is certainly the secret of true devotedness. Occupation with Him, the heart readily detects, and rejects the voice of the stranger, and cannot but own the Lord's claims to be paramount. Nothing so thoroughly tests the state of our hearts, as whether or not we have intimacy with the Lord Jesus Himself." -H.H.S.
"A great deal of our time is spent in learning that there is nothing here to meet the requirements of our new affections. There is a wandering in the wilderness in a solitary way, and yet no city is found to dwell in. But our Father allows this in order that His children may find that their desires can only be satisfied by and in Him. We must learn that we are not of this world." -J.B.S
"To present you holy and unblamable and unreprovable in His sight" (Colossians 1:22).
"God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth" (2 Thessalonians 2:13).
To be Christ-centered, we must be Spirit-dependent.
"It is basically the belief of the truth; it is not belief of the fruits. The Holy Spirit cannot present to me the fruit He has produced in me, as the object of my faith. He speaks to me of my faults, of my sins, but not of the good works that may be in me. He produces them in me, but He hides them from me; for if we think of them, it is but a more subtle self-righteousness. It is like the manna which, being kept, produced worms. All is spoilt–it is no more faith in action. The Holy Spirit must always present to me the Lord Jesus Christ, that I may grow and have peace." -J.N.D.
"An understanding of the ministry of the Holy Spirit is basic to Christian growth. Spirituality is Christ-likeness, and Christ-likeness is the fruit of the Spirit. Spiritual power is not the miraculous or the spectacular, but rather the consistent manifestation of the characteristics of the Lord Jesus in the believer's life. All this is the work of the Spirit, of whom the Lord Jesus said, 'He shall glorify Me' (John 16:14).
"What are the ingredients of spirituality? First, a spirit of dependence, whatever may be the state of faith and the blessings we may have realized. Secondly, an entire confidence in the goodness of the Father; for He is love. Thirdly, the Lord Jesus as the constant object of the affections of the heart, for the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart is to fill it with contemplation of and fellowship with the Lord Jesus in glory."
"Changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Corinthians 3:18).
9-17. CHASTENING = CHILD-TRAINING
"Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous" (Hebrews 12:11a).
Our Father chastens us "for our own profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness" (Hebrews 12:10). We are not chastened because we deserve it, but because we need it. And there is no wrath in His child-training.
"Many have the wrong idea of that word 'chastening.' We think, perhaps, that it represents God as having a big stick in His hand and knocking us about all the time. You have only to make a mistake and down comes the big stick! That, of course, is a totally wrong conception of the Father, and is not at all what the word means. The word 'chastening' simply means child-training, which has to do with sonship. Sonship in our Father's mind is to have people who are reliable and responsible, who know in their own hearts what is right and what is wrong, and do not have to be constantly told and admonished.
"We should always look at our difficulties in the light of this training. It often seems that the life of a Christian is more difficult than any other life, and more troubles come to us than to anyone else. Whether we recognize it or not, these difficulties and troubles which come to us are to train us for something and to develop in us the spirit of sonship; that is, to develop spiritual intelligence and spiritual ability in us." -T. A-S.
"One of the main purposes of all the Father's dealings with us is to bring us into a greater knowledge of His Son. We never know anything about greatness unless we have a great need to know it. Therefore we are brought into situations where we must know something much greater than we already know. This is why our Father brings His children into difficult circumstances–that they may learn how great their Lord Jesus is." -T. A-S.
"Nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them who are exercised by it" (Hebrews 12:11b).
9-18. RECALCITRANT REFORMATION
"Everyone that useth milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness" (Hebrews 5:13).
The Reformation, for all of its rise from Rome, to this day has never really gotten off the ground.
"Almost all the theology of the various 'creeds of Christendom' dates back to the Reformation, which went triumphantly to the end of Romans Five, and, so far as theological development or presentation of the truth was concerned, stopped there. Therefore, you must not regard yourself as bound to accept all that legal doctrine of sanctification, which has been and still is predominantly, the sine qua non of orthodox belief."-W.R.N.
"The contrast is painful in the extreme between the uniform language of the New Testament about Christians as thus called to worship in liberty and joy and nearness to the Father, and that of liturgies ancient and modern; and this because the results of redemption soon became merged and hidden in Jewish forms, and the law was recalled to the place of the Holy Spirit, and man in the flesh intruded wholesale into realms which belong only to those solemnly accredited as God's Church, the Body of Christ." -W.K.
