Part 8
From: Christ in You www.austin-sparks.net/english/001617.html
August 14
May I never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Because of that cross, my interest in this world has been
crucified, and the world's interest in me has also died.
(Galatians 6:14 NLT)
You can have Christian law just as much as you can have Mosaic law; you can be in bondage in Christianity just as much as men were in Judaism. Christianity can be made into an imposed system just as much as Mosaic law was, and there are many Christians today who live under the fear of the "Thou shalt" and the "Thou shalt not" of a legalistic conception of the Christian life. You can take the Bible as God‟s standard for your life and try to fulfill it and yet still be burdened with a sense of constant failure. It is God‟s standard, and it is a very exhaustive one which leaves no part of the practical life untouched, but those who make the effort to try to live up to it only end in disillusion. No, it is not just a matter of a Book but of a Person, the Person who did live up to that standard, absolutely fulfilling every least demand with the most perfect success, so satisfying God to the full. By His death He has delivered us from the bondage of legal demands. This same Person now lives in us by His Holy Spirit, seeking to work out that perfect will of God not on the basis of some binding instructions from without but as a living force within. We have the law written in our hearts. To be in Christ is a matter of Life and not of legalism.
Christ, and Christ crucified, is the power of God to bring deliverance from sin, from the flesh, from the law and from the world. "God forbid
that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world" (Galatians 6:14). Paul was not glorying that he could enjoy so much of the world and yet have a clear conscience, but was enthusiastic about having been delivered from the world. For believers the only possible way of staying in this world is to know that they no longer belong to it.
From: Christ the Power of God www.austin-sparks.net/english/000633.html
August 15
God, who has called you into fellowship with His Son Jesus Christ our
Lord, is faithful. (1 Corinthians 1:9 NIV)
This is an age of cheapness. Get it as cheaply and as quickly as you can, with just as little cost and tiresomeness. "Get it quickly: get it easily." That thought governs the whole world system. Everything is now aligned to getting it done easily and getting it done quickly. It is that way in your kitchen, your scurrying, your household affairs, and in every other realm. What is true in the secular has now become very largely true in the spiritual. The standards have been terribly lowered. Bigness has substituted greatness. Greatness, the true meaning of the word, is no longer considered. Oh, how we hear, "Big, oh yes, the bigger, then assuredly that is the most successful," but this is absolutely contrary to the Bible, to all gospel. It is like that. Ease and easiness, lightness, glamorousness, excitement, emotion: this is the order of our day. This hurrying that we are speaking of comes so largely into Christianity: and the result is that we have quite a poor type of Christian....
I am very glad that there is a manifest outreach, especially on the part of young people, for reality. They are tired and sick of unreality. That is a very good thing indeed if only they find reality and do not go in for the substitutes that are today being retailed so lavishly, the substitutes which seem to be real and are an illusion.... While we are going to be joyful in the Lord, sometimes there is a large gap between being happy and joyful. "Happy" depends upon "hap": "Joy" goes on whatever "happens." There is a need of a recovery or reappraisal of the true nature of that into which we have come when we have come into Christ....
Paul opens a window and just gives us a glimpse in that letter to the Philippians when he says, "...Who, existing in the form of God." A long way back before anything else was this One to Whom we have come; and in the terms of fellowship, we are "called into the fellowship" of this One.... We have not come into some very small, light, frivolous thing. However we may joyfully sing our choruses and so on, but remember, this is no cheap thing. This is no small thing. This is no easy thing. This is a thing
which embraces the universe, and we are called into that fellowship. I pray that you may have a new glimpse of the wonder of the One Whom you love and Whom you call, Savior AND LORD.
From: Called Unto the Fellowship of His Son - Chapter 1 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/000723.html
August 16
In Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body. So you also are
complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every
ruler and authority. (Colossians 2:9,10 NLT)
Oh, those subtle suggestions that are ever being whispered in our ears, that if we give up this and that we are going to lose, and life is going to be poorer, and we are going to be narrowed down until we have nothing left. It is a lie! That is the thing that is countering God‟s great thought for us. God‟s thought for us is that One, no less than His Son Jesus Christ, in Whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in bodily form, should be our fullness. All the fullness of God in Christ for us! You never attain to that by rejecting Him. Life must be much less than it need be if you are not going all the way with the Lord; and what obtains in the matter of our consecration to the Lord, our entire and complete abandonment to Him in our life and our complete cut with all that is not of the Lord, obtains in the realm of service.
This flesh loves to sport itself in Christian work, and tells us that if we are going to be dependent upon the Lord we are going to have an anxious time. But a life of dependence upon God can be a life of continual romance. It is there that we make discoveries which are a constant wonder.
You may be nearly dead one minute and in the next the Lord gives you something to do and you are very much alive, dependent upon Him for every breath you breathe. But thus you come to know the Lord. Then after that experience you are just as helpless and dead again for a while, but you remember that the Lord did something. Then He does it again; and so life becomes a romance; yet no one would ever guess you were depending on the Lord for your very breath. It is a very blessed thing to know the Lord is doing it, when you could not do it at all; it is, humanly, naturally, impossible, but the Lord is doing it!
From: Christ - All, and In All www.austin-sparks.net/english/000617.html
August 17
I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised Him from the dead. I want to suffer with Him, sharing in His death, so
that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the
dead! (Philippians 3:10,11 NLT)
You never do touch the Lord Jesus in His death in any new measure without knowing a new measure of resurrection Life. When the Lord Jesus by His Spirit brings us in a further measure into the meaning of His death, let it be settled with us, once and for all, that that is in itself a new measure of resurrection Life. The two things go together, it cannot be otherwise. It is death unto Life. It is loss unto gain. The Life and the gain are of a different sort from the death and the loss. The death and the loss is simply all that which, sooner or later, will go in any case, and even while it remains is of a very doubtful value, but the Life and the gain are eternal, and have in them all the values of God.
