Part 7
have to let go much that is very precious to us of hope and expectation and ambition and outlook. Our world may have to be placed with the stones of the brook (Job 22:24). In resurrection union with Christ something more is given back than what we formerly wanted. God is like that. You may say that is language and sounds very beautiful, but is it true? Well, I appeal to those of you who have any spiritual Life and history at all. You have doubtless gone through a time of deep and dark trial in which you have had to hand everything over – you have come to a crisis where you have had to place on the altar something that was very precious and let it go to the Lord. If the Lord has not given that back to you, have you not come into some spiritual wealth, some spiritual good, something more in a spiritual way that makes you say, "Well, it was worth it!"? The answer of God through the Cross to all disappointed hopes and expectations is, and in the very nature of God must be, something more than that which was laid in the grave. It is the very principle of Christ risen. He was a far greater Christ in resurrection than He was before – if I may put it like that without being misunderstood.
From: The Problem of the Stone www.austin-sparks.net/english/002118.html
July 17
I received my message from no human source, and no one taught me.
Instead, I received it by direct revelation from Jesus Christ.
(Galatians 1:12 NLT)
For strength to overcome and press on, only a revelation by the Holy Spirit in us can suffice – but it can! A revelation that is within one‟s spirit and not a mental appreciation of truth, even though it is truth about God. Oh, the power to be able to say "I KNOW," not "I have heard or read," but "I KNOW." It is an experience nothing can rob us of. It is absolutely essential to have this revelation by the Holy Spirit because we have to meet forces of evil against which nothing can stand save that which is of God. "In pressure Thou hast enlarged me." How? Because of the constant uprising of the Life within. Trouble, trial, sorrow... we are subject to these things, they are common to all men, but we rise above them through the "strength of His might" within. We are strong because of the Light given in the knowledge of God – Eph. 1:19. This is a growing revelation. Paul is writing to the Ephesian saints, and what a wonderful history these had! See Paul‟s words to them in parting (Acts 20:17-38). To such he says, "That ye may be strengthened to apprehend," showing the necessity for the mighty power of God in bringing through revelation. The enemy mightily withstands revelation; to mar or hinder that, he‟ll stop at nothing!
Light and Strength go together; endurance is by revelation, "I know." Establishment in the truth by revelation of the truth, this brings an impact
on Satan and his hosts; light leading to might. When the Lord opens eyes you see what happens, "the eyes of your heart being enlightened, that ye may know" this is the result of opened eyes. "Knowing that He that raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also with Jesus" – 2 Cor. 4:14.
From: The Cross and the City of God - Chapter 4 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002924.html
July 18
You were running well. Who hindered you from
obeying the truth? (Galatians 5:7 ESV)
Something had broken in and interrupted their running in the spiritual race. This was extremely serious and disturbed Paul to the depths of his being. It seems that in the case of the Galatians it was again the natural man, but this time in the realm of natural emotions. They seem to have been of that temperamental constitution which corresponds to Christ‟s words in the parable about seed falling into shallow soil. The seed was received quickly and earnestly, but did not go on to produce a harvest. There are some people who make an enthusiastic start in this way and make quite a stir about it, but then do not go steadily on. These Galatians were like that; they made a tremendous response; they loudly protested their devotion; and then they were very quick to drop out of the race. Why? Because they lived on their emotions, on their feelings, and these were changeable. This may well be a matter of temperament, but in fact something of such a characteristic can be found in most of us. We respond to an appeal, come under the power of a great emotion, and then slack off. In the words of the Lord Jesus: "When tribulation or persecution ariseth... he is offended" (Matthew 13:21).
Clearly, then, if you and I are going to persevere to the end we must have a greater power than that of our natural emotional life. The only hope is that it may be true of us, as of Paul: "The love of Christ constraineth" (2 Corinthians 5:14). There is all the difference between the natural and the spiritual in this matter of the energy of love. This word translated "constraineth" is the same one used over the arrest of Jesus when it says: "the men that held Jesus" (Luke 22:63). So it is that the love of Christ should hold or grip us, conquering our natural emotions by the mighty power of the Spirit.
Our feelings come and go. They may be strong at times but they can also grow very weak. If we do not know something of the mighty grip of Christ‟s love, we will never go right through to the end of this strenuous race. After all it is the love of Christ which makes for the fullness of Christ. If we finally come to that fullness it can only be by the constraint and holding power of His love. "Ye were running well: who did hinder you?"
The answer is, "You ran in the strength of your own emotions, you ran as your enthusiastic response to God‟s call because it affected your feelings for the time." The letter to the Galatians is devoted to emphasizing the place of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer, for He alone can supply the necessary energy of love for us to go on running well.
From: God's Purpose in All - Chapter 1 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002968.html
July 19
"Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens." The
words "once more" indicate the removing of what can be shaken – that is, created things – so that what cannot be shaken may remain.
(Hebrews 12:26-27 NIV)
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.
This brings us to our particular point. What is the pressing imperative in view of this oncoming flood of testing, which has already carried away very many of those who were called Christian, and even evangelical Christians? Surely there is only one answer:– On the one hand, a ministry which has as its substance and object the "rooting and grounding," the establishing, the building up of believers, and the real increase of "the measure of Christ." This must get behind evangelism, so that the work is deep, not superficial; enduring, not transient; intrinsic, not general! On the other hand, believers must really take stock of their Christianity. Is it just a tradition, an assumption, an external system, the thing which is common acceptance – more or less? Or is it really "by revelation of Jesus Christ" in the heart? A real walk with God, and a growing knowledge of Christ, a life in the Spirit? God has said it: the things which can be shaken will be. What have we got that, being unshakable, will remain?
