Are You Listening?

Yesterday we began a series of devotionals focusing on how you can regain your spiritual edge.  As we think about how to do that, it is important to consider those things that would indicate we have become spiritually dull.

I believe the number one characteristic you find in someone who has lost their cutting edge spiritually is that the voice of the Holy Spirit is no longer recognized.  Those impressions that the Spirit makes upon your heart, through which He guides you, are no longer clear.

In Matthew 13:14-15, Jesus talks about this in a pretty plain way,

"And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says:  ‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive; for the hearts of this people have grown dull.  Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them.'"

This concern is echoed in Hebrews 5:11, where the writer, in talking about the priesthood of Christ, says,

Of whom we have much to say, and hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.

Have you lost the edge?  Have you lost that sensitivity to the voice of God?  Hearing with the physical ears, but not understanding in the heart; seeing with the physical eyes, but not perceiving what God is doing?

Jesus said that happens when the heart becomes dull.  When someone loses that edge spiritually, it results is an insensitivity to the voice of God.

If this describes you today, ask God to open your eyes to see and your ears to hear.  Begin now to regain your spiritual edge.

~Bayless Conley~

The Cross and the Person of Christ # 8

Seeing the Greatness of Christ by the Holy Spirit

All this brings us to the whole matter of the Holy Spirit. What do we know of Christ after all? If we know Him as our Saviour, our Redeemer, our Lord, our High Priest, our Advocate on high, in all these ways, what do we know of Him after all? That is nothing. Paul knew all that, but here he is speaking and acting as one who knew nothing, because the knowledge yet to be possessed was so far beyond anything already attained unto. We know nothing.

But the advent of the Spirit, the coming of the Spirit, has had that whole matter in view - to lead us into this vast universe which Christ is, this wonderful spiritual system and order of things of which Christ is the embodiment, to make us know in continual progress and development more of the meaning of Christ. I know I am failing to convey to you the tremendous impression that this has made on my own heart as I have thought about it, as it has come to me. As I stand so far behind these Apostles but listen to what they say, the impression to begin with is that these men have evidently seen something in Christ that is immense and it has taken out of their lives anything in the nature of spiritual contentedness with their apprehension, with their attainment. This that they have glimpsed has made them men who are on full stretch to know all that it is possible to know, not because they are just men of an inquisitive turn of mind who want to know for the sake of knowledge, but they are that that knowledge is unto the fullness of God's purpose in their own lives and in their lives as related to a Body, the Body of Christ, His Church. The Church will never go on to that realization, and the individual members of the Church will never grow, save as the Church and the members thereof glimpse something of the greatness of Christ. The way of spiritual growth is the glimpsing of the greatness of Christ by revelation of the Holy Spirit, and that is why Paul prayed as he did "having the eyes of your heart enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe" (Ephesians 1:18-19); that you might know this by His giving to you "a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the 'epignosis' (in the full knowledge) of him." That is how the Church will grow, that is how the saints will make increase - seeing in a new way how vast and great is Christ.

Do you not agree that among all the needs that exist today in the people of God one of the most potent is the need to be delivered from spiritual contentedness, satisfaction with a small measure of the Christian life? There is a sad, a tragic absence of a really adequate reach out to know Him. Oh, I know that needs perhaps qualifying and covering. There are many people who say they want to know and want to go on, but their quest, their desire, is not of that character, that nature, which obtained in the case of the Apostle Paul - "I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord". ALL THINGS.

With many Christians and Christian workers, if you touch their work, their organization, their system of things, their religious thing of which they are part, then you meet awful resistance. Prejudices and suspicions and all those things rise out of this weddedness to things rather than to the Lord. If only people were wedded to the Lord and He was their only quest, you would get rid of 95 percent of all the prejudice and suspicion that exits. It is things that produce it. We need to drop our things and be found only concerned with the Lord. Our one question, governing every situation, should be, Does that contribute in any way to a larger measure of Christ? If it does, then in my heart I am with it; it does not matter what it does to existing institutions. If that can lead on to a knowledge of Christ beyond what we have, then that is the thing that matters. It is Christ, not our Church, not our fellowship, not our mission, not our organization, not our tradition, but Christ. He is a tremendously enlarging and emancipating factor. It is these things that have cramped us down and made us small, mean, petty and peevish. Christ delivers, Christ enlarges; of, to see Him! Oh, that we could be brought by the Spirit a the Queen of Sheba was brought and shown the kingdom of Solomon, his glory, his table, his servants, until there was no more spirit left in her and she said, "I heard ... of thine acts and thy wisdom. Howbeit I believed not ... until I came and mine eyes had seen it: and behold, the half was not told me" (1 Kings 10:7). And a greater than Solomon is here! What you and I need is that enlargement which comes by a Holy Spirit inward revelation of Christ and we shall be emancipated. These other things will fall into their own place as we see Him more fully.