"The liturgies of ritualism merely fall back upon the feelings of man, with a slight tincture of Gospel and a large infusion of law. There may be sublime language and glowing ideas, chiefly borrowed from the Old Testament; but in substance they are utterly beneath spiritual or even intelligent Christian use." -W.K.
"The only thing that God ever acknowledged in religion and ritualism was Jewish. It all had to do with the flesh. That is repudiated in the Cross; all is crucified: your life is now 'hid with Christ in God' (Colossians 3:3)."
"But solid food belongeth to them that are of full age" (Hebrews 5:14).
"He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit (with Him)" (1 Corinthians 6:17).
We are one spirit with the Lord Jesus by the one and only Holy Spirit.
"I can always know when the Holy Spirit is leading me, because He ever occupies me with the Lord Jesus. True, He may have to call attention to my own condition, but if He does, He turns me to the Lord Jesus, not merely to convict me, but to relieve me." -J.B.S.
"Spiritual growth is the Holy Spirit engraving the Lord Jesus on a man's heart, putting Him into his thoughts, his words, and his ways, just as the Law was engraved upon stones. It is not that there is no failure. A man who is seeking to make money does not always succeed; but everybody knows what his object is. Just so, the Lord Jesus Christ is the object of the believer's life." -J.N.D.
"The believer is not to clamor for the solution of perplexities or for intellectual mastery of divine mysteries. What knowledge he has in this realm is his because the Holy Spirit has declared it to him; and for the Spirit's declaration he must wait."
"None of us is ever beyond the work of the Spirit in us. Many think that because they have the light of a truth, they are in all the practical reality of it. No! You may know and reckon on all the Bible, but there is no growth beyond the measure of the Holy Spirit's work in you." -J.B.S.
"The Holy Spirit is only truly yielded to as the Cross, with its crucifixion of the flesh and the world, has become the attitude of our heart and mind."
"He (the Holy Spirit) shall glorify Me" (John 16:14).
"Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous" (Hebrews 10:11a).
You will be prepared, but never pierced, by the nail-pierced Hand.
"Sufferings are for chastening (child-training). And chastening is from love, a token of our Father's care. We live in a world full of trial and suffering. Many of the Lord's people have complained that their circumstances were too unfavorable for a life of full devotion, of close fellowship with Him, or pressing on to maturity. The duties and difficulties, the cares and troubles of life, render it practically impossible, they say, to live a fully consecrated life.
"Would God that they might learn the lesson of His Word! Every trial comes from the Father as a call to come away from the world to Him, to trust Him, to believe in His love. In every trial He will give strength and blessing. Let but this truth be accepted, in each trial, small or great; first of all and at once, recognize the Father's hand in it. Say at once, I welcome it from Him; my first care is to glorify my Father–He will use it all for my good."
"Do not be afraid of the Father's training school. He both knows His scholars, as to what they are, and He knows for what service they are to be fitted. A jeweler will take more pains over a gem than over a piece of glass; but the one he takes most pains over is longest under discipline and most severely dealt with. Once finished, however, the burnish never tarnishes, the brightness never dims. So with us. If we are placed, at times, as in a furnace, it is not merely for earthly service, but for eternity. May you so appreciate the plans of your Father that you can triumphantly glory in the love that subjects you to such discipline, though the trial itself be sharp and to the flesh hard to bear." -J.H.T.
"Nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them who are exercised by it" (Hebrews 12:11b).
9-21. FREELY COME; FREELY ABIDE
"That our God may make you worthy of His call, and by His power fully satisfy your every desire for goodness" (2 Thessalonians 1:11a, Wms.).
If we are born into the Lord Jesus by sheer grace, surely He can manifest Himself in us on the same principle.
"It is this quiet expectation and confidence, resting on the Word of the Lord Jesus that in Him there is an abiding place prepared, which is so sadly wanting among Christians. The idea many have of grace is that their conversion and pardon are God's work, but that now, in gratitude to Him, it is their work to live as Christians. There is always the thought of work (law) that has to be done, and even though they pray for help, still the work is theirs. They fail continually, and become helpless; and the despondency only increases the helplessness.
"Abiding in the Lord Jesus is not a work that we have to do as the condition for enjoying His salvation, but a consenting to let Him do all for us and in us, and through us. It is a work He does for us–the fruit and power of His redeeming love. Our part is simply to yield, to trust, to abide, and to wait for what He has engaged to perform. As it was the Lord Jesus who drew thee when He said 'Come,' so it is the Lord Jesus who keeps thee when He says 'Abide.'" -A.M.
