Evil Intent Exposed

Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?” But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Matthew 22:17-18

Beware of those with evil intent. Their motivation is to make others look bad so they can look good. Unscrupulous individuals seek to weaken another’s authority so they can step into the power vacuum and take control. They use flattery to gain favor from their victim. They acquire trust so they can discredit their opponent’s character. A heart with evil intent uses truth to set a trap of confusion. Thus, wisdom and discernment are required to confront confusion with clarity.

Has another attempted to question your character? Have you answered their clever questions directly with insight from Scripture? Pray the Holy Spirit reveals the heart of God to your heart, so you righteously respond to unrighteous inquiries. Questions with evil intent are fishing for an evil reaction. But in the power of the Holy Spirit you don’t have to lower yourself to acting like your agitators. Be bold, but respectful. Be direct, but with grace and truth.

But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.Matthew 5:44

Furthermore, pray for those in authority who use others to do their dirty work. They indirectly infuse their influence through their subordinates who wish to avoid insubordination. Thus, we don’t shoot the messenger, but by God’s grace we grow in our compassion and empathy for their no win situation. Perhaps they are a puppet of their boss’ pride. They fear losing his or her approval or they don’t want to jeopardize their promotion, so they give in to being used. So, be like Joseph and his jailer, seek God’s favor and serve. You may gain more influence for Christ.

Finally, guard your heart if you feel betrayed, attacked, dismissed or marginalized. Let go of hurt and be healed. Release anger and forgive. Lovingly confront critics with grace and truth. When you feel wronged, pray for the Holy Spirit to give you the right words with the right spirit. The battle is the Lord’s, so you can trust Him to deal with evil intent in His timing. Yes, trust in the Lord with all your heart, so your heart is free from fear and retaliation. He exposes evil intent.

For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. 1 Peter 3:12

Prayer: Heavenly Father, give me Your heart to lovingly confront another’s evil intent with grace and truth.

~Wisdom Hunters Devotional~

We Beheld His Glory # 13

The New Birth - Its Basis

Well, now I think we see why the Lord immediately, and so peculiarly and strangely, pulled Nicodemus up short with an imperative. Nicodemus starts his conversation - I do not know whether in a patronizing way, or in a somewhat high-falutin' manner, "Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God; for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him." "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." What is the connection? The thing does not seem to be connected at all, it hardly seems relevant. It is a tremendous break in on the part of the Master, calling this whole thing to a halt, and saying, in effect: Let us go no further, your need is to be born from above, if you have come to discuss spiritual things. If you have come to talk about the Kingdom of God and how to get into it, you must be born from above. If you are interested in Me and what I represent, you can only have a living interest and understanding as you are born from above. You see, He brings right forward the end that Nicodemus probably had in mind, and plants it with an imperative at the commencement, and says, virtually: Look here, Nicodemus, it is no use you and I discussing these things, we are in two different realms; we need to be in the same realm to have understanding and appreciation of these things, and I am from above; you have to come from above, Nicodemus, to be in fellowship with Me; we cannot talk over the thing while yo stand in one wold and I in another. You must come over to the realm where I am, and we will have fellowship and understanding, because that means you will have new capacities, a new consciousness; you will be able with spiritual ability to enter into these things; which is quite impossible to you, even as a master in Israel, until you are born from above. That imperative, that "must" carries with it all the content of the utter impossibility of man by nature, even at his highest, to enter into the things of the Kingdom of God, and all the mighty content on the positive side of what it is to be in the Kingdom of God. That is, to have what is of God resident within by birth; Divine capacity, Divine consciousness, Divine understanding and intelligence, and all that belongs to God - excepting deity.

For myself, the wonder of the Christian life is the reality of what I have called the "Otherness". The reality of Another so closely related within me, subjective and yet objective. In me, but not me, and yet as close to me, to my consciousness as it is possible for anything to be. That is the foundation of all our hope and confidence; it is the spring of everything for the ultimate realization of perfect God-likeness; "Christ in you the hope of glory."

