By Myself I can do nothing. (John 5:30 NIV)
One of the most difficult lessons that the Lord's children have to learn is how to let go to God. Even in a matter that is right and in the purpose of God, there has to be the lessons which Abraham had to learn through Isaac. It is not in our personal clinging to a God-given thing, whether it be a promise or a possession, but faith's restful and fear-free holding on to the Lord Himself. If we had a thing from the Lord Himself we can rest assured that what He gives He will not take again without some larger purpose in view; and on the other hand, none can take from us what He has determined for us. But there are many dangers which arise from our own will in relation to a Divine gift or purpose.
The first is of making that thing ours instead of holding it in and for the Lord. This leads to fierceness and personal uprisings. Then jealousy will not be long in showing its ugly head, and jealousy with its twin – suspicion – soon destroy fellowship and spontaneity of communion. Does not jealousy declare most loudly the fact of personal possession, personal interest? If we realized how privileged we are to have even a very small part in the things of God, and how it is all of His Grace, surely we should be very grateful that we could just have the remotest connection with Him. Then further, when we hold things received or as promised or believed to be for us as only unto the Lord, in restful trust, we make it possible for the Lord to save us from being mistaken in the matter. It is not an unusual thing for a child of God to come to see that a thing which he or she most strongly believed to be God's will or way for them was not so, and it had to be surrendered. If there was any personal element of will in it the experience has proved terrible, and has left works of bitterness and mistrust. Yet once again, a strong personal mind and will in relation to things of God too often makes us a law unto ourselves. That is, we get into an attitude which implies that we only know the will of God in the matter. We do not trust that others also may be led of the Lord in this thing, and so the corporateness of guidance so necessary to the house of God is destroyed or paralyzed.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
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Three things will last forever – faith, hope, and love – and the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13 NLT)
You can have all the gifts and be very immature. Spiritual increase is not by knowing all these things, the way of growth is not by faith's power externally manifested, but more by inward endurance. Do you want to know the way of the increase of God? It is by love. What the Lord needs is an open, pure spirit towards Himself, and love toward all saints; the Lord will bring into His greater fullness where there is a genuine love one to the other - in Him.... The Ephesian letter in which there is the fullest unveiling of heavenly truth in the deepest teaching concerning the Church, the Body of Christ, there is from start to finish the golden thread of love running all through; this is significant when you consider what the letter contains. 1 Corinthians 13 is the great chapter on love, and is put over beside all the "gifts". Love is the real spirituality that is spirituality. Love is the most difficult and the greatest of all gifts. "Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own affections" (2 Cor. 6:12 ASV). You are so narrow, so limited, like a closed hedge, pent up, cramped! "Our heart is enlarged, ye are not straitened in us."
The measure of our spiritual life is no greater than our heart; the knowledge that is in the head is not the measure of spirituality, the way for your release, emancipation, increase, abundance is the way of the heart. Spirituality is not mental agreement on things stated in the Word, it is the melting of one heart to another – to all saints. The devil has locked up a number of the Lord's children as in a padded room of their own limitations; frozen their love by something between them and other children of God. The way out is by increase of love; and we shall remain locked up until we are there.... True spirituality is the measure of love of God shed abroad in the heart, all the spirituals rest upon and have their rise out of love. Not power, or knowledge, or different gifts, these are not the first things, the first thing is love. That leads to the increase of God.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
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Who makes you different from anyone else?
(Charles Spurgeon)
"Who makes you different from anyone else?
What do you have, that you did not receive?
And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?" 1 Corinthians 4:7
It is grace--free sovereign grace, which has made you to differ!
Should any here, supposing themselves to be the children of God, imagine that there is some reason "in them" why they should have been chosen--let them know that as yet they are in the dark concerning the first principles of grace, and have not yet learned the gospel.
If ever they had known the gospel, they would, on the other hand, confess that they were . . .
the off-scouring of all things,
undeserving,
ill-deserving,
and Hell-deserving!
They would ascribe it all to distinguishing grace, which has made them to differ; and to discriminating love, which has chosen them out from the rest of the world.
Great Christian, you would have been a heinous sinner--if God had not made you to differ!
O! you who are valiant for truth, you would have been as valiant for the devil--if sovereign grace had not laid hold of you!
A seat in Heaven shall one day be yours, but a chain in Hell would have been yours--if grace had not changed you!
You can now sing His love; but a licentious song would have been on your lips--if grace had not washed you in the blood of Jesus!
You are now sanctified, you are quickened, you are justified; but what would you have been today--if it had not been for the interposition of the divine hand?
There is not a crime you might not have committed--there is not a folly into which you might not have run. Even murder itself you might have committed--if grace had not preserved you.
You shall be like the angels; but you would have been like the devil--if you had not been changed by grace!
Therefore never be proud, though you now have a wide domain of grace.
Once you had not a single thing to call your own--except your sin and misery.
You are now wrapped up in the golden righteousness of the Savior, and accepted in the garments of the Beloved! But you would have been buried under the black mountain of sin, and clothed with the filthy rags of unrighteousness, if He had not changed you!
And are you proud?
Do you exalt yourself?
O! strange mystery, that you who have nothing but sin and misery, should exalt yourself!
That you, a poor dependent pensioner upon the bounty of your Savior, should be proud!
Go, hang your pride upon the gallows as high as Haman! Hang it there to rot, and execrate it to all eternity!
Surely of all things most to be despised--is the pride of a Christian. He, of all men, has ten thousand times more reason than any other to be humble, and walk lowly with his God, and kindly and meekly toward his fellow-creatures.
"By the grace of God I am what I am!" 1 Corinthians 15:10
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