The Nature of the Christian Life # 6

A Talk to Young Christians on the Nature of the Christian Life.


Spiritual Qualification


The next thing, in the life of the Spirit, is that the Holy Spirit gifts us, and qualifies us for a place, a part, in this great purpose of God. This again is something that I want you to take to heart, because it means so much. In this realm, the matter of natural qualifications is not the argument at all. I remember how, early in my Christian life, I was very conscious of many lacks and deficiencies and defectivenesses, and things that I wished I had had. There were ambitions that I was never able to realise; desires that I had in this life for learning, for becoming qualified in this or in that, and so on; many doors were closed to me when I came to the Lord, and so I had to face life pretty much without this background I wanted.


And then I came early to see that this matter of natural qualifications is not the argument with the Lord at all. I saw this from both sides. On the one side, there are many who have very great natural qualifications, or qualifications acquired through study, or through all manner of advantages, but they are not necessarily spiritual people. And it never does mean - and you can prove this - that, because you have got a tremendous background of scholarship, education, or qualification of that kind, you have a special aptitude for grasping spiritual things. I have been amazed, again and again, when meeting some quite "highbrow" people - Christians - who have had all the advantages of academic training, to find that, when I have talked to them about the Lord, they just have not known what I was talking bout. They can't grasp it at all! And then I have met others, who have none of those qualifications and advantages, and you can go with them on spiritual things as far as you like, and they have got it - they see.


That is the great thing to learn early in the Christian life: it is not what I have or what I have not naturally - the Holy Spirit is qualification for what God wants! The New Testament speaks of "gifts of the Spirit" - and, while we have some lists of the "gifts of the Holy Spirit"; not all the gifts that the Holy Spirit will give are mentioned - qualifications, equipments, for a place in the whole range of Divine interests and values. Do take that to your heart. It may be that you are one of the least, and that you feel there is not much hope for you; but, if you have got the Holy Spirit, He can and will qualify you for something that is your particular part in the whole. And people can say: "You know, he or she, - not very much naturally, perhaps; you would not think very much of them if you looked at them; but, but ... he counts; she counts, you know; and this is the way in which they count." It is like that; the Holy Spirit has come to give us something we have not got naturally, and we cannot get naturally - it is the particular equipment of the Holy Spirit.


Now, don't think in terms of wonderful, public gifts; it may never be that. In some simple, quiet way, you may be an effective faculty in the whole body corporate. That is what this means, to have the Holy Spirit: that we are something more in accountability than we are or could be naturally, even at our best. It is something different. The Lord will not always tell you what you gift is, but other people will know - that is just where you count for the Lord; just how you, particularly, mean something for the Lord.


~T. Austin-Sparks~


(continued with # 7 - "Corporate Vocation")