From: Editor's Letter, Nov-Dec 1952 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002091.html
July 20
May He equip you with all you need for doing His will. May He produce in you, through the power of Jesus Christ, every good thing
that is pleasing to Him. (Hebrews 13:21 NLT)
So long as we are in line with God‟s purpose His work can go on in us. What matters is not first of all our activity. God is more concerned with what is done in us than what we do for Him. He often reaches His end with us much better when we are in a state of inactivity than in times of much work. The hand of the Potter was upon Moses when he was in the wilderness where he could not do much. During forty years he was just looking after a few sheep. That is not very grand. No doubt he wondered sometimes to what purpose he was there, whether his life had any value. But principalities and powers saw something and wondered at God‟s wisdom. God knew how to equip this man, how to get His way in that life. That is true in the case of many a servant of God. God is working for good, He is shaping His vessel. There is wisdom in all His dealings with us. But we have to see to it that we have no plans or personal ambitions of our own. The clay has to be completely in His hands. If we are really here for God, we can be assured that He will reach His end, that He may work out His purpose in us. And there we shall find strength.
Are you sure you are in the great purpose of God? Everybody has some part in it. Paul, when speaking of the church, illustrates it thus: "that all the body is fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplies." No part of the body is without function. Each and every one has to be in God‟s purpose. Some parts may be very small, they nevertheless are equally important. We have to remember that God has called us for a purpose which will be realized as we abandon ourselves to Him. Whatever it may be to which He has called us, let us be ready and do it. A Holy Spirit possessed life is always marked by purpose. Nothing can be lost in such a life; let us not believe in mere generalities. That is not good enough. There is something far more definite in God‟s thoughts for our lives. Let us abandon all personal desires, and be filled with the Spirit of urgency – "straight away." Those who know that they are called of God, and who definitely recognize the purpose of their life, will be wholly given up to it. Such no longer have any interest for the things of this earth. They have no time to lose. They must buy up their time.
From: Christ Our All - Chapter 10 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002942.html
July 21
To those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God – children born not of natural descent, nor of human
decision or a husband's will, but born of God. (John 1:12,13 NIV)
What, in the thought of God do Christians exist for? What does the Church exist for? There is only one answer. The existence and the function is to be an expression of Christ. There is nothing less and nothing more than that. Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, and all between! Let that be the starting point; let that be the governing rule and reality in all matters of life and work, and see at once the nature and vocation of the Church. This vast, incomprehensible heavenly system, of which Christ is the personal embodiment, touches every detail of life, personally and collectively. But remember only the Holy Spirit sees and knows how it is so; hence, as at the beginning, there has to be an utter submission to and direction by the Lordship of the Holy Spirit. What the bloodstream is to the human body, the Divine Life is to and in "the Church which is His body." What the nerve system is in the physical realm, the Holy Spirit is in the spiritual. Understand all the workings of those two systems in the natural, and you begin to see how God has written His great heavenly principles, first in the person of His Son, and then in His corporate Body.
As an individual believer is the result of a begetting, a conception, a formation, a birth and a likeness, so, in the New Testament, is a true local church. It is a reproduction of Christ by the Holy Spirit. Man cannot make, form, produce or "establish" this. Neither can anyone "join" or "enroll," or make himself or herself a member of this organism. First it is an embryo, and then a "formation" after Christ. So, all talk about "forming New Testament churches" is nonsense. The beginning is in a seeing of Christ.
From: According to Christ - 1 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/000718.html
July 22
The Jewish leaders began harassing Jesus for breaking the Sabbath rules. But Jesus replied, "My Father is always working, and so am I."
(John 5:16-17 NLT)
A true knowledge of the Lord Jesus will reverse a good many of our ideas, and a good many of our procedures. A true knowledge of Christ and union with Christ, with all that that means, will make us go to work in entirely the opposite way from that in which we have been accustomed to go. We shall come to be governed by this one consideration, that it is not what we would do for the Lord, but what the Lord would do through us,
that is alone to rule. It is a very testing way. You can hardly believe, unless you have been the same way, how often and intensely and bitterly the enemy fights and tempts you to come down on to a lower position, and to take up things again for God and launch big schemes, enter upon big undertakings, set up some thing on the earth that can be seen, because all those who are governed by that standard of things seen have said: "You see, you are doing nothing! Show us what you are doing! You cannot show us anything for it all!" Satan does work on that line. To the flesh that is not easy. To go on with God and have nothing to show for it, never to be able to have the work written up in the papers, to publish no reports, nor statistics, and yet to know in your heart of hearts that, although it is hidden, something is going on, and that you cannot do otherwise than you are doing, is far from being a path of ease to the flesh.
It is a testing way, but, blessed be God, if we do endure the testing and go on patiently with Him, in His time, when that flesh has been finally laid low; when the voice of natural ambition is no longer sounding and having influence, and we are now utterly at the place where if things are not going to be of the Lord then there is not going to be anything at all, the Lord has a free way, and He is able to indicate that all the time something has been going on. He shows how He has been at work, and how that in time there will be manifested a work of God, a work that shall have such a large percentage of spiritual value and meaning in it that you are very glad, after all, that you walked with God and not with men in the work of God.
From: The Meaning of Divine Life - Chapter 3 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002998.html
July 23
I am able to do nothing from Myself. (John 5:30 AMP)
You get to the heart of everything in the case of the Lord Jesus when you recognize that the one question which constituted the testing ground of His life was: "Will this Man act alone, speak alone, choose alone, decide alone, move alone?" And His answer was always, "Not out from Myself!" "The Son can do nothing out from Himself." "The words that I speak unto you I speak not out from Myself." Every kind of appeal was made to Him to persuade Him on the impulse of the moment, or in response to an entreaty that seemed to promise success, or by an argument that appeared to be the truest wisdom, to move, act, speak, do something as out from Himself....
At times the suggestion would be influenced by necessity of circumstances, at times by the promise of effectiveness in His service, or again by representation of the utter un-wisdom of the line that He was taking, as when His own brethren, who did not believe in Him, chided Him
for delay, saying, "Go up to Jerusalem and show yourself!" To them He said, "I go not yet up to this feast!" And then, so quickly after, when His brethren were gone up He went up also. But He would not go up at the persuasion of popular reason; He would not do this merely because it was the thing which everybody else was doing, or because it was urged upon Him that, since everybody was going to the feast, He ought to go too. That ninety-nine people do a thing is no argument for the hundredth to do it. We are not to be led by the appeals that decide the actions of the many – "It is the popular thing! Everybody else is doing it! It is the recognized thing to do!" No! Does my Father want me to do this thing? That is the question that must ever rule our steps. In the case of the Lord Jesus there was all the time an underworking to get Him to adopt the contrary course, to act without inquiry of His Father, without direct leading from His Father; to act in His individual capacity as though He were His own Master, as though He had not to make appeal elsewhere. In Him there was none of that which was personal, independent. We are not speaking merely of such things as are sinfully personal, positively personal, but simply of independent action, action taken for the best ends, for a good motive, with quite a proper intention. Yes, all this may be done, but apart from the positive word from the Father. That creates an independent thought, however good may be the motive.