In a further chapter we shall see with what a forceful illustration the Lord enforced His dictum as to the necessity for new birth, and the why of it.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 14 - "The Necessity for New Birth")

The Lathe produces the Finest Work

I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument (Isa. 41:15).

A bar of steel worth five dollars, when wrought into horseshoes, is worth ten dollars. If made into needles, it is worth three hundred and fifty dollars; if into penknife blades, it is worth thirty-two thousand dollars; if into springs for watches it is worth two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. What a drilling the poor bar must undergo to be worth this! But the more it is manipulated, the more it is hammered, and passed through the fire, and beaten and pounded and polished, the greater the value.

May this parable help us to be silent, still, and longsuffering. Those who suffer most are capable of yielding most; and it is through pain that God is getting the most out of us, for His glory and the blessing of others.
--Selected

Oh, give Thy servant patience to be still,
And bear Thy will;
Courage to venture wholly on the arm
That will not harm;
The wisdom that will never let me stray
Out of my way;
The love that, now afflicting, knoweth best
When I should rest.

Life is very mysterious. Indeed it would be inexplicable unless we believed that God was preparing us for scenes and ministries that lie beyond the veil of sense in the eternal world, where highly-tempered spirits will be required for special service.

"The turning-lathe that has the sharpest knives produces the finest work."

~L. B. Cowman~

We Beheld His Glory # 12

New Birth - A Fundamental Difference (continued)

Those of you who have any spiritual sense and understanding and knowledge at all know how true that "Otherness" is. It is the thing upon which perhaps we have fallen back again and again as the last word in an argument, or debate with ourselves over our own Christian lives. That is, there are times when by reason of various conditions or circumstances, trials, difficulties, dark passages of experience, the enemy hedges us up in a corner, and makes us question the reality of everything; the reality of our own experience, the reality of our own salvation; and what is our last word in this argument? Very often in my own case the last word has been: Whatever I am, or whatever I am not, this "Otherness" is the greatest reality I know. I know by experience, that when for me certain things have been totally impossible, spiritually, mentally, and physically, this "Otherness" has come to the rescue and accomplished them. I know that my experience is not the product of my own genius; I know the work that I have done is not the outcome of my own ability. I know perfectly well my limitations, but I know there is a history which cannot be accounted for by anything of my own. I know it when every ounce of my being on its best side argues in a certain direction, and that "Otherness" will not go with me and persuades me against it, and the issue proves that that "Otherness" was right and I was wrong at my best. What is that "Otherness"? It is the Lord the Spirit. That is the essence of the birth from above, the Lord Himself. He is not as we are - He is "Other".

