Part 3
From: Revelation of Jesus Christ - Chapter 7 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/001028.html
March 8
You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you
possess eternal life. (John 5:39 NIV)
Ministry is the expression of Life, and not the taking on of a uniform and a title. Once I thought that to be in the ministry was to go into a certain kind of work, to come out of business, and, well, be a minister! So one got into the thing. Many, many are laboring and toiling in it, breaking their hearts, afraid to leave that order of things, lest they should be violating what they conceived to be a Divine call. Many others cannot get out of it because it is a means of livelihood, and they too are breaking their hearts. It is all false. Ministry is not a system like that.
Ministry is the expression of Life, and that is but saying in other words that it is the outworking of the indwelling of Christ. Disaster lies before the man or woman who ministers on any other ground than that. When the Lord gets a chance in us, and we really will trust Him on that ground, and take our position there, He will show us that there is ministry enough for us; we shall not have to go round looking for it. The real labor so often is to get us down to that ground, the delivering of us from this present evil age even in its conception of the ministry, unto the heavenly ministry. The Lord Jesus is our pattern. You see the spontaneous ministry, the restful ministry of that Heavenly Man. I covet that! It does not mean that we shall become careless, but it does deliver us from so much unnecessary strain. That is how it should be. May the Lord bring us to it; the heavenly Man with the heavenly Life as the full heavenly Resource.
From: All Things in Christ - Chapter 7 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002773.html
March 9
That you... may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the
width and length and depth and height – to know the love of Christ
which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the
fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:18,19)
The mark of a life governed by the Holy Spirit is that such a life is continually and ever more and more occupied with Christ, that Christ is becoming greater and greater as time goes on. The effect of the Holy Spirit‟s work in us is to bring us to the shore of a mighty ocean which reaches far, far beyond our range, and concerning which we feel – Oh, the depths, the fullness, of Christ! If we live as long as ever man lived, we shall still be only on the fringe of this vast fullness that Christ is.
Now, that at once becomes a challenge to us before we go any further. These are not just words. This is not just rhetoric; this is truth. Let us ask our hearts at once, Is this true in our case? Is this the kind of life that we know? Are we coming to despair on this matter? That is to say, that we are glimpsing so much as signified by Christ that we know we are beaten, that we are out of our depth, and will never range all this. It is beyond us, far beyond us, and yet we are drawn on and ever on. Is that true in your experience? That is the mark of a life governed by the Holy Spirit. Christ becomes greater and greater as we go on. If that is true, well, that is the way of Life. If ever you and I should come to a place where we think we know, we have it all, we have attained, and from that point things become static, we may take it that the Holy Spirit has ceased operations and that life has become stultified.
From: The School of Christ - Chapter 1 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/001033.html
March 10
Whoever comes to Me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in Me
shall never thirst. (John 6:35 ESV)
"I am the bread of life" (John 6:35). "I am the light of the world" (John 8:12). "I am the good shepherd" (John 10:14). "I am the true vine" (John 15:1). "I am the resurrection and the life" (John 11:25). Here is the great I AM saying what He is. And then you notice how frequently He links with that a "shall." The "shalls" of the "I am‟s" in John‟s Gospel are tremendously impressive – not always using the exact word, but in the context you will find the same conclusion. But here are some of the "shalls." "I am the bread of life… he that eats this bread shall live forever" (John 6:58). "I am the light of the world; he that follows Me shall not walk in darkness" (John 8:12). The link between what He is and ourselves is this,
"he that believeth on Me." What I AM shall become true of him. "He that believeth on Me shall never die" (John 11:26), "...shall not hunger" (John 6:35), shall never wander like sheep without a shepherd, he shall have a governing, controlling reality like a shepherd in his life. "Shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." What I AM shall become true. "I am the resurrection, and the life; he that believeth on Me, though he die, yet shall he live; and whosoever lives and believes on Me shall never die." What I AM is made good when you believe.
Now it is not what we are. I am dead; He is alive. I can never be other than dead, but He as the Life can become Life in me in my death, if only I believe. I am hungry, spiritually starved; He is Bread, and I need never hunger; although I shall always hunger in myself, yet He will become the Bread to supply me. Think of it! I need never hunger, I am down there in the country, isolated, getting no fellowship, no food; I am away in some place where there is no spiritual bread, and He says, "He that eats Me shall never hunger." Is that dependent upon where I am, what my situation and circumstances are as to available spiritual meat? No, it is Himself, not a place; it is Himself, not circumstances. But how can it be? – "He that believes."
From: Features Of Zion - Chapter 4 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002135.html
March 11
That they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You.
(John 17:21)
What, then, is union with Christ? It is union with Him as the new creation, as the new creation Man; union with Him in the Life which is the life of the new creation by the Spirit of Life.... What is the meaning of that union? It is that only by such union can God‟s works be done. What governed Him in relation to the Father, governs us. Nothing can be done except on the ground of this union. It is not a matter of action, or of undertaking for God, however well intentioned.
What we see as seeming necessary to be done for the Lord‟s glory is not the criterion of service. Many things are embarked upon by the mere simple, though honest and sincere, judgment of the heart, when confronted by what is judged as something to be done for God, something needing to be done. A tragic situation, for example, calls for action; we have the means to meet that situation, and so we embark upon it for the Lord. A vast variety of undertakings have been embarked upon in that way, from that basis, and the Lord Jesus in this chapter says, "No! Not so!" He is not governed by the apparent demand of a situation. He is not governed by the impact of things upon Himself, as calling for an undertaking. With Him it
is a question of what God is doing, and doing just at the particular time. With one object, God does different things at different times, and has a different emphasis from time to time, and those who are really in union with Christ have to be governed by that which Christ at that particular time is Himself undertaking, is giving Himself to: "...what things soever He doeth these the Son also doeth in like manner." It is a matter of what God is doing, and life-union with Him in Christ for the accomplishment of that.
From: The Meaning of Divine Life - Chapter 3 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002997.html
March 12
All glory to God, who is able, through His mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.