So Paul could, with something of joy, hail conformity to the death of Christ. He speaks about it in no mournful terms as though he were going to lose everything. There is no shadow on his face, or sob in his voice, when he speaks about being conformed to His death. It is the shout of a victor. There is something he is after....
He has known power, popularity, reputation, position, possession, and he says the knowledge of Christ Jesus is excelling all that. What knowledge is it? It is the particular knowledge of "Him, and the power of His resurrection." Why? Because of what that leads to, all the possibilities of that resurrection Life and power, because of its ultimate issue: because of the place to which it can bring him, no less a place than the very Throne of the Lord Himself.
From: The Power of His Resurrection - Chapter 7 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/001165.html
August 18
We who worship by the Spirit of God are the ones who are truly circumcised. We rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us. We put no
confidence in human effort. (Philippians 3:3 NLT)
The fact is this, that what God is after is not to do things for you and for me, not to impart things to you and to me, not to show things to you and to me, but to bring us to some fresh apprehension of God in Christ. The whole matter is a divinely personal matter. It is the realization of the Person which is going to result, firstly, primarily, and for evermore, not in doing things, not in activities, not in rejoicing in truth, but in worship.
Worship is the first, the continuous, and the final factor in the knowledge of God in Christ, and is basic to everything else in our relation to Him. True worship only springs from a heart discovery of Himself. Take your Bible, especially the New Testament, and especially the forty days after the resurrection (if you want that narrowed down to something that you can grasp), and see if that is not true. It was not because He did or said certain things that they worshiped, but because they discovered Him in a way in which they had never known Him before. God‟s dealings with us are governed by this supreme aim: that He might make known to us Himself in Christ; but this comes by illumination, and that illumination is by the touch of Christ.
From: Knowing God in Christ - Chapter 1 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/003117.html
August 19
I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first. But I have this
against you…. (Revelation 2:19,20 ESV)
Oh, that we should get some better idea of what the service of the Lord is than that it is platforms and pulpits and open-air meetings. Beloved, service for the Lord is just as important when it is rendering some kindly act of helpful service to some rather depressed child of God in the ordinary domestic things of daily life; just as valuable as getting on the platform and giving a message. You see it is strengthening the hands of the Lord‟s children, it is coming in to check the crushing overweight of the adversary, coming alongside to lift up the testimony in some life or home where the enemy is trying to crush the testimony out – and the testimony is something maintained in domestic relationships, in family life, private life.
There are too many who want to give up their domestic service and go to Bible College, failing to recognize that that service there may be just as valuable to the Lord as their going out to the mission field. It is spiritual, not technical, not organized, and you may be as much a priest of the Lord in going round to some home tomorrow where the enemy is pressing in, and giving a practical hand in helping with the washing, as you may be a priest in standing on the platform....
There are many priests of God whose voices have never been heard in public, who have never been seen in a public way, who are unknown, hidden very often in the assembly and yet in secret history fulfilling a most valuable ministry. Get adjusted over this thing. We have to come to the point where we deliberately decide as to whether the Lord is worthy of this, and abandon ourselves to it because of our appreciation of Him, the Master.
You see, this servant abandons himself freely, voluntarily, for all time to the service of his master because he has come to love his master.
From: The Servant and Service of the Lord www.austin-sparks.net/english/002991.html
August 20
You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though He was
God, He did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, He gave up His divine privileges; He took the humble position
of a slave and was born as a human being. (Philippians 2:5-7 NLT)
We have got to draw a very broad distinction between doing a lot of things, as we think "for the Lord," rushing about and being busy and organizing and conducting and speaking and preaching and taking meetings and classes and all this, and we call this "Christian service." We have got to draw a very broad line of difference between that and real service to the Lord. Real service to the Lord is the emancipation of a people from this world for Him and the formation of that people according to Christ for a heavenly vocation, and a heavenly vocation now, not afterwards. You can test your service by this: the measure of the emancipation of the people who come under your hands and the measure of the formation of Christ that is going on. These are things which are service. And then you will discover that, whereas the other line of things with all the movement and activity and feverish and excited work does not call for very much patience of this kind. It does not call for much real selfemptying, no, it does not call for a great deal of meekness: rather I think it ministers to the opposite. It makes us self-important. It makes us proud. It makes us self-sufficient. It makes us self-assertive. It makes us jealous for our position and our ministry, and resentful if it is interfered with. Yes, Christian work does that with many. The true service can be tested by these things, and the true servant can be tested by the measure of those virtues of Christ: utterly selfless, self-empty.
From: The Cross and the Way of Life - Chapter 7 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002851.html
August 21
Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you
remain in Me. (John 15:4 NIV)
He has chosen us from the foundation of the world in Christ. He has selected One in whom we shall find Him, and in whom alone we shall find
Him. All the forces of hell will be at work, in the first place, to keep us out of Christ. They rage to prevent people coming into Christ, and when once they have come in, these forces are unceasing and relentless in their efforts to get them off the ground of Christ, on to things possibly, or on to any other ground. There is an immense meaning in Christ‟s word: "Abide in Me... except ye abide in Me..." (John 15:4). It is a warning, governing word. Where and how shall we find the Lord? Only on the line of Christ, where Christ‟s interests are the object of our being here, where it is true "For me to live is Christ" (Philippians 1:21). You find the Lord there. Get off that ground, be driven off, be allured off, and you lose the Lord. It is there, on that ground, that the explanation of the Christian life is found. It is on that line that the very purpose for which we are created will have its outworking. It is on that line that we shall find Divine guidance.
