Words of Wisdom and Revelation

Words of Wisdom and Revelation

Ministry Born Out of Experience

If you are in any way engaged in ministry, or the work of the Lord, no matter how much you study, how much you read up the subject matter, however diligent you are in your research, it will count for nothing if there is not behind it an experience which makes resurrection - that is, a deep experience which makes resurrection the only way out. The Lord has no place for mere mechanical teachers and preachers, reproducers of matter secondhand. The Lord's principle is to bring everything right into experimental relationship to the person concerned, and so it is kept in power and freshness and reality.

~T. Austin-Sparks~
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Ministry Born Out of Adversity

Do believe this. If you want to be able to help people, to enrich them, to bring them into the wealth that is in Christ, to deliver them from their poverty - and God knows how poverty-stricken His people are, and how little they know of His wealth - if you want to help others to a knowledge of this wealth, it is by way of the light which comes through resurrection. In more simple terms, if you are going through a deep and dark time, you may have very rich treasures of darkness. The right attitude toward our times of death and darkness is that this can mean wealth - the Lord means more riches out of this thing for others; something for their enrichment, is going to come out of our times of spiritual death. It is effective light that enriches, that brings into wealth.

~T. Austin-Sparks~
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A Way of Deliverance

As we look on ahead, we dread some things for we know that those things are beyond us altogether; but we have got to take this position. We must look at our situation today, and say: "This situation holds something. The Lord is not changing it; He is just not doing all that I am longing for, and craving for, and waiting for - changing my position and circumstances, and getting me right out of it. I pray, and there is nothing; there is no getting through, He is not doing it. Therefore, I must look at it in another way. There is a secret in this, and I have got to get hold of that secret. What does the Lord intend to teach me and to give me in this situation, that I can bring out of it as fruit, as stock-in-trade for the work in the days to come? What is it? I must get it!"

If we take that attitude toward things, I think we shall probably find that that is our way of deliverance, our way out, our way through.

~T. Austin-Sparks~
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The Divine Priority

There is one all-comprehending, all-embracing, all-governing purpose to which God has committed Himself, by creation, by redemption,and by union. That purpose is the conformity of a race to the image of His Son. If our requests regarding things were granted, while we were left, the same people,unchanged in disposition and nature, it would not be long before we should be in the same unhappy condition over other things. There is poss8ible for us some inherent quality that wears out circumstances and reigns above them. Some of the most radiant people have been the greatest sufferers, in infirmity, poverty, or other forms of adversity; while the most "privileged" are often the most discontented.

We may have to let go the particular occasion of our trouble, and first recognize, and then embrace with our heart, the fact that in the affliction there resides the immense eternal potentiality of an increase of the image of God's Son, which is to be the one and the only character and nature of the eternal kingdom. We have too much visualized the "Heaven" that is to be, as geographical and pleasurable, without giving sufficient weight to the fact of a "nature" to be inculcated and perfected.

God will never put work or service in the place of character; and if we do that, eternity will reveal that, however much we may have done, we are very small among the inhabitants of the Land, whose stature will be measured by "the measure of Christ". It would be well if all who contemplate or are engaged in the work of God were governed by this one absolutely final law: that, both as to themselves and to those among whom they minister, the ultimate test is - not how much work is done, but how much of Christ is present, or results from the ministry. This might solve many problems, explain many "strange" ways of God, and seal life with the kind of "success" that is worthy of the name in the eyes of Heaven.

~T. Austin-Sparks~
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The Cost of Utter Devotion

Devotion, utter devotion, to God's purpose concerning His people is going to make the uttermost demand upon any servant of God. It is going to test and find our our spirit of service. And if we are going to serve God in this utter way, it is going to bring us to the point where we have nothing left to fall back upon, either of personal interest, position, or blessing; it is simply a matter of God, and God only! If God does not do it, we are finished; we have nothing to live for! We have no alternative; we have no second line; we are in this matter of the Lord's purpose and interests to the very last drop of our blood.

And we much be prepared to be brought to the place where we are ready to get right out of the way ourselves - altogether out of the way, in every sense - if only the Lord can reach His end. We don't matter. What matters is that the Lord has His end in His people, and if that is not reached, then I don't know what I am alive for; I don't know what I have been saved for."

~T. Austin-Sparks~