(Ephesians 3:20 NLT)
Any power that can survive what we sometimes have to go through in the realm of our own souls is a very great power indeed; and, believe me, this power that works in the Church is going to survive all the accumulated sensations of all the members of the Body of Christ. Now, bring all your misery together, bring all your despair together, all your sensations, all the helplessness of the outlook, and, if you are a child of God, there is a power that works within which is more than sufficient to meet and counter and triumph over all that. That is the means by which God reaches His end in us, and if His end in us is conformity to the image of His Son, then the power that worketh in us is more than enough to meet and overcome all that which is contrary to His Son in us.
Do you believe that? Not always! If we really believed that in a thoroughgoing way we should never be found occupied with ourselves, we should never be depressed because of our imperfection, there would be no room for any question as to our standing. Oh, if we did but believe this, what triumphant people we should be; for is it not true that the greater proportion of our trouble, of our despair, of our unhappiness, is due to the consciousness of our own imperfection – all that we are that we would not be and should not be, and all that we are not that we feel we ought to be. His eternal purpose and His exceeding great power are linked together. Do not forget that. We are the object of both, and His exceeding great power is at work within us to effect the purpose.
From: The Power That Worketh In Us www.austin-sparks.net/english/003273.html
March 13
We, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of
one another. (Romans 12:5)
We are a part of a Body. Many of our sufferings are not on our own account at all. Many of the sufferings of the children of God have nothing whatever to do with their own faults or their own failing. They are suffering in a related way, they are suffering for the Body‟s sake, they are entering into the battle; the conflict of this one great testimony. Sometimes it is almost uncanny when the Lord has something in view in relation to His testimony of Life, how for no reason whatever, on no account at all, we discover that we are involved and ours is not an isolated experience.
All sorts of people all over the place are having the same kind of experience – a terrific sense of pressure, upset, annoyance, anything to frustrate – it is happening all round, testifying that in the spiritual realm, in the realm of the Spirit, there is a fine, sensitive oneness which matters to the Lord, and therefore matters to the enemy. Do not always take your sufferings as some controversy that the Lord has with you. That is the twist the enemy often gives. Be open to the Lord to be checked up on anything, but do not always take it that the things which are happening to you and causing you trouble and suffering are due to your own failure or wrong. You are involved in something very much more than that.
From: The Testimony of the Christ - Chapter 7 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002986.html
March 14
The Father loves the Son and shows Him everything He is doing.
(John 5:20 NLT)
Only those who are absolutely one with God can take responsibilities for Him. Whatever we may call ourselves, however great may be our activity for the Lord, God does not take account of that. It is no use coming to Him and saying: "Now Lord, You know that I am engaged in this work, and therefore I want You to help me in this." That is no reason why He should help us. God stands by His children and only works with them on the basis of an inward relationship. Some person who is not in an "official" position may be far more useful to the Lord than many who have an official ministry and position. What matters is not our spiritual knowledge or official ministry, but our secret relationship with God. God fits us spiritually for His service and upholds our sonship, not our office. He will see to our position if we see to our relationship with Him.
God called Israel His firstborn. He stood by His people on the basis of that sonship. Therefore Israel could take an important and significant position among the nations. It was the chosen vessel of God‟s testimony in the earth. But the day came when it ceased to go on with God as His firstborn. Its inward relationship to God became merely an outward form and God had to withdraw from His people and send them into captivity. It would have been useless if Israel had turned to the Lord with this complaint, "Why are You dealing with us in such a way? Are we not Your representatives among the nations?" God‟s answer would have been, "The official position is nothing to Me. I cannot help you as long as your relationship to Me is not right, as long as you are not in that which your sonship means and demands." You see our position and vocation is in relation to sonship. For that very reason the Lord Jesus put the emphasis upon sonship. He never said that the Father loved the ministry He had come to fulfill on this earth. But He said: "The Father loves the Son."
From: Christ Our All - Chapter 9 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002941.html
March 15
God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him.
(Colossians 1:19 NIV)
The next thing I am going to say may be difficult to accept, just as it is difficult to say, and yet faithfulness demands that things like this should be said. There is going to be a tremendous surprise one day over this matter. There is a tremendous amount of energy, and activity, and machinery, and zeal and devotion in the work of the Lord, in the service of the Lord, which seems to be producing something quite big, and carrying on something quite extensive. It is not for us to judge, but it is for us to lay down laws and recognize those laws, or, rather, recognize laws that are laid down by God. When eventually all work, all service, all activity, is weighed in the balances, which will determine what abides forever or passes away forever, all that which was merely human energy for God will go; all that which was merely man‟s enterprise for the Lord will go; all that which was in any way out from man himself, even though in devotion to God, will go. Only that which was the energy of Christ, the wisdom of Christ, the power of Christ, will remain. God is not using your energies and my energies. He is calling upon us to use the energies of Christ. God cannot set His seal upon anything that is of man.
God‟s seal only rests upon that which is of His Son, and we must not say that because a thing is big, extensive, and seems to be a great work for God, that it necessarily is such. What we have got to be quite sure about is that that thing is not being carried on by the momentum of man, or the momentum of organization, the momentum of machinery, the momentum
of human zeal and energy for God, nor by the momentum of a program, but that it is being energized by the Holy Ghost, that it is Christ Himself who is the Life and the power of that thing. In so far as human personalities, energies and all that kind of thing are the mainspring, we may be sure that in the end there is going to be a good deal that goes. That can be seen as you look back over the history of things which claimed to represent God. The object of saying this is not for one moment to cast a cloud of suspicion or doubt over anything, but it is to emphasize this truth, this basic truth. It is along the line of jealousy for Christ. Nothing will remain in this universe eventually but what is Christ, and we must recognize that everything for God‟s ultimate purpose is bound up with and in Christ, and it IS Christ.