That, then, is the very meaning of the Holy Spirit having come. I say again, what do we know? How small is our knowledge! Ah, but God knows that, and the Spirit of God has come. What for? To be at our service, for us to use, that He might be taken hold of to give us prominence and importance and name and reputation? NO, He has come for no other purpose than to bring God's Son into ever increasing fullness in the saints, to make Christ in the Church what He is in the sight of God, that He may become in the Church the "fullness of him that filleth all in all." That is the Holy Spirit's purpose in coming. Well, what a heritage we have when we have the Holy Spirit! - "the Spirit which is an earnest of our inheritance" (Ephesians 1:14). With the Holy Spirit, all the inheritance is is bound up and guaranteed. Having the Spirit, all that fullness is potentially ours.

Now it is for us to be taught by the Spirit, and the Holy Spirit does not teach us as out of a book, as by a manual. He does not teach us just by addresses and talks and lectures, not by words as such. The Holy Spirit teaches by practical experience, and the instrument of the Holy Spirit's teaching of Christ is the Cross of Christ. You and I will learn nothing except as the Holy Spirit makes the Cross of Christ a reality in us. We shall come to that presently.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 9 - "The Unity of Christ")

Praying for Change

James 5:16   Hanging above the door in our house, my mother's favorite plaque constantly reminded us, "Prayer changes things." From an early age, I witnessed this powerful truth through her example. She'd tell me about some difficulties she was facing and then have me pray about them with her. And later, she'd always be sure to give God the glory when sharing the awesome news that He had answered those prayers.   Indeed, this is our confidence: Anything we pray for that aligns with the Father's plan will be granted. And the more time we spend with Him, the more we'll come to understand His will and how to pray for it.   Remember, prayer doesn't change God's mind, but it does transform the believer's heart. Some requests are granted immediately, simply because we asked with the realization that our Father loves to give us good gifts. Other requests may require time or certain divine preparations before they can be given. We, meanwhile, must simply be diligent to persevere in prayer.   Whatever the Lord's response or timing, we trust that He has only the very best in store for His children. That means we might not receive exactly what we're asking for, but something even better. Such is God's great pleasure, for He alone perfectly knows each heart's desire and wishes to fulfill it.   Our most powerful tool for shaping the world and lives around us is always available. Prayer lets us witness God's hand in any situation. And as we give attention, time, and perseverance to conversation with Him, we find no limit to what He can achieve in people's hearts and circumstances. ~Charles Stanley~

The Cross and the Person of Christ # 7

Christ A Comprehensive Spiritual System

Now, the pattern of this spiritual order or system or economy is God's own Son, Jesus Christ. Christ is a vast and comprehensive spiritual system and order. That does not mean that He is not a person, an individual, but He is something more than that. In His Person there is the embodiment of this vast, this comprehensive system of Divine thoughts, of Divine elements, of Divine laws, Divine principles and Divine nature. This physical universe we know, and are learning more and more, to be a vast system of laws and principles. It is a great whole, inter-related, inter-dependent, moving together by influences and forces and tides, bound up as a marvelous order and harmony, nothing just taking its own independent course, nothing unrelated, nothing unaffected by the rest; one marvelous whole. And the knowledge of this physical universe is more than a matter of a life's application, a lifetime's study. It has taken all the generations from the beginning to reach even the present point which those who know most admit to be far short of all that we have yet to know about this universe. When you read some of the works of men who know what there is to be known now, our very brain reels when you read of distances and speeds in this universe, the rate at which light travels, and all these things; I say it is a vast order, and it is more than a lifetime's study for understanding.

But, my dear friends, we have said that the physical universe is only a symbol, a type, of the spiritual, and Christ is a universe, a universe of spiritual laws, of spiritual principles, of spiritual forces. Christ is a vast unity, a marvelous harmony, and when you begin to glimpse that, you just begin to understand what the Apostles have seen or begun to see when they themselves are found in the grip of a passionate quest to know Him. "That I may know him" (Phil. 3:10). "I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord" (Phil. 3:8). This even at the end of a lifetime of learning Christ, this even after marvelous revelations in heaven itself of things unspeakable which it is not lawful for a man to utter; still in the grip of this tremendous quest - "That I may know Him."

