I have told you all this so that you may find your peace in Me. You will find trouble in the world – but, never lose heart, I have conquered the world! (John 16:33 Phillips)
When the spiritual stands to confront the merely formal, traditional, nominal and "natural," then there is going to be trouble. This is not now merely the reaction from the world: it is the reaction from religion. I would go further, and say it may be the reaction from Christianity. There is a very great difference between formal, traditional, nominal, "natural" Christianity, on the one side, and spiritual Christianity, on the other; a great deal of difference. So much so, that this also becomes a battlefield – the battlefield of a lot of trouble.
Leave formalism alone, and everything will go on quite quietly. Leave traditionalism alone – that is, the set order of things as it has always been; that framework of things as it has been constituted and set up and established by man; that Christianity which is the fixed, accepted system of things – and you will escape a great deal of trouble. But seek to bring in a truly spiritual order of things, and trouble arises at once. And YOU are the trouble maker! The truth is that the trouble lies in the existing condition, the situation, the state; but it is only brought out by your action. And so spiritual men and women, and spiritual ministry, are called "trouble makers," because the two things cannot go on together. That is where Israel was. They had the traditions, they had the oracles, they had the ordinances, they had the testimonies; they had the forms, they had the system – they had it all; but, in the days of the prophets, there was ever this vast gap between the "externals" and "internals" of life in relation with God. The heart is far removed from the lips. The spiritual reality is not found in the formal. You may have it all – but then bring in the truly spiritual meaning of things, and trouble begins in that very realm. It is the trouble which arises when what is external and traditional comes into conflict with something which is truly spiritual.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
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MORNING
I delight in the law of God after the inward man.
O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day. - Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart. - I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. - I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.
I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart. - My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.
The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the LORD is pure enlightening the eyes. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. - Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass.
ROM. 7:22. Psa. 119:97. Jer. 15:16. -Song 2:3. Job 23:12. Psa. 40:8. -John 4:34. Psa. 19:8,10. Jas. 1:22,23.
EVENING
The Lord thy God accept thee.
Wherewith shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?
We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. - There is none righteous, no, not one. For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemp-ion that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood. To declare ... at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
Accepted in the Beloved. - Ye are complete in him.
II SAM. 24:23. Mic. 6:6 8. Isa. 64:6. -Rom. 3:10,23 26. Eph. 1:6. Col. 2:10.
I delight in the law of God after the inward man.
O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day. - Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart. - I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. - I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.
I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart. - My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.
The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the LORD is pure enlightening the eyes. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. - Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass.
ROM. 7:22. Psa. 119:97. Jer. 15:16. -Song 2:3. Job 23:12. Psa. 40:8. -John 4:34. Psa. 19:8,10. Jas. 1:22,23.
EVENING
The Lord thy God accept thee.
Wherewith shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?
We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. - There is none righteous, no, not one. For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemp-ion that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood. To declare ... at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
Accepted in the Beloved. - Ye are complete in him.
II SAM. 24:23. Mic. 6:6 8. Isa. 64:6. -Rom. 3:10,23 26. Eph. 1:6. Col. 2:10.
~Samuel Bagster~
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