The New Birth - Its Basis

The third thing, the basis of the new birth. It is the accepting of the end of the possibilities of the old birth. That so far as the Kingdom of God is concerned and all that relates to it of character and conduct, of being and doing, of knowing and understanding and functioning, the natural birth provides absolutely no possibility, it cannot bring us there. We cannot naturally see the Kingdom of God. Even on the high level of a Nicodemus-equipment, religiously, intellectually, ecclesiastically, morally, we cannot see the Kingdom of God at our very best by nature, or by human achievement. Of course I know I am saying commonplace things to many, but be patient; it is very important that in taking the first thing we should say familiar things, and say them strongly. It is not settled as to why the Lord Jesus changed the order of His answer to Nicodemus in the fifth verse from the third. One thing is clear, that Nicodemus had misapprehended His statement Nicodemus had taken Him up as meaning what our Authorized Version seems to suggest: "Ye must be born again." That conveyed to him an altogether different idea from being born from above. The Greek word used allows of that conception and apprehension; indeed the same word is used elsewhere in the sense of again, a second time. Nicodemus just dwelt on that particular aspect of the word, that the Lord's statement in terms of a birth repeated. The Lord, in His changed address, language, evidently intended to deal with that misconception and misapprehension, and that is the only way in which you can explain what He meant in His second statement: "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." Now some think that the Lord, using the word "water" referred to the Word of God. Others, and I think by far the greater number, hold that it refers to baptism. The word here is: "... out from water and the Spirit." Now if it does mean that, in the Lord's usage, it touches immediately what we were saying in the earlier statement; but whether the Lord meant baptism and the Spirit or not, the principle holds good that to be born from above, as set over against a Nicodemus position, means that one history is entirely closed, and another - an entirely different history - comes in at its commencement; therefore the principle is the same, that if it is baptism, baptism is  A TYPE of death to the old creation, death and burial, in which one entire system, order, and creation is put aside and out of God's sight; crucified with Christ, buried with Christ, then of course, raised in Christ. It is our acceptance of the end of the possibilities of the old birth. We do not bring an end to those possibilities, that has been reached long ago, and God sees it and declares it, and birth from above presupposes and postulates the fact that this old birth at its best can never see or enter into the Kingdom of God, therefore it is futile and useless. You and I will never come into the Kingdom of God on any other ground than that God comes into us in a new birth; in that sense we are born from above; an act of God by the Holy Spirit;  "... so is every one that is born of the Spirit."  "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." The new birth means that we, by an act of God in the Holy Spirit, become spiritual, in this sense - that we totally correspond to the Kingdom of God in its spiritual nature. It is a suitability to God. "God is a Spirit; and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth."

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 13)

He Draws Near

John 16:15

He shall take of Mine, and shall show it unto you.

 

 

There are times when all the promises and a doctrines of the Bible are of no avail, unless a gracious hand shall apply them to us. We are thirsty, but too faint to crawl to the water- brook. When a soldier is wounded in battle it is of little use for him to know that there are those at the hospital who can bind up his wounds, and medicines there to ease all the pains which he now suffers: what he needs is to be carried thither, and to have the remedies applied. It is thus with our souls, and to meet this need there is one, even the Spirit of truth, who takes of the things of Jesus, and applies them to us. Think not that Christ hath placed His joys on heavenly shelves that we may climb up to them for ourselves, but He draws near, and sheds His peace abroad in our hearts. O Christian, if thou art to-night labouring under deep distresses, thy Father does not give thee promises and then leave thee to draw them up from the Word like buckets from a well, but the promises He has written in the Word He will write anew on your heart. He will manifest His love to you, and by His blessed Spirit, dispel your cares and troubles. Be it known unto thee, O mourner, that it is God's prerogative to wipe every tear from the eye of His people. The good Samaritan did not say, "Here is the wine, and here is the oil for you"; he actually poured in the oil and the wine. So Jesus not only gives you the sweet wine of the promise, but holds the golden chalice to your lips, and pours the life-blood into your mouth. The poor, sick, way-worn pilgrim is not merely strengthened to walk, but he is borne on eagles' wings. Glorious gospel! which provides everything for the helpless, which draws nigh to us when we cannot reach after it-brings us grace before we seek for grace! Here is as much glory in the giving as in the gift. Happy people who have the Holy Ghost to bring Jesus to them.