From: Christ in You www.austin-sparks.net/english/001617.html
March 16
Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its
practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in
knowledge in the image of its Creator. (Colossians 3:9,10 NIV)
Christ Himself, when He was here, never failed to let people know that when they entered that door, or that straight and narrow way, they were in for trouble. Now that may sound like a very terrible thing to say, especially to you young Christians who are not far inside the door, but be perfectly clear about it; the Lord Jesus never deceived anybody about this, never at all. He let people know that to "follow Him," as He put it at that time, involved them in difficulty and suffering and persecution and trial and a lifelong thing. There is a cost here, a great cost. And we shall discover that while there are the compensations, for there are undoubtedly the compensations in this life and the mighty compensations for eternity, this is a way which is not easy for the natural man by any means. This work of the Holy Spirit is drastic, exacting, and very trying to the flesh. Make no mistake about it; it will take all the energy that the Holy Spirit Himself has to accomplish this work. It really will. So the Lord Jesus has not left us in any doubt about this. But note, and I am glad the Apostle Paul puts it like this, because it is so true to experience, "The new man who is being renewed." Notice, first there was a precise and definite transaction, "Ye put off" and "Ye put on," but now the work that is going on is not a single act of a single moment and a single day, but it is something that is going on in us.
From: God's Supreme Interest in Man - Chapter 3 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002928.html
March 17
If we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall
be also in the likeness of His resurrection. (Romans 6:5 KJV)
May I remind you that the nature of this planting is just that with which we are so familiar. "Planted together in the likeness of His death." That is the word of the Apostle, "For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection." The enemy is the instrument so often, of planting us more deeply into the death of Christ. His assaults, his attacks, his accusations, everything – yes. The Lord is not the source of evil, but the Lord allows it. So often our hearts cry out: "Why did the Lord ever allow that in our lives?" That thing which has meant such a deep, dark passage. Why did the Lord allow it? He could have prevented it. Well, we were planted by it into the death of the Lord Jesus. We were brought more than ever to an end of ourselves. Yes, and therefore, to know the Lord in a larger measure than we have ever known Him, and to be brought to a place where it will not be so easy for the devil to shake us next time. That is the sovereign way of God in deeper death experiences. "Planted together in the likeness of His death." Have you been planted there initially? Have you been planted in Christ crucified? Or are you one of those attachments to something? Are you planted? And when a deeper planting comes, remember it is the roots being driven downwards, and the issue is going to be most surely endurance, stability, and ability to stand; but, oh, there is going to be greater fruitfulness.
From: Rooted and Grounded www.austin-sparks.net/english/002932.html
March 18
Once more (it is a little while) I will shake heaven and earth, the sea and dry land; and I will shake all nations, and they shall come to the
Desire of All Nations. (Haggai 2:6,7)
It seems a terrible thing, even to think, but as we have touched so very much of what is called "Christianity" we are bound to believe that, because vast numbers who call themselves Christian are in an utterly false position, and the system itself has become so largely an earthly, traditional, formal, and unspiritual thing, this worldwide shaking is quite necessary and will be eventually justified. If we were writing a treatise, we could show that what is called "Christianity" is really the greatest enemy of Christ.
It will be seen that it is not a matter of substituting another and better system for an old and poor or bad one. Some people seem to think that it is
all, or largely, a matter of the order, technique, and form, and if we returned to the "New Testament" form or order of churches, all would be well. The fact is that, while certain things characterized the New Testament churches, the New Testament does not give us a complete pattern according to which churches are to be set up or formed! There is no blueprint for churches in the New Testament, and to try to form New Testament churches is only to create another system which may be as legal, sectarian and dead as others. Churches, like the Church, are organisms which spring out of Life, which Life itself springs out of the Cross of Christ wrought into the very being of believers. Unless believers are crucified people, there can be no true expression of the Church.
From: Things Which Will Be Shaken www.austin-sparks.net/english/002090.html
March 19
I counsel you to buy from Me... salve to anoint your eyes, so that you
may see. (Revelation 3:18 ESV)
We have to test everything we think we see and know by its effect in our lives. You and I may have an enormous amount of what we think to be spiritual knowledge; we have all the doctrines, all the truths. We can box the compass of evangelical doctrine; and what is the effect? It is not seeing, beloved, in a true spiritual sense, if we are not changed. Yes, seeing is to be changed, and it is not seeing if it does not bring that about. It would be far better for us to be stripped of all that and to be brought right down to the point where we really do see just a little that makes a difference. We must be very honest with God about this.
Oh, would we not sooner have just a very little indeed that was a hundred percent effective, than a whole mountain of knowledge, ninety percent of which counted for nothing? We must ask the Lord to save us from advancing beyond spiritual Life, advancing, I mean, with knowledge, a kind of knowledge, presuming to know. You know what I mean. Real seeing, Paul says, is being changed, and being changed is a matter of seeing as by the Lord the Spirit. So we will pray to see....
It is never too late to get spiritual sight, however blind we may have been, and for however long, if we really mean business with the Lord. But do not forget that this is a matter of being honest with God. The Lord Jesus said a wonderful thing to Nathanael. Nathanael was perilously near that double blindness. At the moment when he allowed himself to give expression to a popular prejudice, he was very near the danger zone. He said, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" That is a popular prejudice. A popular prejudice has robbed many a man and woman of knowing God‟s fuller thoughts. Prejudices may take many forms. Let us be
careful.... If you are in danger through your prejudice, beware; forsake your prejudice, be open-hearted. Be an Israelite in whom there is no Jacob, no guile, open-hearted to the Lord, and you will see.
From: Spiritual Sight - Chapter 2 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/001060.html
March 20
Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what
He is saying. (Revelation 3:22 NLT)
A striking feature of our time is that so few of the voices have a distinctive message. There is a painful lack of a clear word of authority for the times.... Why is it so? May it not be that so many who might have this ministry have become so much a part of a system? A system which puts preachers so much upon a professional basis, the effect of which is to make preaching a matter of demand and supply; of providing for the established religious order and program? Not only in the matter of preaching, but in the whole organization and activity of "Christianity" as we have it in the systematized form today. There is not the freedom and detachment for speaking ONLY when "the burden of the word of the Lord" is upon the prophet, or when he could say, "The hand of the Lord was upon me." The present order requires a man to speak every so often; hence he must get something, and this necessity means either that God must be offered our program and asked to meet it (which He will not do) or the preacher must make something for the constantly recurring occasion. This is a pernicious system and it opens the door to any number of dangerous and baneful intrusions of what is of man and not of God. The most serious aspect of this way of things is that it results in voices, voices, voices, a confusion of voices, but not the specific voice with the specific utterance of God for the time....