From: The Risen Lord and the Things Which Cannot be Shaken - Chapter 3 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002218.html
July 24
Shun (keep clear away from, avoid by flight if need be) any sort of idolatry (of loving or venerating anything more than God).
(1 Corinthians 10:14 AMP)
There are many things which are not only harmless but good in themselves, which have, nevertheless, been allowed to take the place of the Lord Himself, and good things can therefore embody the principle of idolatry in the one in whom the devotion is found. Touch some Christians, or Christian institutions, and let the touch be even in relation to something more of the Lord Himself, and you will find an uprising of jealous regard for the institution which utterly blinds to that possibility of an extra measure of the Lord Himself. You can be so devoted to a denomination, a missionary society, a piece of Christian work, that there is no room for any extra measure of the Lord. The thing itself has become the end, the object for which you live, and when the Lord wants to get you moved on into something more of Himself, the obstacle is that good Christian work, association, institution, tradition, connection. Yes, and that is idolatry in principle, and we see from history how the Lord again and again has had to
smite with smashing blows things which in themselves were good, in order to save His people unto Himself personally....
What is He after? It is Himself which He is seeking to establish as the object of man‟s life, and not the things that have relation to Himself: and I say again, you meet something intensely fierce if you touch a thing, even though you are touching it maybe with a view to getting people to move on with the Lord Himself. To put that in the other way, if your appeal for moving on with the Lord seems to people to involve their having to move away from this or that or some other thing, then there is warfare; which shows that Satan in his eternal campaign of idolatry, has got a footing amongst Christians in relations to things which take the place of the Lord Himself, good things though they be in themselves; and you find, if you are spiritually sensitive, that you are not just encountering the established institutions, but you are encountering a terrific spiritual force. Is that true? It is true. Had I never come up against it, never would I have believed the terrific force there is lying behind Christian institutions if your ministry touches them. You meet something which turns upon you, and it is not just the thing or the people. It is something that threatens your very life, to slay, and this in principle and essence, beloved, is idolatry; because its ultimate effect is that even the Lord cannot have what His heart is set upon and get His people spiritually where He wants them, because they are so bound up with His things. They are not able to discriminate between His things and Himself.
From: The Cross, the Church, and the Conflict - Chapter 4 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/001853.html
July 25
The Most High does not live in houses made by men. (Acts 7:48 NIV)
Christianity has become a tremendous buildup of things which were not at the beginning. The Christianity which we know today is a very complicated thing. The hands of men have come upon the things of God, and men have tried to build this great thing according to their own judgment. And so we have all the confusion, all the divisions, and all the complications. It is really hard going in Christianity. Christianity has become its own great hindrance.... You will go about this country, you will go about this city, and you will see these great religious buildings with a cross at the top. And when people enter those buildings, they bow themselves; they look very reverent. And they think that this is a sacred building. If you interfere with anything there, it is called sacrilege. To God that is all nonsense. It does not mean anything at all. The only thing that matters to God is not the wonderful building and all the wonderful things inside the building, and not even the cross on the top. The one thing that matters to God is whether He is there. Is God Himself present in this place?
But what about ourselves, we hear Christians who come into a meeting like this speaking about coming into the house of God. Perhaps they say when they are going to this meeting place, "I am going to the house of God." And when they pray, they say, "We are very glad to be in the house of God this morning; it is a good thing to be in the Lord‟s house." What makes any place the house of God? What makes this place sacred? If it is sacred at all, what makes it sacred? It is not the building, this is not a sacred building. It is not a congregation gathered here. The only thing that makes it sacred is that the Lord is present. The Lord is not interested in our places or in our congregations; He is only concerned that He may find a place for Himself where He may be present in pleasure. I wonder where the tabernacle in the wilderness is now? I expect it is buried somewhere deep under the earth. I wonder where the great temple of Solomon is now?! I think you would be wasting your time to try and find it. You see, God had buried those things.... Everything that is not of Christ is going to be dissolved. Make no mistake. This whole structure of Christianity is going to be tested according to Christ. Christianity is just going to be tested as to how far it was the work of the Holy Spirit of God according to Christ.
From: "That They May All Be One, Even As We Are One" - Meeting 9 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/001076.html
July 26
In Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you
have been given fullness in Christ. (Colossians 2:9,10 NIV)
We have said that Christ is a heavenly revelation, but Christ is also a heavenly fullness. If God has revealed His mind, His thought in Christ; if all that God intended has been brought to us in a personal revelation: God has followed that up by the fullest provision in Christ for its realization and its attainment. So that every need of ours is supplied according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. In Christ there is not only a standard set, but every kind of provision for attaining to God‟s standard. All the secret resources of God to reach His end are there in Christ for us. If He has come out with the mind of God in fullness, He has also come out with the resources of God in fullness. All the fullness dwells in Him, and we are made full in Him (Col. 2:9). God could never judge us at the end by His standard of revelation if He had not made all provision for our realizing of that standard....
God‟s thought is centered in Christ in heaven, and God‟s resources are centered in Christ in heaven. That means that the Lord‟s people in this dispensation are essentially a heavenly people, and that means that it is quite impossible to attain unto God‟s thought or to know God‟s resources in Christ until we are a heavenly people. If in any way (and we are speaking to the Lord‟s people now, and speaking of the life which we
would call the Christian life), or in any measure we are earthbound, it will be in that measure impossible to attain unto God‟s thought, and to know God‟s resources. God only takes responsibility to supply and to carry on that which is essentially heavenly, and in the measure in which a thing is heavenly, and only in that measure (but surely in that measure), God takes responsibility for it. If it is in any way linked with this world, becoming a part of this world system, related to this earth, it has got to take responsibility for itself to carry its own weight, to find its own resources, to see its own way through.