~Charles Spurgeon~

We Beheld His Glory a# 11

New Birth - a Fundamental Difference

Firstly, the fundamental difference. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit". I want to lay my finger of emphasis upon what I have before called "the otherness" of the new birth. The greatest reality in the child of God, right on to the end of his or her experience, is this "otherness". Firstly, it is an "otherness" of being, that is, of entity. Something very closely related to us, and yet completely distinct from us. There is a malady from which a great many people are suffering in these days called neurasthenia. One of the features of that malady is the consciousness of secondary personalities; that is, the sufferer is constantly conscious of some other unseen presence, usually evil, dark, near them, following them, haunting them, influencing them, sometimes insinuating, suggesting, very real, and very terrible, and as that malady develops and progresses, that secondary personality seems to become more and more their own personality, until a great many who have had a religious background accept the idea of devil possession, and believe themselves to be now, in effect, devils incarnate. Now I use that by way of illustration; I know that it is bringing it on to the wrong side, and on to a very low level. But in the new birth there is that "Otherness" which is not ourselves, though closely related to us, but is from above, and is the greatest reality of the true child of God right on to the end. I by nature am one thing, but This is another. I would go one way. This would not go that way. I would say a certain thing, but This does not agree with me, and checks the saying of it. I would  choose a certain course, but This makes me aware that It is not approving that. It is a very difficult thin to define and explain, but it is a very real thing. It is the basis and the hope of everything for us, this "Otherness."

So the first note, then, is that of distinctiveness of entity. It is us, and yet not us, and we know that very often these two work apart, and do not agree. I once coined a technical phrase to try to define this - if you cannot grasp the meaning of this do not trouble - I spoke of it as the subjective-objective. That is, something within but yet apart, other than myself by nature. You see the importance of even that technicality. (I would like to say that I am not trying to give you a lot of technical matter. I really am anxious to get down to the root of matter for you. I never think of anything except in terms of practical value, and I am only trying to get to the practical value of things for the sake of the Lord's people. Do not think of this as so much matter which I have collected and am trying to pass on to you. I want you to get the real value.)

Then, secondly, it is an essence not only of being, entity, but of constitution, nature, outlook; altogether different from ourselves, differently constituted. So complete is the difference of constitution that it contradicts - very often - our very best and highest ideas and judgments and thoughts. Different nationalities have different conceptions. When certain nationalities come into our country, or we go into theirs, we find that they would do thing we would never think of doing, and we do things they would never think of doing, and things done represent an altogether different conception and standard. We should say: That is a thing not done in our country; for that to be done in our country would represent something in the nature of a scandal; it is not so with you, it i the accepted thing. They would perhaps say the same of many things among us. Take the matter of language; the same words in different countries mean entirely different things. We in England think a great deal of our delightful word "homely." If you say that about things in America you find people frowning at you. We think it is the greatest compliment in this country to say a woman is a "homely" woman. That saying, in America, means she is very plain and ugly. There is a difference altogether in conception. Now in that sense, this "Otherness" is different from our conception, our ideas, our judgments, our standards; even our highest, our best are very often challenged by this "Otherness." It is an "Otherness" of constitution. To put it in a word, God is other than ourselves at our very best. A break has come, and there is no such thing as the continuity of God in the fallen race. Oh, a great deal is made of the continuity of God in the fallen race, in man. A great deal is said in certain realms about God in every man. Much is said about the Christ in us. But a break has come, and in man by nature God is not resident, and Christ is not present. God is other than man, and as utterly other than man as is possible for the two to be; so much so that God, rather than put forth a finger or speak a word to save, to rescue Himself in that creation, consigns the whole thing to destruction. God would not do that, if He were in it. He would be consigning Himself to destruction. If the Cross of the Lord Jesus was a representative thing in which the whole race died under the hand of God, then God slew Himself, if He were in the race. So utterly is the race without God, that God will not save it as it is. No, there is a break, the continuity has been ended. That is the "Otherness."