Then you understand also why there is coming from that this urge, this constant and ever increasing urge upon believers to follow on to know the Lord, to go on to know. You understand the meaning of a little prefix which is, I think, tremendously impressive. They not only speak about knowledge, the knowledge of Christ, the knowledge of God, the knowledge of the Lord; not only do they so often use that word "gnosis,' but you find later, as they have moved on, they introduce this combination 'epignosis.' "Till we attain unto ... the full knowledge .." (Ephesians 4:13); not merely "the knowledge" now. This is to Ephesians, those well on in knowledge. (If you care to look up the usage of that particular form of the word you will find it tremendously impressive, as it is seeking to take believers beyond even a fairly matured stage of spiritual life.) Here, then, is their own quest; here is their urge upon the saints, because they have glimpsed by revelation of the Holy Spirit something of this vast comprehensiveness of Christ. He is a universe, a new and entirely different system of things spiritually. Who knows anything about it? What do we know about Christ? We may have been the Lord's people for a good many years. The fact is that the longer we live and the more we are associated and in touch with things of Christ the more we are overwhelmed with our ignorance, because we are realizing that Christ is a land of far distances. He is so far beyond us, we cannot comprehend Him. "Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended" (Phil. 3:13). That is Paul near the end of his course. "I press on," "that I may know Him." Yes, Christ is a universe of Divine thoughts, Divine laws, Divine principles, all of the most practical character, and I do want to underline that statement, because what I am saying may be regarded as something very abstract.

But come back to the analogy, to the type. Are these things in the physical universe abstract?  Are they without practical meaning and value? We know that these forces and these laws at work are the very things which make life possible upon this earth. What would happen but for the effect of the heavenly bodies upon this earth? The very tides of the sea are governed by heavenly bodies. Every time the tide rises on our shores, it is in response to a great governing body in the heavens. Every time the tide recedes and goes out, it is simply obeying a heavenly power; and the tides are of value, they do mean something. And in many other  connections it is like that. Our life here on this earth is only possible because of this ordered universe and the influences at work as from without; and in this universe of Christ our very life, our very coming to the great goal for which we are destined by God, depends upon our response to the laws of Christ, and upon our knowledge of these things - because in this realm it is God's will that we should understand these things, we should have understanding in Christ, we should be intelligent. So far as this physical universe is concerned, in order to derive the benefits we do not all have to be scientists. We are getting benefits every day without understanding any of these things; but in the spiritual realm it is God's thought that we should know.

~T. Austin-Sparks

(continued with # 8 - "Seeing the Greatness of Christ by the Holy Spirit")

The Power of God's Voice

“Then you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire to the midst of heaven, with darkness, cloud, and thick darkness. And the LORD spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of the words, but saw no form; you only heard a voice.” Deuteronomy 4:11-12

In the book of Exodus, the Israelites begin their journey from Egypt, across the Red Sea, heading to the Promise Land. Along the way, they stopped at the base of Mount Sinai and had an experience of a lifetime. It was at this place that the Lord appeared to them for the first time, and they could not handle what they saw. Moses recounts this experience in the book of Deuteronomy and reminds them of what happened on that amazing day. The Lord appeared in smoke, fire and thick darkness. There was thundering and lightning in an awesome display of God's power on the top of that mountain. And, they were scared to death! They told Moses that they did not want to hear from God, just from Moses. He could speak on behalf of God and they would just listen to Moses. The Lord's voice was too much for them to handle.

For us, maybe the Lord's voice is a bit too much to handle at times. Sometimes, His voice seems to be loud and consuming—and scary. Maybe the dark clouds that come into our lives are evidence that the Lord is trying to speak to us. Instead of being afraid, we need to be alert to what God is trying to say to us. Instead of hiding, we need to start seeking Him even more. Our God is a consuming fire, not to our harm or destruction, but to our reverence and worship of Him. He is God. He is a jealous God, and He does not want to share us with other gods. His words from the top of mountain warned the people not to go out and make Him into a molded image, nor to worship any other images of gods created by their hands. His words today are the same to us. The Lord wants us to know Him personally, to love Him with all that we are, and to fear Him in respect and honor. Why? Because He wants to bless, protect and lead us in His ways. We are the safest and the most peaceful when we are obeying His words and willing to listen to His voice, even when it seems too loud and scary to handle.

~Daily Disciples Devotional~

The Cross and the Person of Christ # 6

The Cross and the Holy Spirit

Matthew 3:16; Galatians 3:13-14

The matter to which we are directed now is the Cross and the Holy Spirit. Let me say at the outset that this is not a treatise on the Person and work of the Holy Spirit, but primarily an emphasis upon the relationship between the Holy Spirit and the Cross of Christ.