This Divine law of God‟s way has many practical applications in the life of the Christian. How many spiritual tragedies we have known brought about by human selectiveness apart from the first and supreme interest of Christ. It might be the choice of residence, location, for instance, for reasons of convenience, pleasure, escape, or seeming necessity, as in the case of Abraham to which we have referred. No less a question than having the Lord with us is bound up with such choices and decisions. We cannot move off the Lord‟s ground without the consequence of spiritual disaster. How costly it was in the case of Elimelech!
If Christ is the Way, the Directive; then He is the Example. How meticulously careful He was not to move, or be moved by any consideration but the directive of the Father! Many motives were put to Him for action and movement, but He abode in the Father, and, often at great cost, refused other considerations.
From: The Line of Christ - Chapter 2 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002765.html
August 22
The people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out
great exploits. (Daniel 11:32)
After the Cross, all the fullness of the Divine power was released upon the world through those who had been brought into absolute oneness with the Lord by that Cross. That is the peculiar kind of knowledge which means the release of such forces and such powers upon the world situation as are unknown by the great world systems. First, let us remember that this knowledge of God is by revelation.
We can never get this knowledge of God merely by reading, by listening, by attending meetings.... You may understand it all by mental apprehension, know the terms and the verses, and use them – but what
about the dynamic of this thing? What does our personal presence in a situation mean? Does it mean that there is the going out of a power which cannot be accounted for on any human basis whatever, but which is a greater force than the forces that are represented by world organizations, world methods, world resources? It is a most important question. Is this thing alive, or have we merely got a little more mental apprehension of it through conferences? Do we know God in this thing by reason of a personal inward revelation on the subject?
Secondly, it comes by the way of pain. You get a thing revealed to you as truth, perhaps something about the Cross of Christ, or victory over Satan, and you think you know it, and you say, "This is beautiful!" And you begin to talk about it, and it is not very long before something happens – your circumstances are touched. Now you go down with this truth, down into the vortex of awful agony, right down to the gates of hell, your being is upheaved right from the very bottom, and all the time there is the question – "Will that truth hold good?" Is it going to work? And when you have got down as far as you can go, the flesh elements and the self elements have been dealt with, and you grimly hold on to the Lord in this matter of victory – then it comes out, you have tested it right to the very bottom of your being – that thing has become you, and then you can go to others in their grim conflict and their darkness, and say, "I know – I know this thing, and I know God is faithful, I know the victory." You have got a mighty emphasis on your knowledge, it is a thing about which you have no doubt, because you have gone down into the depths with it, and proved it down there, and by the very pain the thing has been proved.
From: The People That Do Exploits www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/001535.html
August 23
I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that
you may know the hope to which He has called you…
(Ephesians 1:18 NIV)
It is a seeing of the immense significance of Jesus in the eternal and universal order. With the Apostles that seeing was subsequent to the days of physical association. During the forty days after His resurrection it was like the dawning of a new day. First, those intimations, as when the uncertain light just passes over the heavens. Then more steady and certain rays, leading to the Day of Pentecost, when the sun appeared in full glory over the horizon dispelling the last shadow of uncertainty. On that day they saw Him as by an opened heaven. The mystery of the past was dispelled. The Bible lay open like a new book. They saw Him in the light of eternity. They began to see that, while He was the glorified, personal, Son of God, He was Himself the embodiment of a great, a vast heavenly and spiritual
order and system. This seeing was absolutely revolutionary. It was a crisis out of which a new world and a new creation was born. True to this fundamental principle, all that vast revelation, which has come down the centuries from and through the Apostle Paul took its rise from that crisis described by him as "It pleased God... to reveal His Son in me" (Gal. 1:16). "I received it... by revelation of Jesus Christ" (vs. 12). All the implicates were in the crisis; the full content was a progressive and ever-growing revelation.
While there was some initial testimony, the Apostles did not formulate in conference an enterprise, a mission, with all the related arrangements and organization. The new Life forced off the old leaves and dressed the new organism with a new vesture from within. The might, energy and urge of the Holy Spirit within produced a Way and an order, un-thought-of, unintended by them, and always to their own surprise. What was happening was really that Christ was taking form within them, individually and corporately, by new birth and growth. The believers and the companies were becoming an expression of Christ.
From: According to Christ - 1 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/000718.html
August 24
You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Christ is your life. When He appears, then you, too, will appear with Him in
glory. (Colossians 3:3,4 GW)
We are very often inclined to think that the Life of the Lord in us needs in some way to be improved, to be added to, when really what is required is that we should discover what we have, and, discovering it by experience, live according to it. This Life is not something apart from the Lord Jesus, and we can never think of His standing in need of some improvement, nor of the possibility of something being added to Him to make Him complete, or more complete. We would never think like that. And this Life is one with Himself. As the Apostle says, it is Christ who is our Life, and our need is to discover what Christ is in us, and to live accordingly. So in a very real sense it is a matter of the Life getting more of us, rather than of our getting more of the Life. That, at any rate, is the way of its working.
This, in the ordering of God, has to be done in a world where death still rules and works; for in this world the destruction of death has not yet been made manifest. Death, like the devil, goes on, although Calvary still remains full victory. We are left in this world, and it is in this world where death reigns and works as a great energy that we, by this sovereign ordering of God, have to come to prove the values of the Life which has
been deposited in us, and to discover its potentialities. This is an experimental discovery. It therefore resolves itself into battle between that which is in this world and the Life which is in the believer. It is the battle for Life, not as to the forfeiture of that Life – not as to whether death can take eternal Life away from us, for that is not the question at issue – but as to the triumphant expression and the full manifestation of the power of that Life. That is the issue.