From: That Which Was From The Beginning - Chapter 1 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002953.html
July 27
The people who walk in darkness will see a great light. For those who
live in a land of deep darkness, a light will shine. (Isaiah 9:2 NLT)
What a tremendous thing this breaking in of Light upon us is, how it lifts us out, how it fills us with glory, how it changes the outlook when there breaks in spiritual Light, Light which never was on land or sea, Light from above. And the Lord Jesus is the sum of that Divine Light. He is the Light. If only our eyes were opened to see the significance of the Lord Jesus, what a tremendous difference it would make, how we should be emancipated. The need is that: to see the Son of God as having vested in Him the prerogative of Divine Light-giving, because He is the Light. It is with Him to come right into our scene of darkness and drive the darkness out. That is His glory, and you can know the glory of the Son of God, you can worship Him, because your eyes are opened.
He is here. Just as He, being the resurrection and the Life, means resurrection at any moment, and not merely at the last day – you remember Martha said, "I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day," and the Lord, in effect, said, "Stop, I am the resurrection and the Life, and I being here, the last day may be here so far as the resurrection is concerned; it is no time matter when I am present, it can be now!" So He, being here, there may be a new creation now with a new creation Light: not, I shall get light later on, but now; by this glorious intervention from without. The glory of Jesus Christ which He had with the Father before the world was, the glory of the Son is that; that He has this sole Divine prerogative, right, power and ability to bring Light. No one else can give it; it is not possible to attain unto that Light. It is His gift, it is His act. That is His glory.
From: Spiritual Sight - Chapter 6 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/001064.html
July 28
With God nothing is ever impossible and no word from God shall be
without power or impossible of fulfillment. (Luke 1:37 AMP)
It seems that when the Lord Jesus chose His twelve disciples there was, at the back of the choice and back of the purpose of having a company of men always with Him – the intention of showing and expressing what the character of the Firstborn is so far as relationship to other members of the Family is concerned. To put that in another way: if we study the characteristics of the Lord Jesus in relation to His own when He was here on the earth, we have a good example of what family characteristics are in the thought of the Father. For instance, take the imperfections, the shortcomings, the weaknesses of the twelve and see what the attitude of the Lord Jesus was toward them. The Holy Spirit takes no pains to cover up those faults and those flaws. There is no attempt made whatever to present those men as an ideal group. Their picture is painted true to life and all the difficult lines are there – the bad and the good – and nothing unpleasant is hidden from view. None of the lines are taken out of their faces. They are all clearly seen. The Lord Jesus was not dealing with an easy company, but a company which might often have provoked despair. But one thing was characteristic of Him in relation to a difficult handful, and that was His faith for them.
What faith the Lord Jesus had for those men! It was not that He had faith in them, neither was it that He had faith for them because of what He saw in them; but He had infinite faith in the Father for them. His attitude was: "Well, nothing is impossible with God. Here are these men; they are difficult and they could easily be My despair; they never seem to understand what I say! They always seem to get the wrong interpretation; they always seem to miss the point. When I say a thing they get it from an altogether wrong angle; they are utterly materialistic in their outlook, in their expectation and in their desires. They never see far beyond this world and their own personal interests. They seem totally incapable of getting a spiritual conception. And yet the Father can do wonders with a handful of men like that; nothing is impossible."
From: Filled Unto All the Fullness of God - Chapter 10 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002866.html
July 29
We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing
power is from God and not from us. (2 Corinthians 4:7 NIV)
All God‟s purpose, all that God means for us on that other side of the Cross in union with Christ risen and exalted absolutely demands
brokenness, complete brokenness, in all those concerned. Not just the brokenness of their pictures and outward hopes, but an inward brokenness. "We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God, and not from ourselves" (2 Cor. 4:7). The selfhood broken, broken vessels for heavenly eternal fullness.
The Cross is necessary for our breaking. It is not a pleasant note, I know, but in all faithfulness it must be said. This is the Lord‟s word to you: that if you are not broken by the Cross, if you have not gone through an experience of real brokenness under the hand of God, all that the Lord means in you and through you will still be suspended, it will be impossible. If the Cross means one thing, it does mean that the Cross is the way to the glory and to heavenly fullness. It is the way of an inward breaking. Let me be very precise, because I know of different kinds of brokenness. I know the brokenness of disappointments, of disappointed hopes and expectations, but the kind of brokenness I am talking about is the brokenness of the selfhood, the strength of Self that holds its position and holds its ground and that will not let go. That is the kind of brokenness. This self-strength, whether it be intellectual and mental or whether it be emotional or whether it be in the will, that strength of the natural life has got to be broken as truly as the sinew of Jacob‟s thigh had to be touched and withered. Something like that has to happen in us that we carry through the rest of our days. God has done something in the realm of our self-hood and we are broken men and women so far as self-sufficiency, self-assertiveness, selfconfidence and every other form of Self is concerned. It must be.
From: The Testimony of the Christ - Chapter 9 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002988.html
July 30
See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive
philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. (Colossians 2:8 NIV)
It is absolutely useless, dear friends, to refer to tradition and say, "Well, God did this in the beginning, and this is the place where the oracles of God are found and the temple of God is and the great tradition of Israel as the chosen people. It is here, and we rest on that." No, tradition will not support now. History will not support now. Institutions will not support now. It seems as though God has no regard, at length, for temple or ark or altar or priesthood. He cries through the prophets: "Away, away with you. I want none of your sacrifices" Isaiah 58. What a chapter! "Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice." Then, what follows? "Yet they seek Me daily, and delight to know My ways." "I will have none of it," says the Lord. "I will have none of it. These are not the sacrifices I want. This ritual is not what I
am after. This traditional system is not what I desire. It is a spiritual state." And only on that can the Lord associate Himself, ally Himself, to Zion....