"The heart is constantly looking to God to give a testimony about itself; but the Father is giving a testimony concerning His Son, and not about what we are; if He were to give a testimony about us, it must be about our sin and unbelief of heart. But no; and it is of great importance in this day of infidelity to see that if the Father gives a testimony, it is about His Son, and what He is to the sinner. If you believe that, you will have peace." -J.N.D.
"And complete every activity of your faith, so that the Name of our Lord Jesus might be glorified in you" (2 Thessalonians 1:11b, Wms.).
"God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble" (1 Peter 5:5).
Humility is the hallmark of the servant resting in, and sent from, the Father's presence.
"There is a sense in which God's true servant is always a defeated man. The one who drives on with a sense of his own importance, who is unwilling to appreciate the worthlessness of his own best efforts and is always seeking to justify himself–that one will not be meek, and so will lack the essential enablement by which God's work must be accomplished. Our brokenness must not be feigned; we must not be content with the mere language and appearance of humility. We, too, must be as conscious of Divine mercy in our being recovered for God's service as we are of the original mercy which drew us from the dark waters of death." -H.F.
"Humility is quietness of heart. It is to have no trouble. It is never to be fretted or irritated or disappointed. It is to expect nothing, to wonder at nothing that is done to me. It is to be at rest when nobody praises me and when I am blamed or despised. It is to have my blessed home in the Lord Jesus, where I can go in and shut the door and be with my Father in secret, and be at peace when all outside is trouble." -A.M.
"The Father may allow His servant to succeed when He has disciplined him to a point where he does not need to succeed to be happy. The man who is elated by success and cast down by failure is still a carnal man. At best his fruit will have a worm in it."
"Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time" (1 Peter 5:6).
"(God) hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:6)
We are to settle down to live and grow precisely where we have been re-born: in Christ Jesus above.
"Do we not often harbor the thought that something yet remains to be done–either by ourselves or by Him–in order to our drawing near? Do we not often thus become occupied with the circumstantials of worship rather than with the Lord Jesus–the substance? Are we not often false to Him in questioning our title to draw near, because we find distance in our own hearts, as if it was the warmth of our affections, instead of the Blood of the Lord Jesus, which brought us nigh?" -W.K.
"Our being perfectly cleansed by the Blood of the Lord Jesus, the Holiest of All is our place before the Father, and it is so simply upon the ground of what His sacrifice has effected. Our dwelling place is in the light, not by reason of our subjective condition, but because the Lord Jesus has made the position ours by the putting away of our sins, and by bringing us to the Father." -H.F.W.
"The heart must enter into something more than the look behind into those waters of judgment, out of which the Lord Jesus rose, having left our sins, and death, and judgment forever! Such a joy would never carry us through the desert where faith and patience are tried and tested every day. It needs that the heart be carried into the glory of Canaan beyond; in the present sense of peace with the Father, and the consciousness of standing in His present favor–the favor that is better than life." -F.G.P.
"Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the Holiest by the Blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us, through the veil" (Hebrews 10:19, 20).
"He (the Spirit) maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God" (Romans 8:27).
Neither the Lord Jesus nor the Holy Spirit ever thought of willing or praying outside the will of God the Father. Neither will we, while we walk in the Spirit, and abide in the Lord Jesus.
"Faith is not a power that one possesses, by which he can move the arm of God and work miracles. 'Faith accepts quiet guidance; only unbelief demands a miracle.' There is nothing in true faith that the flesh can glory in. The power is God's. It is the Father who works and does it according to His own wisdom and will. Faith is simply absolute confidence in the Father which gives the certainty that He will fulfill His Word." -A.H.
"Faith must be based upon certainty. There must be the definite knowledge of and confidence in the Father's purpose and will. Without that there can be no true faith. For faith is not a force that we can exercise or a striving to believe that something shall be, thinking that if we believe hard enough it will come to pass." -A.H.
"Let us not be discouraged if the transformation we long for does not take place immediately. Let us feel the need and lay it to heart. Let us stand in faith, and we shall never be put to shame. Cleaving to the Lord Jesus and His Word with purpose of heart can never be in vain. The hour will surely come when out of our hearts, too, will flow rivers of living water."
"Whatever sends us to the Lord Jesus–be it grief, disappointment or burden–is to that degree a blessing. No price is too great to pay in gaining this fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ."
"That ye might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding" (Colossians 1:9).
"I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:14).
We must be truth-centered if we are to be Christ-centered.
"With an increase of knowledge and apprehension of the truth, there is a constant sense that we are not practically up to what we have received; and hence the measure of our strength is not the enjoyment of a truth, but the extent to which we maintain what we believe in spite of every obstacle. It is the way in which we surmount the difficulties in our path, and not the enjoyment of the truth, which defines our position." -J.B.S.