From: The Battle For Life - Chapter 5 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/000706.html
August 25
Creation was subjected to frustration but not by its own choice.
(Romans 8:20 GW)
In searching for a sentence that will serve as a window through which what we have in view can be seen, the one that seems most potent is "The Curse of the Earth Touch." To understand what is meant by those last three words is to have an explanation of an immense amount of history; spiritual and temporal.... The nature and features of the curse, as the Bible everywhere reveals, are frustration, thwarting, bafflement, discontent, abortion, confusion, travail, breakdown, and an ever-defeated struggle against despair and death.... Why is it that so many things which have greatly served the purpose of God have eventually fallen apart; broken up; and have little more than a great past to live upon? Why is it that the Lord Himself has not circumvented this and preserved intact these instruments and vessels that He has used? Why is it that division upon division follows almost endlessly the course of many things which have been very jealous for an utter position as to Bible truth? These and many such questions have but one answer. That answer is the earth touch.
Somewhere, somehow, that blighting contact has been made. There has been a gesture toward this earth. Man has put his hand on heavenly things and tried to bring them on to this earth. It might be a "New Testament Church" of a composite nature: certain things taught, enacted, and done in conformity to the record in the New Testament; a certain order, technique, and construction; these things have been drawn together for a creed, a form of procedure, and made the "basis," the form and standard, the "constitution" of a body, an institution, a society: man‟s mind and man‟s hand defining, controlling, holding. The verdict of history is that God will just not commit Himself to any such thing.... The Apostles did not take a "Blue Print" of New Testament churches wherever they went. The outcome of their work was a crisis, a climax to an old creation and the fiat of the new. What followed of order and knowledge was organic, not organized; spontaneous, not imposed; Life, not legality; and – above all – heavenly, not earthly. It was only when man pulled this down on to the
earth that things went wrong.... Oh, this earth touch! How deadly it is! When will the Lord‟s people understand the essential meaning of their union with Christ in Heaven!
From: The Curse of the Earth Touch www.austin-sparks.net/english/003239.html
August 26
I am the Lord, I do not change.... (Malachi 3:6)
There is a great difference between the old and the new, but that difference is not in God. The new covenant makes no difference in God. The covenant that is brought to us through the mediation of the Lord Jesus does not bring a different God to us. The difference is not in Him; that is, His nature and His standard are always the same, unchangeable. Grace never brings God down to a lower level. Grace does not make any difference to the holiness of God, or to the righteousness of God. The difference in the two covenants is not that of a change in God. His position remains as it ever was, perfect in holiness, perfect in righteousness. The difference is, firstly, in the mediators, secondly, in the ground upon which those mediators stand....
Oh, the snare of the platform idea that so often constitutes the whole conception of ministry, as though other people are not ministers at all. It is just as much your privilege to behold Christ as any man‟s in this universe, and, that being so, it is just as much your calling to minister what you see in Christ to others. Beholding Him, we are changed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. This is the latter glory, the glory of the new covenant. Christ is the glory of the new covenant. The difference is not in God, it is the difference between the mediators, and the difference in the position which we occupy because of the Mediator; we are now in Christ, Who satisfies God. The Lord give us the ministry issuing from a continuous and ever-growing contemplation of His fullness in Christ.
From: Spiritual Ministry - Chapter 3 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/003256.html
August 27
When they looked up, they saw that the stone was already rolled back,
for it was very large... and they were utterly amazed.
(Mark 16:4,5 AMP)
When the Lord moves for His own Son‟s sake, and has those interests governing, and when those interests have brought us into such a
relationship with Him that we can say there is no stone so big to be removed, no problem so great for solving, no difficulty so intense, but the Lord will do what is necessary for His Son‟s sake – when we have come to a position like that, the Lord is free to do a lot of things very quietly. As we say, they just "happen." Ah, but they have been the objects of the exercise of exceeding great power – "There was a great earthquake" (Matt. 28:2). But here, in this aspect of the situation, it does not seem to be an earthquake at all. It has just happened. We must recognize that there is an aspect of activities in which the secret, quiet working of His immense power dismisses the greatest difficulties as though they had never existed. Sometimes He may bring us into the presence of the working of His power that is manifestly terrific, but not often and certainly not always. For faith it is more like this: there is such power at work as to make possible the setting aside of the obstacle very quietly, so that we afterward wonder – "And they were amazed." And the angel said, "Be not amazed." It is good to have amazement, but let us recognize that a certain amount of our amazement is because we have not sufficient faith.
From: The Problem of the Stone www.austin-sparks.net/english/002118.html
August 28
You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about Me, yet
you refuse to come to Me to have life. (John 5:39-40 NIV)
The value of everything is its livingness. The value of the Scriptures is not that we know our Bibles and can handle our Bibles and can give addresses, wonderful addresses, from our Bibles, and that we can quote Scripture fully and accurately and all that sort of thing. It is not that we bear the name of associates of Christ, Christians, not that we have this great inheritance and tradition. It is the livingness of it all which is proving itself in all ways, that this risen Life of Christ should prove itself.... That is a strong thing to say, it is a searching thing to say. You have the Christian tradition and a great deal of Christian teaching, perhaps you know your Bibles very well, or think you do, perhaps you have many advantages in your associations, but the question arises. Not do you know it all, have you got it all, all the teaching, the truth, the Bible knowledge, the association, and that you are at all the meetings and you have heard it for years and years past and your association with it has been very close. That is not it. You can have all that and yet you yourself not be marked by this vital something that you become a vital factor in the whole thing. You are still a passenger, perhaps a parasite; not really in the good of it yourself. Let us be frank about it. We must face this as a personal matter.