If you look again at this letter to the Hebrews, you will see that we are come to Zion. We are not come to some thing, some religious thing, some tradition, we are not come to historic Christianity – if I may put it that way – we are come to a spiritual situation which is calculated to startle us. Oh, we say, "We are in the day of Grace. This is the dispensation of Grace." True! Is the Letter to the Hebrews on any other ground than the ground of Grace? Surely not, but do you know that in this letter the most awful things in the Bible are written? "How shall we escape (we, we escape, we Christians, we believers of this dispensation) how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? ...Our God is a consuming fire... it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God." This is said to these people, these Christians; and other things like that are said. But I am pointing this out, that this letter is written in the day of Grace; and it is a day which brings into view not some new Christian system, not the formation of a new Christian tradition, but a spiritual condition, without which everything else is as nothing. You have come to Zion, yes, but you have come to the controversy of Zion. You have come, we have come, to the great battle of Zion; and it is a spiritual battle.
From: But Ye Are Come Unto Mount Zion - Chapter 4 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/001419.html
July 31
Adam‟s one sin brings condemnation for everyone, but Christ‟s one act of righteousness brings a right relationship with God and new life
for everyone. (Romans 5:18 NLT)
The whole subject of spiritual power is most important. So many Christians find themselves involved in a continual struggle to live up to what they know to be God‟s standard. For them Christianity is a manner of life composed of various rules and regulations. They know what ought to be and what ought not to be, and they therefore struggle to attain to this level of living. Their consciences play a large part in this constant effort, and for this reason they suffer many fears and fail to experience the promised joys. Life for them has become a strenuous business, fraught with much disappointment and many failures. They may from time to time have a sense of attainment and success, with much resultant gladness, but with the fluctuating emotions of the soul, things seem to collapse and go all wrong. So it is that people find the Christian life burdensome; they long to know real victory, true deliverance and the joy of the Lord, whereas they experience the ups and downs of a constant struggle. The Christian life depicted in the New Testament seems so different from their actual experience that the devil is never slow to pounce in with his suggestions
that a life of constant victory is quite impossible, so that all their hopes are but unreal dreams. Satan wants God‟s people to despair of knowing His power. But there is an altogether different life, different because it is based on the entering into something already completed in Christ; not something to be attained to but rather that which has already been accomplished. It is not a standard to be lived up to, but a Person to be lived with. It is impossible to measure the vast difference between these two kinds of life. The former is one of self effort and defeat, while the other consists in enjoying the reality of Christ the power of God.
From: "Christ The Power of God" www.austin-sparks.net/english/000633.html
August 1
Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord will personally go ahead
of you. He will be with you; He will neither fail you nor abandon you.
(Deuteronomy 31:8 NLT)
If we are seeking to go on with God to any degree beyond that which is commonly accepted as a true Christian life; if we are called to pioneer the way for any further advance in spiritual life or Divine service; if we are given a vision of God‟s will and purpose not seen by the general mass of God‟s people – or even the larger number of the servants of God – ours will be a lonely way. There are many other ways in which we may feel aloneness. It may be for geographical reasons; or it may be because of an inward experience through which we are passing; an experience or phase which cannot be shared by another, even the one closest to us. All these and other reasons may respectively become our "wilderness" in which Satan comes, and, while there is a basic occasion, his business is to push things into the extra realm of untruth and tell us that we are actually and utterly alone. It is not a rare thing for him to tell a child of God that God has left him or her.
Elijah verily believed that he was the only one left in faithfulness to God, and he repeated his plaint several times, "I only am left." He had lost sight of the possibility that the prophets reported by Obadiah to have been hidden might still be in that underground faithfulness, or some of them at least. But the Lord knew better and told him of seven thousand unsurrendering saints who would not capitulate to Jezebel or Baal. The fact is that what Elijah believed was positively not true. If we look at things horizontally we shall only see so far, but if we look from heaven we shall see much more.
From: Alone? – Not Alone! www.austin-sparks.net/english/000646.html
August 2
May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other
and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.
(1 Thessalonians 3:12 NIV)
Love for those of our own company may not be so difficult. But the Word adds "and toward all men." That goes deeper. I have of late felt more deeply and strongly than ever before the force of very familiar words – "Knowledge puffeth up, but love buildeth up" (1 Cor. 8:1), and other words such as "maketh the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love" (Eph. 4:16). If we are going to be affected by that which is present in other people, all those features in Christians and in Christian work and activity which are repugnant to us, we are going to close up and withdraw in heart and nothing is going to be done in the way of mutual helpfulness and edification. Again and again the very practical question arises – because of this or that which we meet in another can anything be done, is anything possible? And very often, in the acute consciousness of so much that appears on the surface, we have revolted against it; and then, going to the Lord about it and facing it out with Him, we have been enabled to go on, and something has happened and the Lord has wrought, and we have been surprised, and rebuked for our original offendedness. We have to look through all that to the heart, and be reminded every time that the Lord looks on the heart. We are looking on all this which is largely the result of ignorance, lack of proper teaching and so on, and this can offend us. But the Lord looks on the heart; He sees if there is something deep down under all these preponderances, if there is a real heart love for Himself, and He knows if this is really the endeavor to express that love.
There may be misapprehension, there may be ignorance, there may be other causes, but this which offends us is, on the part of those concerned, their way of showing their love for the Lord, and we must not be turned aside – we must get close to them and find what possibilities there are for the Lord. He is going on, He is not giving up; He is making all He possibly can of the least bit of heart love for Himself and for all men. The challenge of this is very practical and very searching for us.
From: Abounding in Love www.austin-sparks.net/english/001722.html
August 3
Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint.
(Proverbs 29:18 NIV)
No one who knows anything about the present conditions will disagree with the statement that the Church is in tragic need of men with a
message, but our point is that what is needed is the knowledge of what the message is for the time. That message must come from God to men chosen for the purpose. This is not a ministry which can be taken up. Usually for such ministry there is a long and deep history with God, a history full of mystery and suffering. Many phases are passed through, all in the permissive will of God, or in His directive will, inasmuch as they are intended to educate and give experience, but the course is never that of the established and settled kind, and so big changes may be called for, each of which comes by a new spiritual crisis. No one can do anything in the making of such vessels, however much they may be concerned for them. This is God‟s work alone, and they have to be left in His hands....
