It is, I'll grant you, an odd title. But that being said, if you will read this little work you will find out (odd or not) that it has extensive potential. In the first chapter of the book of the great Apostle John you will find that he describes within that initial writing, three things that failed to recognize Jesus Christ our Savior, what His purpose was and who He was.
Those three things are 1) darkness which to me represents Satans' powers and plans, 2) the world, where he actively employes those powers and plans, and 3) the Jewish nation, in which everything he does, he works to destroy. That Jewish nation includes the Hebrew's themselves, the big brother of the Gentile church, which is now grafted into Gods family tree.
Why did so many not see Christ? I believe those three systems saw Christ the same way as the disciples did (but didn't recognize it). Let me explain.
When Jesus brought the disciples into His "school of the Holy Spirit", one of the first things they had to learn was how 'other' Jesus was from themselves. I'm sure it didn't come to them at first, and that is why darkness, the world and the Jewish nation didn't get it either. But as the Lord's disciples continued on with Him, they found themselves again and again clashing with His thoughts, His mind, His ways. They would urge Him to take a certain course of action, to do certain things, to go to certain places; they would seek to bring upon Him "their own" judgements, feelings and ideas. But He would have none of it. All the time He was putting them back on their heels as He would show them how altogether "other" His ways were from their own.
I believe the disciples probably got really frustrated and Jesus Himself would have gotten frustrated as well but He knew exactly what He was trying to accomplish in them. It's a lesson we will have to learn as well. That "otherness" which was in Christ, that the disciples had to learn, is also what we have to study and learn ourselves in this school of the Spirit. When we have throughly learned that lesson - the lesson of "altogether other" or 'otherness' then we can begin constructive work. But at present it is necessary for you to come to the place where you recognize you are 'altogether other' than Christ. The difference is that we, you and me, move in two, totally altogether opposite worlds than our ordinary mind. This will of man, at its best, is another will. We cannot produce from this nature anything acceptable to God. All that can ever come to God is through Christ alone - it's not in us.
What I am trying to get into you is this - we need to know that we are one thing and the "otherness of Christ" is another. We must pray that our way of thinking would be transformed and become "other" than what the natural man thinks.
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Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Friday, March 9, 2012
Fullness of God
Someone asked T.Austin Sparks what it would take to get the fullness of God in his/her life. Austin pretty much thought about it and wrote a book on it. I like what he said and I will pass it on to you.
There are three things essential to a full Christian life he said. First, the realization that God is concerned with the accomplishment of something worthy of Himself. He said, "we will not get very far toward a full Christian life, or a life with God, until it breaks upon us and takes hold of us that God is really concerned with the accomplishment of something worthy of Himself. What a grand statement, Austin...bravo!
The second thing is that people shall become aware of what that great something in the heart of God is, what it is that God is so concerned with, and then, and then, and then, that they shall be moved to co-operate with Him in it. That is an essential to a life of fullness with God, that we His people shall come to see what it is that He is really is set upon, what it is that will really be worthy of Himself, and, more than that, that we shall become so deeply moved about this matter as to co-operate with Him in it.
The third thing that we are to recognize is that this object in the heart of God and this co-operation with Him by His people involves very real conflict and cost, and that His people must face that and be ready to accept it.
Austin is writing this article using the book of Nehemiah. Nehemiah was the last historic book of the Old Testament, and Nehemiah was the last great man of the Old Testament, who finds himself contemporary with terrible spiritual decline. He also found that God is willing and wanting to act in that nation according to His will and desire to bring restoration and revival to the Jewish people who are deep in idolatry.
I think many people in contemporary America, or Britain or wherever feel that the time has gone and conditions are too bad, and we can hope for nothing very much in view of the our situation here and around the world; but this book and this man, administer a very sound rebuke to any such pessimism. As a matter of fact, Nehemiah rebukes some men who want to talk to him by explaining to them that he can't stop or be side tracked because God has him on assignment. Put your ear to the window of history and listen to what Nehemiah said to them, I quote it from Neh. 6:3...."I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down: why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you?" Is that awesome....Call us to your purpose Lord and then we can say to temptation, why should I stop to talk to you I am to busy doing God's stuff.
There are three things essential to a full Christian life he said. First, the realization that God is concerned with the accomplishment of something worthy of Himself. He said, "we will not get very far toward a full Christian life, or a life with God, until it breaks upon us and takes hold of us that God is really concerned with the accomplishment of something worthy of Himself. What a grand statement, Austin...bravo!
The second thing is that people shall become aware of what that great something in the heart of God is, what it is that God is so concerned with, and then, and then, and then, that they shall be moved to co-operate with Him in it. That is an essential to a life of fullness with God, that we His people shall come to see what it is that He is really is set upon, what it is that will really be worthy of Himself, and, more than that, that we shall become so deeply moved about this matter as to co-operate with Him in it.
The third thing that we are to recognize is that this object in the heart of God and this co-operation with Him by His people involves very real conflict and cost, and that His people must face that and be ready to accept it.
Austin is writing this article using the book of Nehemiah. Nehemiah was the last historic book of the Old Testament, and Nehemiah was the last great man of the Old Testament, who finds himself contemporary with terrible spiritual decline. He also found that God is willing and wanting to act in that nation according to His will and desire to bring restoration and revival to the Jewish people who are deep in idolatry.
I think many people in contemporary America, or Britain or wherever feel that the time has gone and conditions are too bad, and we can hope for nothing very much in view of the our situation here and around the world; but this book and this man, administer a very sound rebuke to any such pessimism. As a matter of fact, Nehemiah rebukes some men who want to talk to him by explaining to them that he can't stop or be side tracked because God has him on assignment. Put your ear to the window of history and listen to what Nehemiah said to them, I quote it from Neh. 6:3...."I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down: why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you?" Is that awesome....Call us to your purpose Lord and then we can say to temptation, why should I stop to talk to you I am to busy doing God's stuff.
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