The answer is in the resurrection.... Resurrection is not to be only something that happened with Jesus, but it is something that has happened in us and taken place inside of us. There is a counterpart of that by His risen Life imparted, that we have been raised together with Him. And that is not just doctrine either. That is real, that is vital truth and something to happen in us as well as in Jerusalem so many years ago. It is not just history and tradition, it is experience.... We have not only to believe that Jesus rose from the dead, but we have got to be alive ourselves with Him in that resurrection and on that ground.
From: The Testimony of the Christ - Chapter 9 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002988.html
August 29
Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves.
Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?
(2 Corinthians 13:5)
The sum of everything in the new creation is in Christ, or, to put that in another way, it is outside of man himself. It is apart from man, and it always will be. Although Christ, the sum of the new creation, may be in us, that new creation will remain in Christ, and we are only in it by reason of our union with Him. He becomes the fullness of everything in us, but the practical outworking of that fullness will ever, and always, be purely and solely on a basis of faith. If the thing could be said at any time to have its origin in us, then faith would be dismissed. If we had it in ourselves, if it were our constitution, faith would be dispensed with. That would result in a repetition of us....
The difficulty which we shall be meeting all along the way will be ourselves. We shall find that the main obstacle, the main enemy to our fullness in Christ, to all that the new creation means, will be ourselves in some way. It will either be our self-occupation – which is but a form of trying to be something fine, something in ourselves which will bring satisfaction to God – or it will be our self-effort in service. It will be this natural life of ours cropping up in some direction or another, and as it crops up it will cut clean in between us and the "all things" which are of God, and we shall find that it is ourself which brings us up short, which creates the arrest.... If we look within ourselves to find more good, we are going to look in vain. We shall never find anything in ourselves but corruption. Is that really settled with us?
On both sides, the people who have some opinion of themselves had better settle it once and for all that there is nothing in them but corruption, and also those who have settled it, and yet are so occupied with their old man as though it were something really worth being occupied with. Put it
where the Lord Jesus has put it, in the grave, and do not walk round it, turning it over, if peradventure you might find something worthwhile. Fix and fasten your faith in God‟s Son, and leave yourself alone for ever. Only so will you find your emancipation.
From: The Essential Newness of the New Creation - Chapter 3 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002211.html
August 30
God in all His fullness was pleased to live in Christ.
(Colossians 1:19 NLT)
Do not take these as just words. Do understand that in every fragment there is this truth: In the dispensation in which you and I are now living God has come to us in all His fullness. There is no more to be added. In His Son we have the absolute fullness of God, and it is out of that fullness that He speaks to us in His Son. God has only one Son in that sense – His only-begotten Son, which means that there is no one to come after Him. Therefore, God‟s last word is in His Son.
The Son brings both the fullness and the finality of God. It is that which gives the solemnity to this whole Letter. It says: "If you fail to hear the voice of the Son there will never be another voice for you. God is never going to speak by another voice. God hath spoken in His Son, and He is never going to speak by any other means." Hence this Letter contains this word of warning and of exhortation: "Because this is the fullness and this is the end, be sure that you give heed...." To come into touch with the Lord Jesus is more than coming into touch with a teaching: it is coming into touch with a living, active Person. "It is God with whom we have to do." It is a glorious thing to come into touch with God in Christ – but it says here that "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebrews 10:31). No, it is not a book, a teaching, a philosophy: it is a living, positive, powerful Person....
Perhaps this is just like a window opened into heaven. If you get the right window you can see quite a lot. You can see great things and you can see far things. But the best that I can hope is that this has just opened a window, and that as you look through it you are seeing one thing – how superior is Jesus Christ to all else, and how superior is the dispensation into which we have come, and how superior are all the resources at our disposal to all that ever was before!
From: The On-High Calling - Chapter 10 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/000975.html
August 31
Serve each other through love. (Galatians 5:13 GW)
It is always the work of God‟s enemy to clog up our lives by introducing love of self or love of the world, and it needs ruthless determination to remove the accumulated rubbish and re-dig the well in purity of devotion to Christ. It may well be, though, that the hindrances arise from lack of love to our fellow believers. We must remember that the Holy Spirit can never have free course in us and through us if we harbor unloving thoughts concerning other of God‟s children, let alone put those thoughts into actions. He is the Spirit of fellowship, so that if we fail in that realm then we fail in the matter of love.
It is so easy to allow unworthy considerations to quench brotherly love, to be clogged up with resentment or to be wrongly influenced by our susceptibilities or hurt feelings.... We have to be active in positive cultivation of fellowship. To some it is quite natural to be independent. For them deference to others represents a major difficulty. Sometimes they may deliberately ignore or despise others, but sometimes they just prefer to do it alone and never seriously think of inter-relatedness and interdependence.
The Word of God, however, is most explicit in ordering us to esteem one another, to submit to one another and to live and work together. The Holy Spirit demands that the people of God live according to a team order of things, that they should be governed by a family spirit. Anything which is of an isolated or detached nature, which fails to recognize and fully accept the family thought of God, is a check on Him. By failing to observe fellowship we quench the Spirit. It is not only a matter of avoiding giving offence but of active pursuit of fellowship. Some may be wondering why there is so little up-springing from the inner well, when they are sitting back in a wrong kind of modesty, failing to bring in their own personal contribution to fellowship life and ministry.