God Working By His Spirit

Before we can come immediately to that matter, there are some preliminary things that  it will be helpful to remember. They are of a more general character. Firstly there is this fact, that the Scriptures make it quite clear that whenever God has moved to realize any phase of His comprehensive purpose, He had done so by the agency of His Spirit. The Spirit of God has been the wisdom, the power, the energy, the initiator, the continuer and the consummator of that which God has at any time taken in hand to bring about.

We see it in creation, that is, the creation of this world. The Spirit of God is there as the agent initiating, pervading, conducting, and always in evidence in relation to the bringing of this cosmic order into being.

The same is seen to be true in the history and life of Israel. The whole of their life and the ordering of their life was a matter of the Spirit of God. He worked with their fathers, He led them out of Egypt as the pillar of fire and cloud, He sustained them in the wilderness; He endowed men among them for framing, the making, the constituting of that great symbolism of Christ - the tabernacle. Bezalel and Oholiab were men peculiarly endowed by the Spirit of God unto all manner of work in connection with the tabernacle, and in many other ways and connections it is seen that the Spirit of the Lord was in charge of this whole matter of Israel's life and history. God was fulfilling His  purpose, or that phase of His great purpose, by the agency of His Spirit.

What was true in those connections is seen to be true in the case of the life and work of the Lord Jesus; begotten of the Holy Spirit, anointed of the Spirit, fulfilling His ministry, uttering His teaching, performing His works, all by that anointing of the Spirit, and eventually offering Himself to God without spot "through the eternal Spirit." In all things, again, God carries out His work by means of His Spirit.

And then we pass on to the Church. It becomes abundantly clear that this great aspect of the purpose of God through the ages is again in the hands of the Holy Spirit. The Church is brought into being by the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, and from that time everything is committed to the Spirit to carry out.

What is true as to the Church, its calling, its vocation, its purpose, is true, according to the Scriptures, of every member thereof, every individual. The life of every child of God is begun by the Holy Spirit, born of the Spirit; and then to be, under the Spirit's conducting, led into all the will and thoughts and ways of the Lord; perfected by the Spirit; saved, sanctified and glorified, all by the Spirit of God.

That is a very elementary consideration, I know, but it is basic because the assumption is this, that man has in himself none of the requirements, moral, intellectual or spiritual, for realizing any part of God's purpose. If it were possible for man to do so, then the Spirit of God need not have come; but the very coming of the Spirit is the great Divine declaration that God must do His own work or it will never be done - that man is totally incapable of realizing any part or fragment of the great purpose of God, and, without the Spirit, no part thereof will ever be realized. That is what it means that the Spirit of God i always in charge of the things of God, because man is not capable in that realm.

So the advent of the Holy Spirit is nothing less than the very advent of God Himself to project, to constitute and to accomplish a new spiritual creation, a spiritual cosmos (I very much dislike that word, but it is a fuller word than 'world' and it means something more than even a creation, it is an order system) - the advent of God the Holy Spirit is to project and constitute and consummate a new ordered spiritual system, a spiritual cosmos, an entirely spiritual nature of things of which the natural and the physical is but a shadow, a type.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 7 - "Christ a Comprehensive Spiritual System")

Whom Are You Seeking?

Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” John 20:15

The first person Jesus appeared to after His death was to Mary Magdalene. She had already told the disciples that Jesus’ body was missing. Peter and John ran to see. Peter did see but John saw and believed. The word “believe” means that he put his trust in God for what had happened. None of them had yet understood the resurrection. He just believed that God was responsible for the missing body of Jesus.

While the disciples went home, Mary stayed at the tomb. She wept and stooped down to look into the tomb. Two angels in white were seated there and they spoke with her. She continued crying and questioning and seeking Jesus, despite the actual presence of angels. She would only be satisfied with Jesus Himself. Jesus stood behind her, but it wasn’t until He called her by name that she turned and clung to Him. I can imagine Mary was thinking, “You got away from me once and I am not letting You go again.”  Once again, Mary went to the disciples, but this time with a different message. She had sought Jesus and He found her.

The first person Jesus revealed Himself to as “the Christ” was the Samaritan woman (John 4). And the first person Jesus revealed Himself to after His death was Mary Magdalene. If you, male or female, are seeking Jesus, He will reveal Himself to you. He shows no partiality or favoritism. We are all given the same Holy Spirit, and one day, we each will behold our Lord face to face. But as of today His promise stands that if you seek Him, you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart. Whom are you seeking?

~Daily Disciples Devotional~