Men of vision and courage! Yes, and more courage will be required here than in any other realm of which we know. A specific revelation will – to begin with – set a distance between such as have it and such as have not that specific revelation. This will give rise to many possibilities. Even the best servants of God who have not so seen will probably stand back. It will mean loneliness, and going on alone perhaps for quite a time. It will mean ostracism, misunderstanding, misrepresentation, suspicion, closed doors (so far as man can close them). Then, no revelation from God is ever just verbal truth, it always involves practical issues. These practical issues will appear like the crystallizing of the truth, so that those who obey it will become marked people. This raises a new set of opposing elements.
If God has given a revelation concerning His purpose in Christ which is of such vital importance as to have called for all this special history and preparation, we must realize that it is of very great moment to Satan‟s interests, and he will leave nothing unused to make its course impossible.... If the greatest need of the hour is that of men of vision, along with it will go the need for willingness to pay the price. But there is another side, and that is God‟s side, and the compensations are great. It is a great thing to be in possession of an open heaven and of a mandate from God.
From: The Need of the Hour www.austin-sparks.net/english/000466.html
August 4
Be on your guard not to be carried away by the deception of people who have no principles. Then you won't fall from your firm position.
(2 Peter 3:17 GW)
From the high altitude of the first years as set before us in the book of the Acts, the church began to decline. When we get out of the apostolic age we find that decline steadily going on, until the church publicly, generally, becomes a thing of this world, even becoming politically attached to the earth. The battle all through the ages has been in this very connection, as to
whether the church would maintain or retrieve the loss of its heavenly high position, or for any reason at all, by prosperity or adversity, accept something lower. What is and has been true throughout all its history is true today and is true with us. It is true in the case of every individual believer, as it is of the whole – the tendency to come down; and everything from the side of the enemy is directed towards creating a lower level of things than God intended, and therefore a lower level than that to which the Lord can wholly commit Himself. It is only as the Lord‟s position for His people is held that the Lord can commit Himself.
It is at this point that we need to recognize something that may solve some problems or just give the final answer to a lot of our difficulties. That to which the Lord really does commit Himself wholly is the spiritual side of things, not the temporal side of things, even in relation to His work. He may facilitate; He may help; He may send resources; He may rule and overrule in temporal matters; but we would agree that it would be very dangerous for the Lord to make that His realm of complete operations. That is, whenever a difficulty arises in the temporal realm, if the Lord immediately came right in and swept that out of the way and gave an easy, clear path to His work and His servants, it would really militate against true spirituality, and it would bring the whole thing down to a temporal level, and you can see what would happen. Multitudes would come in because of the advantages. "It is a good thing to be a Christian; God does everything for you if only you will be a Christian," and so you become "rice Christians," as they are known in certain parts of the world. So the Lord neither can, nor will, nor does, commit Himself fully to the temporal aspects of His own work.... Spiritually the position in union with a heavenly Lord means fullness, and the measure of fullness depends entirely upon that heavenly life and the heavenly nature of everything.
From: The Mountains Around Jerusalem - Chapter 5 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/003270.html
August 5
That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you a spirit of wisdom, and revelation in the knowledge of Him;
having the eyes of your heart enlightened, that you may know....
(Ephesians 1:17,18)
And then there is given a list of things to know. And you find that list moves out into the dimensions of the knowledge-surpassing love: "...that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God." Spiritual illumination leads on to being filled unto all the fullness. Spiritual illumination, therefore, is a basic thing to God‟s end. We can never come to the fullness of Christ by the mere enquiry and investigation of our own brains into spiritual things. There must of necessity be the Holy Spirit giving revelation concerning
Christ. The Testimony of Jesus has as its essential law: spiritual illumination and revelation – through the Word. The Testimony of Jesus can never be something static, something that you take up and say: "This is the Testimony of Jesus," and then put it into a formula. The Testimony of Jesus is something that has been revealed.
The Testimony of Jesus is: "I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God." Stephen died for that Testimony. "At midday, O king, I saw on the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me and them that journeyed with me. And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice...." The inner meaning of that is not something apart from the Word, but something that comes by the Holy Ghost through the Word. That is more than the letter; it is Life. It is something that makes you say: "I have read the Scriptures on that for a long time, but I have really never seen that before."
From: Filled Unto All the Fullness of God - Chapter 2 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002858.html
August 6
Christ in you, the hope of glory. (Colossians 1:27)
What does this mean? Not that I come before God saying, "I have had pure motives; I have been very honest, earnest and conscientious, and my intentions have all been of the best." Let us stop talking nonsense. It is utter folly to talk like that. We do not know ourselves. Only God knows the truth about us, and none of that finds a place with Him or counts with Him for a moment. The point is, have I recognized that the Cross of the Lord Jesus was the smashing and ending of me, good and bad, so that I am not holding up before the Lord anything? I am as capable of the worst as any being in God‟s creation is. For anybody to take the attitude that they are not capable of the worst is an attitude of the deepest deception. We do not know the power in our beings until we are put to it. If we have never committed the worst, it is because we have never been put to it in the mercy of God, but it is all there. The Lord puts His finger upon it in principle when He says, "He that hates his brother is a murderer." It is the same spirit. You have only to extend that, provoke that anger enough, put that nature into certain circumstances, and you will discover that you are capable of things of which you would have stood in utmost horror at one time.
You and I have got to come down before God and admit that we are capable of the worst, not standing on the ground of our right. The only right one is Christ from God‟s standpoint. The only safe one is Christ, and therefore the only one who stands in God‟s eyes is Christ, and it is as you and I, in all the brokenness, frailty, conscious weakness and humility of our
own beings, by faith cling to Christ that we shall find the way out, the deliverance, the salvation. We must look behind God‟s words to see bigger things than words on the surface indicate. "To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and that trembles at My word." That statement embodies all that we are saying.