Unkindness is not the only obstacle in this realm. Shyness and diffidence can equally rest like a stone on the flow of Life. The only thing to do is to dig it up and move it away. Get in, get right in, and let yourself go! Do not always choose the back seat because you like to be left alone, but come forward in the Lord‟s name and give the Holy Spirit a free course in your lives. He is well able to check you if you become too self-assertive, but there is little He can do if your well is all stopped up with fears and inhibitions.
From: The Well Within www.austin-sparks.net/english/000472.html
September 1
Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are
My disciples. (John 13:35 NLT)
Love – not the presence of a lot of understanding and teaching and truth, and not the absence of all sorts of things – is the governing matter with the Lord. It is not that He Himself in His heart accepts the wrong things, but He sees through them, He sees differently from ourselves.... You can see there is no hope of building up unless there is love – and love for all men. You and I ought to be greatly concerned with this matter of building up.
Oh, God only knows how much of spiritual increase and building is needed! It is a paralyzing situation that faces us if we look at our own limitations. I am sure nothing is going to be done unless we have a very large heart to look over and in and through and beyond, refusing to be held by the thing that is glaring at us, striking us and hurting us, and reaching through to that which is true in the heart.... It is love that builds. Moreover, it makes differences in those who exercise it, it brings them into rest. Truth alone may bring a strained look into the face and eyes. Love ought to bring into the countenance some suggestion of quiet strength and restful confidence.... Well, let us sit down in the armchair of His love and be at rest, and then get to work. You cannot work unless you have a background rest, and rest does not spring firstly from truth. It comes from love, God‟s love. Whatever else He gives us and adds to us, may the Lord make us a people who are characterized supremely by this love for one another and for all men.
From: Abounding in Love www.austin-sparks.net/english/001722.html
September 2
I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you.... (Ephesians 3:1)
The measure of approximation to the fullness of the revelation has always been accompanied by a relative cost. Every instrument of the testimony has been laid under suspicion and reproach in a measure commensurate with the degree of value to the Lord, and this has meant that, humanly, they were limited to that extent. Many have withdrawn, fallen away, held aloof, doubted, feared, and questioned. But as Paul could say "My tribulations for you, which are your glory" (Eph. 3:13), or "The prisoner of Christ Jesus in behalf of you Gentiles" (Eph. 3:1), so the measure of limitation in the Lord is the measure of enrichment in His people. The fuller the revelation, the fewer those who apprehend, or the greater the number of those who stand aloof. Revelation only comes
through suffering and limitation, and to have it experimentally means sharing the cost in some way. But this is God‟s way of securing for Himself a spiritual seed plot....
All this may apply to individual lives in relation to the Lord‟s testimony. There may often be a chafing against limitation, confinement, and a restless hankering after what we would call something wider or less restricted. If the Lord has willed us to the place where we are, our acceptance of it in faith may prove that it becomes a far bigger thing than any human reckoning can judge. I wonder if Paul had any idea that his prison meant his continuous expansion of value to the Lord Jesus through nineteen hundred years? What applies to individuals also applies to corporate bodies, assemblies, or companies of the Lord‟s people scattered in the earth but one in their fellowship in relation to the Lord‟s full testimony. May the Lord be graciously pleased to cause the merely human aspect of prison walls to fall away, and give the realization that, far from being limited by men and circumstances, it is imprisonment in the Lord, and this means that all ages and all realms are entered through that prison.
From: Captivity in the Lord www.austin-sparks.net/english/000689.html
September 3
He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the
heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion... and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the
heavenly places in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 1:20,21; 2:6)
Get a revelation of that to your heart by the Holy Spirit, and see its emancipating power and its sustaining power. And that is for present revelation to the heart. That is the thing which the Lord has been seeking to reveal to our hearts more and more for a long time. The point is this: that, inasmuch as that is the side of vision presented, you and I have to seek the Lord for spiritual capacity to see it. And that leads us to that other fragment in the same letter, from which we have just quoted: "That He would grant unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your hearts being enlightened...." The eyes of your hearts being enlightened! That is the other side of vision.
Will you pray this for yourself? Will you pray this for all God‟s people? When the Lord‟s people get a new spiritual Holy Ghost revelation of the Sovereign Headship of Christ, and begin to hold fast the Head, they let go of everything that is local, and personal, and different, and scattered on the earth. That is the place to which to come for unity. We cannot be at variance with one another as the Lord‟s children if Christ is absolute Sovereign Head in our lives. When the Lord Jesus gets the complete
mastery as Head in our lives, then all independence of action, and life, and all self-will, self-direction, self-seeking, self-glory and self-vindication will go. These are the things which set us apart from one another. You pass from Isaiah, and as you do so you remember that you have the results of such a vision seen in this man Isaiah. Such a vision immediately has the effect of humiliating him to the dust. Oh, yes, we lose all our pride, all our importance when once we see the Lord in glory. "Woe is me...." That is humiliation! Then, after humiliation, there is consecration: "Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged." And, after humiliation and consecration, there comes vocation: "...who will go for Us?" "Then I said, Here am I; send me."
From: The Lord's Testimony and the World Need - Chapter 3 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/001461.html
September 4
The Most High does not live in buildings made by human hands.
(Acts 7:48 ISV)
What Stephen saw, and what is stated, intimated, and implicit in the New Testament (a monumental document on the matter is "the Letter to the Hebrews"), was that Solomon was – at most – but a figure of a greater "Son," and his temple, with all its glory, wealth, and beauty, was only a pointer onward to "A house not made with hands"; what Peter – after a difficult and painful transition – called, God‟s spiritual house. Stephen concludes with a comprehensive gathering of all this history into "the Prophets," and virtually says that the spirit of prophecy was related to this ever-future, onward, and ultimate spiritual goal of God.