"We will not learn truth aright excepting in the deepening knowledge of the Lord Jesus. It is the lack of this which is the cause of weakness among us: bare doctrine is not connected with Him. When the flower is separated from that which is its source, its sustenance and support, it is henceforth doomed to decay. We have that which is lovely and full of blessing in the Lord Jesus; but if we are to know it as such, to prove its truth, to enjoy it practically, it must be in taking these things as connected with Him." -W.K.
"The Lord Jesus Himself, and not even truth about Him, must be filling our hearts if we are to grow. This is no unnecessary admonition in a day when knowledge of the most sacred truths may be intellectually attained by so small an effort. It is a happy and necessary thing to understand the Word of God, but, with that Word treasured, the aim of the believer's affections should be, 'That I may know Him.' Desires after the Lord Jesus, desires to live with Him in heaven now, and to manifest Him on earth, make the growing believer separate from the world, and separate him unto the glorified Lord." -H.F.W.
"That I may know Him" (Phil 3:10).
"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (2 Corinthians 3:17).
Concerning the Holy Spirit, hidden as He is, faith is required above all else.
"Certainly the Holy Spirit directs in the countless details of daily life. Those who have faith, and are dependent upon His direction, will not be disappointed. But the Spirit leads according to Scriptural directions; hence that which is called the leading of the Spirit, and which has not the truth of the Word for its line of thought and action, is necessarily false." -H.F.W.
"The principle of walking in dependence upon the Holy Spirit must never be abandoned, however we may fail to carry it out. We must steer by divinely given principles, even if winds and waves at times do throw us off course. To give up the Father's principles because of opposing elements is to court shipwreck." -H.F.W.
"Being led by the Holy Spirit is the principle by which the Father deals in grace with believers. Outside the circle of the Spirit, men are led by the flesh; under the law His people were in bondage and under the schoolmaster. Now, in Christian privilege, the Spirit leads: 'if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law' (Galatians 5:18). -H.F.W.
"The Lord Jesus in glory is the standard of perfection, and the Savior on earth is the pattern for our walk. No one's walk is perfect, but the Spirit of Christ who dwells in us is perfect, and as the believer yields to the Father as one alive from the dead, the desires of the flesh are not fulfilled, and the Spirit brings forth His fruit in him." -H.F.W.
"Walk in (dependence upon) the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh" (Galatians 5:16).
"In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you" (1 Thessalonians 5:18).
Relief from pressure may seem merciful, but support in the pressure produces growth and maturity.
"There is a greater blessing for us than relief; there is the Father's support, for it imparts to you an acquaintance with Himself which relief does not. Relief makes one more satisfied with things here. I have known some who could tell you of a long list of mercies, most touching, truly proof of the tenderness of God.
"Thank God, we all know something of His tenderness. But then there is a greater blessing, namely, that He does not remove the pressure, but raises you above it, so that, though you are not relieved, you are better off than if you were merely relieved, because you know His heart who supports you in the pressure. You have made a deep acquaintance with your Father, and your heart is more attached to Him." -J.B.S.
"It is not getting away from our circumstances, our environment, our associations, that we need, but the Lord Jesus' likeness where we are. The Father placed us there, permitted the trials for a purpose, and He stands ready to bring us out into a life of liberty, if we will stand with Him in trust and endurance while He works it out."
"Have you asked to be made like your Lord; that it might be 'not I, but Christ'? Have you longed for the fruit of the Spirit, and have you prayed for patience and love? Then fear not the stormy tempest that is at this moment sweeping through your life. A blessing is in the storm, and there will be a rich fruitage in the 'afterward.'"
"The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms" (Deuteronomy 33:27).
"Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:1).
There will be no standing against the enemy's accusations until we are firmly assured of, and settled on, the fact that our Father is at peace with us because of our living union with His Beloved Son. And this alone will give us peace with our Father.
"We thought we were being more Christian by striving more, praying more, reading our Bible more, and confessing our sins more. But all that brought no relief. The awful gnawing in our vitals continues. The sense of guilt increases. We need not a Nathan to say, 'Thou art the man!' A thousand voices are forever ringing in our ears giving the lie to what we long with infinite yearning might be an altogether convincing testimony of a truly Christian walk.
"Now the way out is to be found in a clear-cut recognition of the fact that, as Paul says in Romans 8:1, 'There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.' Let appearances, voices and feelings to the contrary be what they may, still this is a fact. The reason, of course, is found not in ourselves, but in Another." -F.J.H.