To what one will He look? To the one who never says, "I am right!" but to the one who says, "I may be as wrong as ever a man or woman was wrong, there is nothing of which I am not capable; my only ground is Christ; so help me God, Christ is my ground!" To stand on Christ is to stand always in the consciousness and recognition that this other ground, ourselves at any point, is dangerous ground. He is so Other, and there is the great divide, there is no overlapping. Between Christ and us there is a gaping chasm. God never sees that bridged, but thank God He will put Christ into us by the Holy Spirit, and while the two will ever remain apart, the old creation will go one day and that which is of Christ, as wrought into us, will abide.
The Church of the Firstborn - Chapter 1 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/003328.html
August 7
One thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what
is ahead, I press on. (Philippians 3:13-14 NIV)
The Lord desires us to go on. Sometimes going on means loneliness in going on where others cannot go with us. That means a price is bound up with obedience. It may mean a big break, a big change. It is the challenge of whether we are adjustable before the Lord. Our adjustability is the proof of our utterness for the Lord. That proof being there, the Lord is able to bring us on into all His thought. Let us remember always that we shall never get to a place while we are here where there is not some higher level and some greater fullness of Christ. There will always be yet another step, and perhaps another after that, higher on. Let us have our hearts set upon reaching all. The Lord will so graduate things as to make the challenge not too severe. He takes us a step at a time, and He does not want us to take six steps at a bound, or to contemplate six steps at a time. He shows us our next step, and that is all we have to be concerned about now. The other steps will come at the right time. Every step prepares us for the next.
Very often our lives are like mountain climbing. You see from below to a certain height, and that seems to be the top, and you make for it. And when you get to it, you see a little further on that there is another top. You think that must be the very top, and so you make for it, and when you get to it there is something still further. You never do seem to get to the top!
But we shall arrive at last. The Lord hides the other things and says: "Now, that is your next step; obey that and fuller revelation will come after that." Those of us who look back and see how terrible a thing it would have been if the Lord had shown us at one time all that to which we have been brought, know that if we had seen it all at one time, we could not have gone on. We see that He brought us by stages, and today we are not ungrateful for the price paid, in view of the measure of Christ which we enjoy and the greater fullness of revelation. Let us ask the Lord to put into us the spirit of His servant: "Not that I have already obtained it... but one thing I do... I press on...."
From: That Which Was From The Beginning - Chapter 3 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002955.html
August 8
I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so
your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
(2 Corinthians 11:3)
Deception is not something out there that is put upon us willy-nilly, or in spite of ourselves. All deception has its own ground in man. What is that ground? It is the fact that man is now a psychical being. Now if you can get to the bottom of that, if you can apprehend that, you will understand the whole thing. The ground of all this is in the fact that man is a psychical being, and when Satan interfered with man at the beginning and man consented along the line of his own soul-life, Satan made man suitable to his own government. It was not that he came and set himself up as man‟s ruler and subjected man by sheer force to his own government. How did he do it? By breaking into that realm in man‟s being where man was linked with God, and that was in the realm of man‟s spirit. "He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit," and man was in fellowship and communion with God by means of his spirit, not his soul, not his body. These two were under the government of his spirit. The enemy, the Deceiver came to man‟s soul, and instead of man reacting by his spiritfellowship with, and knowledge of, God, he dropped down on to his soul, came out of his spirit and reacted in his soul.
What is soul? It is reason, emotion, feeling, desire, and then, of course, choice, or will. And the enemy reasoned through the desires and captured the will by deception. You see what happened when man violated the very organ of his union with God, his spirit.... So the enemy governs man, and the whole of the race now through the nature of the soul-life. What is the basis of deception? It is just that! How do you get a counterfeit Holy Ghost operating? By reason of your psychical nature. You can become mediumistic in your very psychical nature and open all the avenues of your being to supernatural guidance and come under the power,
the sway, dominion, of deceiving spirits operating in a multitude of ways. You can so suspend your soul and come into a state of utter passivity that you are open to everything to play upon you. You can have your quiet hour in your soul, which is the most perilous hour of your life. That happens by suspending all spiritual activity and becoming utterly passive and opening your psychical being, which is a most dangerous thing. God never asks you to become spiritually passive. Waiting upon God is not being spiritually passive. God wants us active in spirit even when waiting on Him in silence.
From: Christ The Power Of God - Chapter 3 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002158.html
August 9
I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of
knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.
(Philippians 3:8 NIV)
The saving of men from sin, death, and hell, and getting them to heaven, was as nothing compared with what Paul saw as to the significance of a believer now. All that which he has seen concerning Christ in His eternal purpose – eternal, universal, vast, infinite – now relates to believers: "Even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be... unto the praise of His glory... in the ages to come" (Eph. 1:4,12,21). Believers also are lifted out of time, and are given a significance altogether beyond anything here....
What a Christ! It is Christ Who will lift us out, Christ Who will set us free; but let me say this, that it will not be by His coming and putting His hands under us and lifting us out, but by being revealed in our hearts. How did Paul come out of his narrow Jewish conceptions about the Messiah? Simply by the revelation of Christ in him, and as that revelation grew his liberation increased. There were some things which he did not shake off for a long time. He clung to Jerusalem almost to the last. He still had a longing for his brethren after the flesh, and made further attempts for their deliverance on national grounds. But at last he saw the meaning of the heavenly Christ in such a way as to make it possible for him to write the letter to the Ephesians, and the letter to the Colossians, and then Judaism as such, Israel after the flesh, ceased to weigh with him. It was the revelation of Christ which was emancipating him, leading him out, freeing him all the time. In that way Christ is our Deliverer and Emancipator.
It is just the Lord Jesus that we need to know. Everything small will go as we see Him. Everything of earth and time will go as we see Him, and in the background of our lives there will be something adequate to keep us through difficult and hard times. We shall see the greatness of Christ and
the corresponding greatness of our salvation "...according to His eternal purpose."