What again, then, does all this amount to? On the one side, it is a mighty exposure and denunciation of the incorrigible habit and disposition of God‟s people to bring what is essentially heavenly down to earth and fasten it there; to make of the spiritual something temporal; to make of the eternal something which will not – and cannot – abide; to make form, means, orders, and technique all-important. In a word, to have things fixed and boxed, so that the Holy Spirit is thwarted and frustrated in His everonward and ever-sovereign movement and innovation, if He so choose. The most dominant note, the most imperative cry of the New Testament is "Let us go on." But the context of this cry is – "outside the camp." The writer of those words in the Letter to the Hebrews, who has so much in common with Stephen, makes it abundantly clear that "outside the camp" means outside of all that which in its Judaistic nature systematizes and crystallizes Christianity into a set and settled form: into something earthbound and final. On the other side, all this is a revelation of how fierce and terrible will be the opposition of such systems to a purely and definitely
spiritual testimony. Unless there is a conforming, there will at least be ostracism, and at most martyrdom.
From: Stephen – Thy Witness www.austin-sparks.net/english/001137.html
September 5
"Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing in the place of honor at God‟s right hand!" Then they put their hands over
their ears and began shouting. They rushed at him and dragged him
out of the city and began to stone him. (Acts 7:56-58 NLT)
You and I, on the broadest basis of the Christian life, are here... to represent a check; and because we are here for that, we shall be called "trouble makers." In a very real sense we shall be trouble makers. The trouble will focus itself upon us, and we shall have to suffer for it. The very fact that you are jealous for the Lord will bring you into conflict with that trend that there is in this world, in man…. When there is the purest testimony, the fullest expression of what is of God, the heavenly over against the earthly, the spiritual over against the carnal or the natural, the enemy gives a turn to things, a twist to things, and lays the responsibility at the door of a spiritual and a heavenly ministry. He says: "You are the cause of all the trouble – you are the troubler!" But no. The trouble lies deeper than that, and in another realm.
The truth is, there is something here that, in its very nature, must create trouble, must be a source of trouble, so long as God‟s known will, His revealed mind, is being violated; while the full expression of God‟s purpose is being withstood. To bring in something that stands for that, there is going to be trouble. It is a costly thing to have seen God‟s full purpose and thought concerning His people. It is always a costly thing. The Lord Jesus set a very vivid example and object lesson of this truth right in the foreground, in the incident of the man born blind (John 9). There is no doubt that the Lord intended that man to represent Israel and Israel‟s condition at the time. He gave that man sight – and what happened to the man? "They cast him out," that is all; they cast him out, they excommunicated him (v. 34). That is an object lesson, an instance of this very thing.
If eyes have been opened; if, in any sense – not officially – you have become a "seer" – one who sees: it is going to cost you a lot, it will involve you in a lot of trouble. This matter of "seeing" does that. It was Elijah the Seer, over against the blindness of Israel. It is a costly thing to be a spiritual man or a spiritual woman in this universe. It is a costly thing, yes, very costly, to hold to a heavenly and spiritual position. It is a costly thing to hold for Christ‟s full place; it involves you in trouble. It is a costly thing
to have light – if it is true light, God-given light. It is a costly thing to have Life. But remember, it is here, in this, that the power is resident.
From: Jealousy for God www.austin-sparks.net/english/001248.html
September 6
We who worship by the Spirit of God are the ones who are truly circumcised. We rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us. We put no
confidence in human effort. (Philippians 3:3 NLT)
In the New Testament circumcision is regarded as spiritual and inward. Paul said it quite emphatically, "Neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh... circumcision is that of the heart" (Rom. 2:28-29). "We are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God" (Phil. 3:3). It is a spiritual thing, an inward thing; it is of the heart. And it simply means that in the Cross of the Lord Jesus, the natural life and the reasoning of the natural life, or the self-life – the willing of the self-life, the desiring of the self-life – has been cut off by the Cross. Every expression and aspect of the self-life has been cut through by the Cross and is put in the place where the door is shut. There is no open door to any expression of the natural life. The Cross says, "The door is closed; death rests upon that." That is spiritual circumcision. Stephen, in that matchless discourse of his which resulted in his murder, cried at one point to those who were persecuting and about to stone him, "Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart" (Acts 7:51). What did he mean by "uncircumcised in heart and ears"? He just meant this, that they were only willing and minded to have what they wanted and nothing more. Prejudice is a certain mark of an uncircumcised heart. Bigotry is the same, and anything that you can find that made up the situation which brought Stephen to his death is a mark of an uncircumcised heart. That is the thought. Still there is the reasoning and the arguing of the Self, of the natural life. There is still the desiring and the feeling of the Self obtruding itself. The Cross, spiritual circumcision, says "No!" to it all.
From: The Cross and the Way of Life - Chapter 4 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002848.html
September 7
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility
consider others better than yourselves. (Philippians 2:3 NIV)
What do we expect when we go on with God, when we come right out for God? What have we in view? Well, the answer to that question will decide whether, in relation to God, we have ambitions for something on the
earth. Do you get the point? You see, it is so possible to swing over your natural ambitions to spiritual aims. It is the same thing still at work, and the only difference is the direction or sphere. You can be as ambitious in the work of God as you can be in the world, and it is the same natural ambition. It is the ambitiousness of nature. You desire – what do you desire? To see something, to have something, to be in something? Ambition for success; yes, once it was in the world – now the same ambition transferred to other things….