Here we have the necessity for an awakening to what God has to say. In the Revelation this is "He that hath an ear, let him hear," and in the case of Laodicea – which represents the end – it is "I counsel thee to buy of Me eyesalve that thou mayest see." "And I turned to see the voice that spoke with me," said John. God is speaking, He has something to say, but there must be "a Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your heart being enlightened."
From: The Candlestick All of Gold www.austin-sparks.net/english/001541.html
March 21
Since the promise of entering His rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. (Hebrews 4:1 NIV)
For those who, like the New Testament writers, have a real burden and sense of responsibility for the spiritual life of God‟s people, one of the most heart-breaking things is the way in which so many who gave promise of going right on with the Lord are caught in some side-track and turn to something other or less than He meant for them. Not necessarily to sin or to the world, but to something which, while it brings them a great deal of gratification for a time, eventually proves to be a diversion resulting in arrested spiritual growth, and they are found in a backwater, a cul-de-sac, occupied with an alternative to "the whole counsel of God." Their "new discovery," or "light," or "guidance," as they speak of it, by reason of the let-up of some tension, solution to some problems, promise of release into self-realization, and escape from pressure, when the novelty and glamour have worn off is found to have been "deceitful waters," producing Jericho‟s fruits which fall before they are ripe....
The peril or snare will be cunningly and ingeniously adapted to the "prey." What would capture some would make no appeal to others. The most spiritual will be presented with what appears to be most spiritual. Our particular temperament will be our peculiar danger. We shall have to, ever and always, be governed by principle, and not by feelings, preferences, arguments, or natural appeal. Intellectual palliatives, emotional ecstasies, activity-gratifications must be suspected or challenged. The one question must be paramount – Where does this lead? Does it essentially and intrinsically relate to the one supreme purpose of God?
From: The Danger of Coming Short www.austin-sparks.net/english/002966.html
March 22
Come to Me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I
will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28 NLT)
What did He mean? The burden of the law was upon the people, indeed, it was a heavy burden for them. The Pharisees gave more than two thousand interpretations to the law of Moses, and said: "The law of Moses does not mean that you have only to keep ten commandments; it means that you have to keep two thousand." There was not a point in all their human life where this law was not applied and made their lives difficult. And all this was gathered up into the Sabbath: "You must not make your bed on the Sabbath! You must not carry your bed on the Sabbath! You must not poke your fire on the Sabbath! You must do nothing on the
Sabbath – you may not even walk more than three miles." Two thousand regulations for their lives! The one thing that they were meeting every day, and especially on the Sabbath, was "You may not."
"Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28). What has happened? Jesus has appropriated the Sabbath to Himself. It is no longer a day of the week – it is a Divine Person. (If the Seventh Day Adventists saw that, the whole of their system would go in five minutes!) No, Jesus is God‟s Sabbath. He is the end of God‟s works, and in Him God has entered into His rest. This is the "rest which remaineth for the children of God" – not a day of the week or on the calendar, but a Divine Person, the Son of God. In Him we come to rest, and that which was our bondage is now our servant. In Him, that against which we were always struggling is now our victory. Oh yes, Jesus is the Sabbath, and if we live in Him we shall not spoil the Sabbath. Every day should be a day of rest to our souls. Oh, this is a mighty thing that the Lord Jesus has done!
From: Discipleship In The School Of Christ - Chapter 5 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/001452.html
March 23
Christ is all, and in all. (Colossians 3:11)
Beloved, the Cross was intended only to make the Lord Jesus all, and in all, for us; and is it not true that, because of the way that the Lord has dealt with us, the way in which He has applied the Cross, planting us into that death and burial, we know Him in a way in which we never knew Him before? Is it not by that way that He has become what He is to us, ever more and more dear to our hearts? The increase of the Lord Jesus in and to us is by the way of the Cross. We know quite well that our chief enemy is ourselves, our flesh. This flesh gives us no rest, no peace, no satisfaction; we have no joy in it. It obsesses, engrosses, and constantly struts across our path to rob us of the very joy of living. What is to be done with it? Well, in and by the Cross we are delivered from ourselves; not only from our sins, but from ourselves; and being delivered from ourselves we are delivered into Christ, and Christ becomes far more than we. It is a painful process, but it is a blessed issue; and those amongst us who may have had the greatest agony along this line would, I believe, testify that what it has brought to us of the knowledge and riches of the Lord Jesus has made all the suffering worthwhile. So the work of the Lord for us and the work of the Lord in us, by the Cross, is only intended in the Divine thought to make room for the Lord Jesus.
From: Christ – All, and In All www.austin-sparks.net/english/000617.html
March 24
Walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith. (Colossians 2:6,7)
Abraham in the land... yet the very promises given him of God seeming to be denied. Was Abraham mistaken? Are we not sometimes bewildered with the Lord, and are not His ways past finding out? It all looks such a muddle, but as faith holds on, one day we shall praise Him, as we see the reason for it all afterwards; "the path of the just... shineth more and more unto the perfect day." – Prov. 4:18. Note "PATH" not things! These mysteries of the way contain some secret mystery of God; and are they not another opportunity to show forth His wisdom and power? When all seems gone, the conflict so great, the experience so strange and there is no key to the situation; we are tempted to question whether the promises were even of God; everything is so contrary to what we expected, we begin to wonder if we are all wrong! Just then, is the time for us to stand fast in the Lord and maintain that stand in faith. After all, our experiences are very much alike. There is perplexity, there is apparent contradiction, there is conflict; the forms of experience may vary, but it comes to all of us in some way or another – still "He abideth faithful." How does this establish us? By the very helplessness of the situation, and ourselves, which causes us to cast ourselves upon Him, and it is then we prove Him. You are coming to the place where you know the mystery of God, and it is a glorious opportunity for Him to show His wisdom and so you are established. It is all a matter of endurance.
From: The Cross and the City of God - Chapter 3 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002923.html
March 25
Without Me, you can do nothing. (John 15:5)
The Cross simply says that an order, though it be religious, wellmotivated, or good-intentioned, but nevertheless proceeding from man in his natural state (not necessarily in defiance of God or in conscious rebellion against Him, but just the expression of man‟s natural state as he is), the Cross says that this entire order is set aside. God has judicially judged it and put a ban upon it. In the Cross of the Lord Jesus God has said finally: "You in your natural state cannot serve Me, and cannot bear any fruit to My glory! It is possible to go out and work, labor, and die of the strain of trying to serve Me and yet it still remains true that you cannot, out from yourself, by any natural resources whatever, bear fruit unto Me." The only thing that can ever get through to God‟s end, and that can be in Life –
eternal, Divine, heavenly Life – is that which proceeds from the Holy Spirit.
