Total Pageviews

Saturday, June 2, 2018

Doctrinal Knowledge vs. Personal Acquaintance (and others)

Doctrinal Knowledge vs. Personal Acquaintance (and others)

The writer, over a period of nearly forty years of personal contact with evangelical Christianity in many parts of the world, has been terribly impressed with one basic weakness or defect; which defect undoubtedly is indicative of a whole set of defections from what was the conception in the beginning. While the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is well known, and a great deal of teaching on that doctrine has been received, both from expositors personally, and through an immense amount of literature on the subject, there is a great deal to make real the question as to whether or not, after all, multitudes -even the majority - of Christians know anything about the Holy Spirit as a POSITIVE, active, indwelling presence.

~T. Austin-Sparks~
______________________

The Sole Motive for Movement

How many spiritual tragedies we have known brought about by human selectiveness apart from the first and supreme interest of Christ. It might be the choice of residence, location, for instance, for reasons of convenience, pleasure, escape, or seeming necessity, as in the case of Abraham. No less a question than having the Lord with us is bound up with such choices and decisions. We cannot move off the Lord's ground without the consequence of spiritual disaster. How costly it was in the case of Elimelech!

If Christ is the Way, the Directive, then He is the Example. How meticulously careful He was not to move, or be moved, by any consideration but the directive of the Father!

Many motives were put to Him for action and movement, but He abode in the Father, and, often at great cost, refuses other considerations.

We must seek to know that we are where we are because God has put us there in the interests of His Son, and then it must be God Who just as definitely moves us when the time to move has come.

~T. Austin-Sparks~
_______________________

Beyond Healing

Sometimes, in the discretion of God, the death-victory of Christ, means actual healing of the human body supernaturally. More generally it means - by faith's appropriation - Divine life in sustenance and ability make life's continuous miracle.

Amid all the so-much-to-be-deplored features of Christendom's defaultings and contradictions, there goes on in the multitudes of devoted and committed individual believers a living testimony to "the power of His resurrection" in endurance, sustenance, survival, and victory.

~T. Austin-Sparks~
_________________________

The Quest for Understanding

The greatest desire in my heart - and the longer I live the stronger it grows - is to understand the Lord Jesus. There is so much that I do not understand about Him. I am always coming up against problems about Him, and they are not intellectual problems at all, but spiritual ones: problems of the heart. Why did the Lord Jesus say and do certain things? Why is He dealing with me as He is? He is always too deep for me, and I want to understand Him. It is the most important thing in life to understand that Lord Jesus.

~T. Austin-Sparks~
_____________________________

Having the Lord's Hand Upon Us

It is not error, not false, and not a mistake to say that the Lord Jesus is making history by His hand being upon us. And if He can get His hand upon us, He will draw out spiritual values from these lives which will be for the good of His people. In a measure and in a sense, the Lord can draw values out of your life and mine for His people, beyond anything that we could produce- but for that hand of God upon us. Have you got hold of that? Is it not helpful? It is encouraging.

~T. Austin-Sparks~


No comments:

Post a Comment