We have spoken rather in the impersonal so far, now we have to bring it to the personal, and say the essence of the new birth is God coming in, in Christ, by the Holy Spirit. It is God Himself in Christ, by the Holy Spirit coming in where He is not. God is not in man by nature. Christ is not in man by nature. The Holy Spirit is not in man by nature. "The Christ in every man," of which we hear so much, is a phrase which makes Christ impersonal and speaks of Christ as some THING. But NEW BIRTH IS AN ADVENT NOT A REVIVAL. It is as distinctly and definitely an advent as the birth of the Lord Jesus at Bethlehem. That was not an evolution, and that was not a revival; that was an advent. Revival is not for unsaved people. New birth is the definite act of the Lord coming and taking up residence as the Lord, other than we are. You remember what the Lord Jesus said about the Kingdom, and its coming. "There be some of you standing here, who shall not taste of death, until ye have seen the kingdom of heaven coming in power." When did that take place? Its first movement was on the Mount of Transfiguration, its second movement was at Pentecost. The Kingdom came at Pentecost. But what was Pentecost? The advent of the Spirit! And what was the advent of the Spirit? The residence of the Spirit within the Church! It was an advent. Everything was in a state of suspense under Divine order until then. All the truth was apprehended, but if they had gone and preached the truth about Pentecost, they would have been in a false position, an unbalanced state; there would have been inconsistency, and that truth would have come back on them to break them, and not work for them. Pentecost, the Advent of the Spirit, was the cradling of the Spirit of God withing the Church. There were foreshadowings and indications of it before then; there were the principles of it clearly marked and defined before then. There was a parenthetical period in which everything was in movement, but the actual consummation of that did not take place until Pentecost. I mean the Upper Room was the Church representatively in being, and when the Lord breathed on them there and said: "Receive ye the Holy Spirit"; that was the Church constituted by the Holy Spirit figuratively, but it was not then allowed to move, neither could it function. Everything was suspended for a probationary period until the Advent of the Spirit, which made all that good. Now the law of the Kingdom of God is birth from above, which is the Advent of God in Christ by the Spirit in our heart, constituting an 'Otherness" which is to be our true life to the end.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 12)

Profitable Patience

Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.    Psalm 27:14

Life is normally lived waiting. We wait in lines; a teenager waits for his or her next birthday; we wait for job promotions; we wait for news from the doctor; we wait for the next meal; we wait for our future spouse; we wait for a lawsuit to be settled; we wait for a meeting to conclude; we wait for those who have yet to keep their commitment. Every time we turn around we have an opportunity to wait. Why wait? Because most of the time, it’s what’s best and most beneficial. A vegetable gardener is a prisoner to waiting, but this an asset, not a liability. A tomato is much tastier when it is red, large, and juicy, rather than green, small, and hard. The smart gardener will wait for the vegetables to ripen, while nurturing the soil along the way and keeping the weeds out.
   
There is a waiting cycle that must be completed before there is worthwhile fruit. If you didn’t have to wait, you may have been satisfied with how things had always been done. Now you have the opportunity to think differently. Maybe there are other people or resources that can contribute to your project or plan. So, when things do not go as planned, see it as an opportunity to improve the plan. Or the very thing may be to provide help to another, as waiting is a lesson in loving others in spite of themselves; even providing valued assistance during this parenthesis in your own life.
   
Most importantly, learn how to wait for the Lord. What a valuable asset to wait upon. The Lord God Almighty is worth the wait. It is worth waiting for His joy because it comes to uplift you and bring a smile to your face; it is worth waiting for His peace that calms your soul and allows you to sleep at night; it is worth waiting for His wisdom that provides discernment in the middle of conflicting options; it is worth waiting for His strength that propels you through adversity and gives you confidence and perseverance for life’s journey; it is worth waiting for His hope that lifts you up and out of your despair and depression.
   
People camp out to see a rock star or pay big bucks to wait and meet the President; so waiting on God should be a cinch. Waiting is being fundamentally patient with God. He is running the universe, He knows what is going on, and He knows what is best for you. He knows. He knows. He knows. You can trust Him in your waiting. Use this sabbatical-like time to get to know your heavenly Father more intimately. Use this time to love your family and others, like no other time in your life. Allow Him to mold your character so that others will comment to themselves that you are somehow different. You are different because you have been with Jesus. Waiting is not just a passage to God’s blessing, it is God’s blessing. Wait for the Lord, because He is worth the wait.
   
The Bible says, “I wait for you, O LORD; you will answer, O Lord my God” (Psalm 38:15).

~Wisdom Hunters Devotional~