How sweeping that is! How that analyzes and dissects everything! Of the things we say, for example, it continually presents the interrogation: "Was that spoken in the Holy Spirit?" It is not enough to ask ourselves: "Did I mean it well? Did I intend it for the Lord?" but: "Was it said, was it done, in the Holy Spirit, or did I do it?" It is not a question of motive or of intention, but of the source from which we did it. We have daily to recognize that our lives must be subject to the Holy Spirit, and when we are aware that there has been something of our own will, we have to be faithful before God about it.
From: The Battle For Life - Chapter 3 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/000704.html
March 26
I am the true vine. (John 15:1)
The true vine is that which fulfills the one and only purpose of its existence. So Jesus brings this illustration over to Himself and His Church, and it is perfectly clear what is the nature of the Lord Jesus. He is reaching out to all men, embracing the whole world. He asks ALL the nations into His heart. ALL men are His concern and not any one nation. He said to His disciples: "Go ye therefore, and make disciples of ALL THE NATIONS" (Matthew 28:19). It is the very nature of Jesus to do that. It is quite foreign to Him to be exclusive, small and narrow and self-occupied.... But it is all very well to think of this objectively. It has to come down to every one of us. What is the proof that Christ is in you and in me? How can it be known that Christ is in us? Only in one way – that others are receiving Life through us, that we minister the Life of Christ to others, that when hungry and needy people come into touch with us they feel the touch of Life. They may express it in different ways, but it amounts to this: "That man, that woman, has something that I have not got and it is something that I need. There is something about them that I feel, and it is what I really need." That should be true of every Christian because Christ is in us, expanding Himself through us and ministering His Life through us.
Oh, do pray, dear friends, every day as you get up: "Lord, make me a channel of Life to someone today. Lord, minister Your own Life through me to someone today. May I bring Life wherever I am." The Lord has no other purpose for you and for me. We may try to do a lot of things, but if we belong to the Vine we are no good for anything but to bear fruit; and that is to bring Life to others.
From: The On-High Calling - Chapter 6 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/000984.html
March 27
If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.
(Galatians 5:25 ESV)
That which is called Christianity is essentially a spiritual thing, and not an earthly order or system, and every fragment of it has to be entered into in a spiritual way, by way of Life and Revelation. There is all the difference between imitation and Life. Oh, what a difference there is between seeing a thing in an objective way and coming into it in Life! It is just there that the wonder, the glory, the vitality, the energy, the power of things is found.
You have perhaps talked for years about things in the Word of God, as in the Word of God, and you believed them and gave them out as truth, and after doing that for years suddenly you saw what they meant, and the whole thing came in another way. All your talking, and preaching, and believing before was quite true, quite right, correct as to doctrine, but what effect had it on you? Now that it has broken like this it is transfiguring, and has brought real joy and delight, life and ecstasy. That is what we mean by entering into things by Life and by Revelation. In other words, it is coming into things by the Spirit and seeing....
If we become spiritual in this sense, if the Holy Spirit is the commanding reality in our life, and we are walking by the Spirit, we are bound inevitably to come into all God‟s thought. The Lord wants a people to come into His full thought. That is only possible as they cease to be governed by some outward order of things, and learn what it is to move with God in the Holy Spirit.
From: Life in the Spirit - Chapter 6 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/003083.html
March 28
It pleased God… to reveal His Son in me. (Galatians 1:15,16)
If Christ, the Son of God‟s love, is central and supreme in the heart of the believer so much else goes down, it must go down. Controversies with God will divide, but those artificial things, those things resultant from man‟s activity and his projecting of himself, insinuating of himself into the interests of God, those things cannot abide where there is an adequate inward revelation of the Lord Jesus; they cannot be. These two things are before us: one, because of the revelation of Jesus Christ in our hearts we have a passion for Him; on the other hand, because of the absence of a sufficient revelation of Christ in our hearts we are out for other things which we would say are in His interests, and for Him, but which can never,
never satisfy God‟s heart. It is the satisfaction of the heart of the Father, which is in view.
Beloved I am speaking about the individual. I am not justified, and you are not justified, in claiming to be Christians except in the measure in which Christ is manifested in me, in you; and all the force and weight and ingenuity of hell is out against that. Believers have far more to provoke them to un-Christ-likeness than anyone else in the world. Believers have far more assaults to churn them up and to make them betray Christ than anyone else. Hell is dead set against the revelation of Jesus Christ. Everything begins with this, the revelation of Jesus Christ within.
From: The Centrality and Supremacy of Christ www.austin-sparks.net/english/000420.html
March 29
You have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that
burned with fire. (Hebrews 12:18)
How vast is this movement from that old economy to the bringing in of the New Economy. There is one thing only in your New Testament, introduced by Christ in the Gospels and followed out by the apostles; and in this letter to the Hebrews, the solid object of the whole letter is the transition from one economy to Another. Oh, read it again and glory in it. Read that letter again to the Hebrews. Glory in this: "My, what a thing we have been brought into." Tabernacle? Yes, says the writer, there was a tabernacle on this earth, and for the time being... until the time. That is all gone, he says, and now we have come into the True Tabernacle not made with hands, which God has made, a Heavenly Tabernacle. See how wonderful the transition is! – the passing over from one economy to Another.
I must pause to ask, is this where Christendom has gone astray?
Is it still holding on to the old economy?
Is it still in the grave clothes?
Is it still that old Mosaic economy with its forms and ways?
Is it not emancipated into the Heavenlies?!
That is what the Lord wants to do with us here.
Things have gone away, gone wrong, got out of God‟s way, and God is returning to where they went wrong. God usually does that with us. And so what is God‟s beginning? It is His Son before the foundation of the world. Right back in the eternal counsels His Son was made the beginning, God‟s starting place. Men have all gone astray, because of history, "all of us like sheep have gone astray." God gets back to His beginning, His Son.