From: All Things in Christ - Chapter 1 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002767.html
August 10
Jesus left the temple and was going away, when His disciples came to
point out to Him the buildings of the temple. (Matthew 24:1 ESV)
How does that strike you? The disciples wanting to take the Lord Jesus on a sightseeing trip, and show Him the buildings of the temple! That is where their eyes are, that is what they are thinking to be important, that is their idea of impressiveness, importance, greatness and grandeur.... You know what follows through Matthew 24. We see that material and temporal things according to this world‟s ideas and standards of greatness and even of the religious world‟s standards, are the things which govern the mentality of these disciples after all this time. There is something there so deep-rooted, so inveterate, so persistent.
We do not judge them, we are just like them. However spiritual we may think we are, the fact remains that we are tremendously influenced by temporal standards. It is a continuous battleground as to how things stand in this world before men, and even as to what the great religious leaders, and even evangelical leaders of our time regard as the important thing. It has a good deal of influence with us.
The Lord makes His pronouncement about that. The whole thing is going to be completely disintegrated. And it is on a mountain that He takes up this whole question, and you cannot get away from the fact – however it may be chopped up by those who are interested in these things – that at least the first part of this chapter relates to Jerusalem, and what comes out is that it is going to be broken up, shaken to its foundations and will totter to the ground. All that which they thought so great and so permanent is going. All that which they thought so established here will not have one stone left upon another. On the Mount He begins to show the disintegration of the one in order to make room for the other. On the Mount, heaven touches earth and from there the heavenly dispensation is clearly in view.
From: The Mountains Around Jerusalem - Chapter 5 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/003270.html
August 11
Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end.
(Isaiah 9:7)
Everything which has to do with the realization of God‟s purpose in creating man, and this world, and its universe, is a matter of knowing God in Christ, which, of course, means knowing Christ. Every aspect and detail of God‟s will and God‟s way and God‟s end is a matter of knowing the Lord Jesus. All progress, as all life, rests upon that – knowing Him. The Christian life here is meant to be one of continuous growth and development and progress, but that only takes place as we come to know more, and still more, of the meaning of the Lord Jesus.
This progress will not stop when we leave this world, and when time gives place to eternity: "Of the increase of His kingdom there will be no end." Stagnation is no mark of Life, and Life there will be ever manifesting itself in new and more wonderful fullnesses and forms. Therefore, the knowledge of Christ which will, in time and eternity, be the secret of growth and progress, will continue in heaven, and it will take eternity to exhaust it....
Seeing He is so vast, so immense, so many-sided, we can only see Him from one standpoint at a time; we have to move round to see Him from every angle. And at this time we are just looking at the Lord Jesus from one of the many angles, or points of view, which is this particular aspect of His significance: that He, in His Person and in His work, stands related to an eternal, heavenly order. He Himself, in His wonderful, complex Person, is the very embodiment of all the principles and laws of a great heavenly order. When everything is conformed to Christ and takes its character from Him, it will be one glorious, harmonious whole, perfected into one, just one glorious unity.... I have only opened a window to you through which you can see a universe.
From: Divine Order – In Christ - Chapter 3 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002837.html
August 12
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has
blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing
in Christ. (Ephesians 1:3 NIV)
Familiar as these words and these thoughts are to us, there are tremendous possibilities of freshness, and newness, about the enjoyment of these things.... If there is no fresh glimmer of light and glory associated with the reiteration of this truth, there is all the more reason why we should
ask the Lord what has happened to us, that we could contemplate such a thing without a stirring of heart. Now, is that our Christ, the Christ of our experience, the Christ of our knowledge? Are we living in the realization of that, not to its fullness – because that fullness will never be exhausted – but in the wonder of the fullness which lies before? A land flowing with milk and honey, a good land indeed.
Any fresh contemplation of our Lord in this way should ravish our hearts: Christ, the fullness of spiritual blessing now, the Sphere of our experience, our exploring, our enjoyment, our satisfaction. That is heavenly union with the Lord Jesus. Anybody who is in that is in heaven. You have not to define and explain to such people what it means to be in the heavenlies in Christ. They know of what you are speaking. Spiritual geography is understood by those who walk up and down in Him and enjoy His fullness.
If you are not there, all that we can do is to be like the spies, and report upon it, and it is left with you to say whether you are going in or not. It is left to the crisis of faith or unbelief, just as it was of old. Do you believe that that is the Christ Whom God has presented as the Sphere of your life? If so, go up and possess; appropriate by faith the fullness that is in Christ for every need which arises, for every demand which confronts you.... Let us face the whole issue in this definite way: "Lord, it is clearly represented in the Word that You are the fullness of God for me! Here is a need, a spiritual need. In order that You should be glorified in me, I by faith take You to meet this need!" That is very simple. That is almost the infant class of things, but it is a very effective way of proving the Lord. Do not sink back afterward and decline into discouragement and say, "Nothing has happened!" Stand your ground just as Israel had to stand their ground and prove thereby that the Lord had indeed given.
From: The Essential Newness of the New Creation - Chapter 4 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002212.html
August 13
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live,
but Christ lives in me. (Galatians 2:20)
Christ is not a second personality or power, to come along to reinforce us, to vivify us, to strengthen us, for us to use in life and in service, and that He should make us something. That is not the thought, and that is not the angle of Scripture at all. And yet, how almost universally, perhaps largely unconsciously, that is what is happening. Christians are wanting to be made something, even as Christians; and Christian workers and the Lord‟s servants are, though perhaps unwittingly, wanting to be made something as workers; and they want Christ to
reinforce them, come behind them, and make them something as His servants and in His service.
That whole system of things is diametrically opposed to the truth. The truth is that Christ shall be All, and that we decrease that He may increase; that He should be the primary Personality, and that the impact and registration of any life and any service should not be: "What a good man he was!" or "What a good woman she is!" or "What a fine worker!" but: "What a presence of Christ! What a testimony to Christ! What an expression of Christ! What a sense of Christ! What a reality of Christ!"
Are our hearts set upon God having that which is wholly of Himself? That means "I" crucified! No longer I, but Christ! And that means that Christ in us is the basis of our conformity to His image, until we partake with Him of His own nature – pure gold. It is something to face seriously before Him. It brings to us a challenge, but surely it also brings to us a glorious possibility! What Christ is can be made good in us!