"It is a wonderful thing to have the consciousness that we are in living union with the Lord Jesus in heavenly glory, knowing our position in that risen sphere, participating in all that constitutes His life in the blessed circle of love and rest where He lives unto the Father. If we apprehend this we shall not be deceived by what goes on upon the earth." -C.A.C.
"Stand fast, then, in the freedom which Christ has given us" (Galatians 5:1, Wey.).
"We all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord. . . " (2 Corinthians 3:18a).
During the first half of your Christian life you are concerned about your doing; in the second half you will be burdened about your being.
"The more simply devoted you are to the Lord Jesus, who is worthy of all devotion, the more fragrance there will be in all your ways; for it will be manifested that you are not seeking yourself, not wincing because your rights are invaded, or that you are not as much cared for as you are entitled to be. Rather, there is only one governing thought of your life about everything, and that is, how you may distinguish Him who fills every need in your heart, and lights it up with unfading joy."-J.B.S.
"Nothing can be so divinely beautiful on earth as a believer so transformed by the Spirit of God, that he is in heavenly manners here on earth; so that he does not in any of his ways deny the Lord Jesus Christ; but in the most trying hour of his history upon earth the Lord can say of him, 'thou hast a little power, and hast kept My Word, and hast not denied My Name.'" -J.B.S.
"In creation God planted a man in the garden in innocence; in redemption He has planted a Man in heaven, in glory. There is a glory that excelleth. The glory in redemption leaves the glory that was once in creation as nothing." -J.G.B.
"For every believer who actually crosses over into the Promised Land there are far too many who stand for awhile and look longingly across the river, and then turn sadly back to the comparative safety of the sandy wastes of the self-life."
". . . are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord " (2 Corinthians 3:18b).
"Ye have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3).
When we rely upon and cater to the old man, that ground produces "the works of the flesh" (Galatians 5:19-21). But as we abide in the risen Lord Jesus, that new ground of our position, His life will be manifested in "the fruit of the Spirit" (Galatians 5:22,23).
"God's Word declares that we are 'dead indeed unto sin,' but nowhere does it say that we are dead in ourselves. We shall look in vain within to find death there. We have died to sin; not in ourselves, but 'in Christ,' and our death with Him is as sure as His death, and since we died with Him it is impossible for His death to be certain and ours uncertain.
"We were crucified with Him because we were in Him (Galatians 2:20). We are raised in Him (Ephesians 2:6); we are complete in Him (Colossians 2:10); we are blessed with all spiritual blessings in Him (Ephesians 1:3); the entire work regarding us is not done in us but in the Lord Jesus–the Father has done all in His Son. If you stand on the ground of what the Lord Jesus is (abide), you will find in your growth that all that is true of Him is becoming true of you; but if you remain on the ground of what you are in yourself, you will find that all that is true of the old man is true of you in life and walk."
"The purpose of Paul, in Romans Six, is to show how completely the believer is identified with the Lord Jesus when 'He died unto sin.' To enter fully into the meaning of that death is to see that He has emancipated us from any further dealings with our old master, sin. The believer is privileged thus to take his position in the risen Lord Jesus, who is now 'alive unto God.' From that ground he is henceforth to regard sin." -E.H.
"Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty with which Christ hath made us free" (Galatians 5:1).
"If (since) ye, then, be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above" (Colossians 3:1).
Our Father may cripple our earthly standing in order to strengthen our spiritual state, but He will never detract from our spiritual state in order to enhance our worldly standing. Never. "The world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world" (Galatians 6:14).
"It is not only that the Lord Jesus is the object of my heart, but I find that the One I love has made me the object of His heart! A great day for the soul. People are ready to say how they love Him, but how far can they say that they are conscious of His love for them; that they so prize it, that it is the greatest secret of their heart?
"When the Lord Jesus' love is before you, you find this love is drawing you from darkness to light. He begins by showing His desire for your spiritual advancement, and not by advancing you in earthly position. It is beautiful to see that the work of true love is to set aside darkness, or whatever would interfere with association; and therefore it is not esteemed as it ought to be, because we are looking for something on earth, and the tendency is to judge of His love by earthly gifts and favors down here." -J.B.S.
"Most growing believers rightly maintain that all must come from the Lord; but instead of taking their actual position of being dwellers in heaven, and coming from there to earth, they only look up to heaven for help as to their walk on earth; and their thoughts and labors are always influenced and dictated by the state and order of things on earth, and instead of seeking the mind of the Lord as learned in heaven, they are occupied with the blessings of man on earth." -J.B.S.
"Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God " (Colossians 3:2,3).