Christendom has gone astray, and the only way of saving Christendom is to get back to God‟s beginning, a true and right apprehension of His Son.
From: The Great Transition From One Humanity To Another - Chapter 1 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/001481.html
March 30
The Son can do nothing by Himself. (John 5:19 NLT)
That is the principle of the Cross. He accepted that position of being able to do nothing out from Himself. It must all come out from God. There is no way through otherwise.... There was a revolution in my life thirty years ago when that principle of the Cross came flat up against ministry – ministry that for years I had been producing – against all my study, reading and late nights, to get up the stuff for ministry, till the whole thing became an intolerable burden in myself. Others perhaps thought it to be pretty good, but the crisis when – listen to me, men and women who are in ministry, or contemplating it – the whole turn came upon the recognition of this principle, this principle of the Cross when, with the door closed, I said to the Lord "I am finished in all ministry, I am never going to preach again unless You do something now. I have been doing it all these years; I have been producing this, now I am finished. You have got to do it." But I saw that principle, you see, as the principle of the Cross and I meant it.
Forgive me speaking of myself, but I must bring this home in some way. The next week would have seen my resignation in with my church officers, and I would have gone out from ministry if the Lord had not done it. But the Lord was true to His own principle. It was an utter end of anything that I could produce for ministry, and I meant it to be like that, because I recognized that God meant that. That was the principle of the Cross – nothing out from ourselves. No fruit that labor and study of the mind and heart could produce has a way through in the work and service of God. God was true to His own principle – He always is. From that day to this, there has been no trouble about ministry. It is easy to let ministry go, and much more easy than to accept it. This clamoring for ministry – it is uncrucified flesh. Well, there has been an open heaven since then. Again I beg your forgiveness for making this personal reference, but this is a true thing. It is a principle which covers all the ground.
From: The Cross and the Way of Life - Chapter 2 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002846.html
March 31
Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called.
(1 Timothy 6:12 ESV)
Resurrection is the supreme proof of the power of God. You do not need that I say much about the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. When He was on that cross everything was done to make sure that He was dead. After they had nailed Him, hands and feet, on to the cross, to make sure that He was dead they thrust the spear into His heart. When He was taken down from the cross and put into the tomb, the high priest said: "Take a guard and make sure," so that great stone was rolled against the tomb and the official seal was put on the stone. Then they mounted a guard of soldiers. What more could be done to make sure that He was dead? Well, everything that men and devils could do – and then, over all that, it says: "This Jesus did God raise up" (Acts 2:32).
What an immense thing resurrection is! And all the potentialities of the resurrection life of the Lord Jesus are given to the child of God. We can go right on to the end because we have His Life. Until the Lord says: "It is enough: come up higher!" there is no need for any child of God to die. Death and life are in the hands of God. How many wonderful experiences we may have of this Divine Life! We may make a lot of other manifestations of the power of God and they may all be quite wonderful – we will never take anything from what is of the Holy Spirit – but when we have said all, the supreme thing is "the power of His resurrection." That is the birthright of the child of God and something that you and I may be knowing now and all the days of our life. "Lay hold on the life eternal, whereunto thou wast called."
From: Into The Heart of God - Chapter 6 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/001646.html
April 1
God... has shone in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:6)
The Letter to the Galatians really can be summed up in this way: a Christian is not one who does this and that and another thing which is prescribed to be done; a Christian is not one who refrains from doing this and that and another thing because they are forbidden; a Christian is not one at all who is governed by the externalities of a way of life, an order, a legalistic system which says, "You must," and "You must not," a Christian is comprehended in this saying, "It pleased God to reveal His Son in me" (Gal. 1:15-16). That is only another way of saying, "He opened my eyes to see Jesus," for the two things are the same. The Damascus road is the place.
"Who art Thou, Lord?" "I am Jesus of Nazareth." "It pleased God to reveal His Son in me." That is one and the same thing.
Seeing in an inward way: that makes a Christian. "God... hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. 4:6). "In our hearts": Christ, so imparted and revealed within, is what makes a Christian, and a Christian will do or not do certain things, not at the dictates of any Christian law, any more than Jewish, but as led by the Spirit inwardly, by Christ in the heart. It is that that makes a Christian, and in that the foundation is laid for all the rest, right on to the consummation, because it is just going to be that growingly. So the foundation must be according to the superstructure; they are all of a piece. It is seeing, and it is seeing Christ.
From: Spiritual Sight - Chapter 2 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/001060.html
April 2
Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the
joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame.
(Hebrews 12:2)
The passion of the Cross is the way of our release, and if you consider your own spiritual experience, those of you who have any experience of a walk with God, you know quite well that it has been through times of deep and acute suffering that you have found fresh releases; fresh releases in your spiritual life. Is it not true? Yes, we pass into a time of excruciating spiritual and soul suffering. We do not know what the Lord is doing, what He means by this, what He is after, but we know the features of our experience and know what it is that we are suffering, and it goes on. We, of course, ask the Lord to stop it, to bring it to a quick end, to deliver us from it. He takes no notice of us, and it is only those people who get out the other end who say, "Thank God, He did not take any notice." In the meantime, we think He is anything but kind and good and doing the right thing, but as we get on under His hand, we begin to see and to sense that He is dealing with something. Maybe He is dealing with our pride, our independence, or our irresponsibility, for example. That is the issue that comes up, and we are faced all the time with something about ourselves that is almost devastating. We would not have believed that that was so strong in us. Oh, of course we were always ready to believe that that is in mankind and in us as a part of mankind in a general way. Yes, we would never have resented being told that there was pride or something like that about us, but we would never have believed how deeply rooted and terribly strong that thing is until it was put to a fiery test and everything was held up, and we saw that everything in our life and work for God was held up on that point.... And we know quite well that what the Lord was after was
not the pulverizing of us, as we thought, the winding up of us, but to bring about enlargement, to bring about release, and release always lies along the line of the Cross, the passion. Enlargement always lies in that direction.
From: The Cross and the Way of Life - Chapter 1 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002845.html
April 3
I will give you rain in its season, the land shall yield its produce, and
the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. (Leviticus 26:4)
You do not get the fruit until the blossom has gone. It is the Summer, not the Winter, that follows the blowing away of the blossom. Of course, we all like to see the blossom in its time, but we should have some strange feelings if we saw the blossom there all through the Summer. We should say: "There is something wrong here, it is time that blossom went." We look closer, and we see something in its place, full of promise, and of much more value. This early blossom may be a sign of life, but it is not the life itself. A sign of early life belongs to the early Spring, showing that the Winter is past and resurrection is at work. It is a sign, but it is not the thing itself, and it passes with spiritual infancy. These early enthusiasms are not the real basis of our union with God, but are signs of something that has happened in us. They are of ourselves, they are not of God. He is something other than that. He is not going to blow away. The Life is working and will show itself in stronger and deeper forms.... But if, on the one hand, eternal Life operates to cut us off from our natural life as the basis of our relationship with God, on the other hand, it is perfectly wonderful what is done. It is "the Lord‟s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes." The Lord even comes in as our physical life to the doing of more than would have been possible to us at our best, and certainly far beyond the present possibility, because He has made us know that as men we are nothing, even at our best. Life does that. Life forces off one system and brings on another, making room for it as it goes.
From: All Things in Christ - Chapter 9 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002775.html
April 4
I want to know Christ – yes, to know the power of His resurrection and
participation in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death.
(Philippians 3:10 NIV)
Do recognize that the Cross is the end of the risen life, and not only the beginning. If you forget everything else, remember that. The Cross is
the end of the risen life, as well as the beginning: "That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, becoming conformed unto His death." People have been to me with Philippians 3 and have asked: "Why did Paul put death at the end? Surely it ought to be right the other way round – „That I may be conformed to His death, and know Him in the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings.‟" No, there is no mistake. The order is of the Holy Spirit. The power of His resurrection presupposes that there has been a death, but the very resurrection-life leads to the Cross. The Holy Spirit in the power of the risen life is always leading you back to the Cross, to conformity to His death. It is the very property of Life to rule out all that belongs to death. It is the very power of resurrection to bring us back to the place where death is constantly overcome.
That place is none other than the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ where the natural life is put aside. So Paul says: "...becoming conformed unto His death," which means: to have the ground of death continuously and progressively removed; and that, again, as we have said, is the fruit of living union with Him. It would be a poor look-out for you and for me were we to be conformed to His death in entirety apart from the power of resurrection in us, apart from our already knowing the Life of the Lord. Where would be our hope? What is it that is the power of our survival when the Cross is made more real in our experience? There would be no survival were it not that His risen Life is in us. So Paul prays: "That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection..." and that means conformity to His death without utter destruction. The end of the risen life is the Cross. The Holy Spirit is always working in relation to the Cross, in order that the power of His resurrection may be increasingly manifested in us.
From: The Battle For Life - Chapter 3 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/000704.html
April 5
Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of hosts.
(Zechariah 4:6)
Does it not strike you as significant, and very impressive, that when the veil was rent Israel was set aside? Israel had been called in to maintain a testimony in types. Christ had come and fulfilled all the types, and being the center of all the types, the veil, all that kept God shut off from man, was now dealt with, and the way was open. There was no need for types now. So the custodian of the types departs with the types. This is not the dispensation of the types: this is the dispensation of the reality, the dispensation of a heavenly union with a risen Lord, and of all that that means.
Our danger is of bringing back types. The types have gone and that is the whole message of this letter to the Hebrews. Christ is everything. The outward order of the Old Testament is set aside, and now all that obtains is Christ Himself. He is the Priest; you no longer have priests on earth in the Old Testament sense. He is the Sacrifice; there is no need for any other sacrifices. He is the Tabernacle; He is the Temple; He is the Church. What is the Church? It is Christ in living union with His own, that wheresoever two or three are gathered together in His name there He is in the midst. That is the Church. You do not build special buildings and call them "the Church." You do not have special organizations, religious institutions, which you call "the Church." Believers in living union with the risen Lord constitute the Church. This is the reality, not the figure. That is to say, His flesh, human limitation, is done away. Now in union with Christ risen all human limitations are transcended.
This is one of the wonders of Christ risen as a living reality. We are brought into a realm of capacities which are more than human capacities, where, because of Christ in us, we can do what we never could do naturally. Our relationships are new relationships; they are with heaven. Our resources are new resources: they are in heaven. That is why the Apostle wrote to the Corinthians and said that God hath chosen the weak things, the foolish things. The things which are despised, and the things which are not, that He by them might bring to naught the wise, the mighty, the things which are. Why did God appoint it so? Because it is not by might, nor by power, but by His Spirit; and to show that there are powers, energies, abilities for His own which transcend all the greatest powers and abilities of this world.
From: The Risen Lord and the Things Which Cannot be Shaken - Chapter 4 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002219.html
April 6
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do
not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
(Galatians 5:1 NIV)
There is another word, which just means that which has escaped from slavery and is breathing free air. That is a fine picture, a fine portrait for Overcomers – that which has escaped from slavery and is breathing free air. I dare not stay to interpret that. Some of us, even in our Christian lives and histories, know what it is to escape from slavery. Oh, the old bondage of the Christian system and order, expectation and demand, all the old rota and legality! – to be free of it all! Not only to be raised with Christ, but to have the grave clothes taken off and to be breathing the free air of the spiritually emancipated! That is what this word calls a "remnant," and that
is not something extra to Christianity. It is exactly what you find at the beginning with the Church.
The Lord had cried in the midst of a burdened, tyrannized, religious nation – "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light" (Matt. 11:28-30) What is the old yoke, the old burden, which has harassed and worn these people so that they are weary to death, drawing out His compassionate appeal – "Come unto Me, and I will give you rest"? It is the old yoke and burden of legalistic religion, "thou shalt" and "thou shalt not," "you must" and "you must not" – the whole system built up like that; a great burden. "They bind heavy burdens," He said, "and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men‟s shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with their finger" (Matt. 23:4). And this word for "remnant" means such as have escaped slavery and are breathing the free air. You find them in the beginning of the book of the Acts. Overcomers are those who go back to the beginning in experience. They do not take up something further which is deeper teaching or fuller light. It is the primal freshness and fullness of Christ that Overcomers represent – unfortunately, in contrast to the general situation.
From: Overcomer Testimony - Chapter 2 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/001948.html
April 7
I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it
through a revelation of Jesus Christ. (Galatians 1:12 ESV)
The certainty and the assurance that was right at the root of his (Paul‟s) Christian life and service came because of this one thing: he‟d seen everything in Jesus. Everything... in Jesus. What liberation that brought to him! What emancipation! We have often said here that there was no power in this world that could have turned that rabid, fanatical Jew, Saul of Tarsus, into a Christian and a lover of Jesus of Nazareth. No power in this world that could have done that, but just seeing Jesus Himself in this way and that did it, that did it! He was emancipated, he was free!
No wonder of all his writings the fiercest, the fieriest is his letter to the Galatians, the letter of our liberty in Christ and it begins with this "God revealed His Son in me and that set me free from all other things." No use telling people that this and that, and the other thing are a limitation and that they should seek enlargement by getting out of it. That is an unfruitful, unprofitable, indeed that‟s a dangerous line to take with anybody. But again, if only we can bring Christ... with all His Divine significance and meaning and comprehensiveness to them and the Holy Spirit can reveal
Him in their hearts... oh, that will do it! That will do it; they will never again be content with anything that limits them to the grave clothes of religion.
It delivered Paul from Judaism as nothing else would have done. The way of an escape, the way of enlargement, the way of endurance is to see Jesus. It is not by learning, that is, it is not by the schools. Paul had all of the schools, he did, of religion. He didn‟t get it through the schools and we‟ll never get it through the schools; along that line of the technical instruction of things Christian or religious. This is not a merely mental or academic or intellectual thing at all. It is a work of the Holy Spirit.
From: Revelation of Jesus Christ - Chapter 7 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/001028.html
April 8
We all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory.
(2 Corinthians 3:18)
The word "beholding" is a strong word; it is not just taking a look, it is "fixing our gaze." That is what the New Testament means by beholding, behold. We all, fixing our gaze upon Christ, as He mirrors in His own Person the glory of God, the satisfaction of God, the mind of God in perfection. The point is that you and I must contemplate the Lord Jesus in spirit, and be much occupied with Him. We must have our Holy of Holies where we retire with Him. We must have a secret place where we spend time with Him. And not only in certain special seasons, but we must seek, as we move about, ever to keep Him before us. Looking at the Lord Jesus, contemplating Him, we shall be changed into the same image. The Holy Spirit will operate upon our occupation.
You become like that which obsesses you, which occupies you. Is that not true? You see what people are occupied with, and you can see their character changing by their obsessions. They are becoming like the thing which is obsessing them; they are changing; they are becoming different. Something has got a grip on them; they can never think about anything else, talk about anything else; and it is changing their character. Now Paul said, "For me to live is Christ – being occupied with Him." It is the wrong word to use, but nevertheless it would be a good thing if He became our "obsession," our continuous occupation. As we steadfastly fix our gaze upon Him, the Spirit changes us into the same image.
From: Men Whose Eyes Have Seen The King - Chapter 4 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/000935.html
April 9
But the natural (soulical) man does not receive the things of the Spirit
of God. (1 Corinthians 2:14)
When you look at 1 Corinthians what a lot of soulicalism there is: this wisdom of words, this wisdom of the world, these likes and these dislikes and preferences and partialities and antipathies, and then their jealousies. That is no good on this foundation. Do not bring your own soul-life into relationship with Christ; it will not tally and it will not go through, it will go up in smoke. Are you trying to make your Christianity a matter of how you feel? You will have a composite kind of Christianity of so many varieties, nothing consistent at all, a perfect patchwork. When you think you have arrived at a very good logical conclusion about a matter, something will come along and upset the whole thing….
You never get through that way. Your soul in the realm of its mental exercises and conflicts will never tally with Christ. And as for our own soul-will, strength to do, we may feel very strong, we are never going again to be caught like that, never going down that street again! It is not long before we are there. Oh, how ashamed our souls make us! How ashamed we have been because of the instability of our feelings or our wills or our thoughts. Ashamed! Ashamed! Ashamed! Our souls are making fools of us all the time. "He that believes on Him shall not be put to shame." Paul says that this soul-life business must not come on Christ. It is a contradiction. It is not what you are, it is what Christ is. When you cannot see and understand and work it out mentally, when you cannot feel anything, no feelings at all, or when they are very bad feelings – that is one realm, that is just what we are. Christ is not that, and we have at such times to say, "Lord, this is my infirmity, this is how I am, but You are Other; I transfer my faith to You from myself and from these things." Christ is the foundation, and all that we build on the foundation has to be Christ Himself. He is not only the foundation, but He is the whole building in every part.
From: Features of Zion - Chapter 4 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002135.html
April 10
We were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of
life itself. (2 Corinthians 1:8 ESV)
The Lord Jesus said "I am the true Vine," and it was prophesied of Him that He would tread the winepress alone. The Cross was His winepress. How He was pressed in the Cross! He was crushed and broken, but out of that breaking has come the Life which you and I have, and
which so many in all the nations have received. That is true, in a measure, of His Church. It was out of the breaking and crushing of the Church that the Life came to the world. And that is true of every member, every branch of the vine. If we are to fulfill this true, living ministry, it will only be through suffering, through the winepress, through pressure and through breaking. Paul said: "We were pressed out of measure, above strength" (2 Corinthians 1:8 – A.V.) – but what Life has come out of that man‟s pressure! It is like that. We are not talking about preaching and Bible teaching, but about this great ministry of Christ giving His Life through us. It may be passed on to others through preaching, or through teaching, or through living, but if it is His Life it will come out of experiences of suffering. A preacher or a teacher who has never suffered will never minister Life. Well, this may not seem a very pleasant outlook, but it is true. The best doctors and nurses are those who know something about suffering themselves. Some are just professional, treating you as a case – you are just case number blank. But, ah! there are others who treat you as a person, a human being, who care for you. If you ask why, you may find that they have a background of suffering themselves. They know just a little of what you are going through. We have read in the Letter to the Hebrews: "We have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but one that hath been in all points tempted like as we are... He is able to succor them that are tempted" (Hebrews 4:15, 2:18). He has been the way of the winepress and we have received the benefit.