It is a mark of going on when we can come to the place where it is true before God that we have let go all the prosperity and success even of Christian work and Christian ministry as men would count it. To be able to let go the great opportunities and the great advantages that may be had amongst Christian people, and the prizes that can be grasped, and to say, "It is all right, the Lord knows; it is for Him to give or withhold. I am not going to make a line for those prizes. I am not going to allow those things to influence my walk with God. Ambition is not going to dictate my course," is a sure sign of growth. It may not seem here on earth to mean very big things; wide open doors and all that, but somehow you may take it that there is Life there, spiritual influence there, something that is counting there. In the end it will have counted. But this does sometimes first of all necessitate that conflict with ambition where all those suggestions and influences have to be laid low, and we come to the place where we see that the way of Life is to go on with God though it costs us everything. The law of the Spirit of Life works in that way…. The way of Life demands that we shall get before the Lord again, and say, "Lord, though all my earthly prospects fade, though all my ambitions are disappointed, it is You I want. You are my ambition, my goal. If I have You, these other things will count for much less." I believe that, as we can get there – and not many of us have got a long way on that road – but as we can get there, we find the secret of Life, of joy, of release.
From: The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus - Chapter 4 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/000904.html
September 8
The leading priests and the teachers of religious law saw these
wonderful miracles and heard even the children in the Temple shouting, "Praise God for the Son of David." But the leaders were
indignant. (Matthew 21:15 NLT)
From the Mount of Olives He went, and in that meek and lowly way presented Himself as King. The fickle multitude, of course, jumped at earthly possibilities, and again the disciples are all in it. But when you get to Matthew 21:15, you get to the true situation in Israel among the Jews, and it will be found that even the fickle multitude will come to that
presently when they discover that He did not mean a temporal, political kingdom at all. And when all that prospect seems to be more than doubtful, the crowd will join the ruler‟s cry, "Away with Him!" The real thing deep down behind is in verse 15: the positive antagonism towards Him; no desire to have Him, of course stimulated by envy and jealousy. The place where it was really drawn out as to what people wanted was the Mount of Olives....
Really their thoughts and His are very far apart, and that becomes very clear in the end. The Mount of Olives first of all gets down into the truth as to what people are after. You never know the truth about a situation. It may look all right, it may seem to be quite favorable, but in fact it may be all wrong, false, and untrue. You never know until you obtain the heavenly position of higher ground, and then from that higher ground you can see the truth about things. That works in principle; that works in history. If you present the high ground of God‟s full thought for His people and the hearts of the people are really set upon having a work for God down here that is flourishing and prosperous and well-spoken of, you find that people are really, after all, only going with Him so long as He comes into line with their ideas and ambitions. But immediately that runs counter to thoughts more earthly, thoughts even in relation to Him, something deeper rises up. They are not going to have that. You have seen that many times; you must not touch their things. They say it is for the Lord, but you must not touch it; it is their own. If you are not coming to help their thing or things with your ministry or presentation, of course they won‟t have it, and it resolves itself into this: they won‟t have Him; that is not the kind of Lord they want. They want a Lord who is going to make their thing for Him successful down here. You can only know and discriminate between the true and the false when you yourself are on the higher ground.
From: The Mountains Around Jerusalem - Chapter 5 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/003270.html
September 9
Are your hearts tender and compassionate? Then make me truly happy
by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose. (Philippians 2:1,2 NLT)
Error, false teaching, and heresy have always been a major means by which the devil has sought to destroy "the testimony of Jesus," but when he brought in the weapon of what is known as "Modernism," or "Higher Criticism," he used a double-barreled gun. One barrel he aimed directly at the great fundamental truths of the Person of Christ, the work of Christ, and the authority of the Bible. He has thus wrought great havoc, but one wonders whether even that is comparable to the mischief of his second and
closely related barrel. By it he has poured out volumes and clouds of suspicion, fear, mistrust, apprehension, and all the grievous effects of these among true Christians.
There is not a single person today who is quite safe in this "Christian" world and atmosphere. Some of the most outstanding and erstwhile evangelical stalwarts have at length fallen under its awful miasma, and died of a broken heart because of it – and all so untrue! The enemy stops at no point short of dividing the last two Christians, and if he cannot find true ground for doing it by spreading suspicion and mistrust – "evil report" – he will make it by giving a twist to anything that is capable of being twisted....
We beg to appeal to all those to whose eyes this message may come, that they will ask the Lord, if need be, to completely convert their mentality in this matter. Would it not be more according to the Spirit of the Master, who said, "Let him that is without sin cast the first stone," and "He that is not against us is for us," if, as our instant reaction to every "report," "rumor," criticism, judgment, insinuation, innuendo, or whisper, we instantly asked the question, "Is it true? Did the speaker – or writer – really mean that? Is there not another meaning to be given to it? Is it not – perhaps – an unfortunate way of putting it, but not necessarily pernicious?" Should we not, before accepting it, find out whether our interpretation is the right one, or whether we may be mistaken? The enemy is engaged more than ever upon a campaign of sabotage within the Church for its internal disintegration, and it is for us to resist him by seeking all the positive ground of fellowship possible, not looking for all the negative ground, either really or imaginatively existent.
From: Understanding of the Times www.austin-sparks.net/english/002080.html
September 10
The mystery was made known to me by revelation. (Ephesians 3:3 ESV)
As we take account of the situation today we feel more and more deeply convinced that the greatest need of the hour is for men of vision and courage. But we use the word "vision" in the specific sense in which it is used in the Bible and not in the general sense, of enterprise. That is, what is needed above all else is men who have had a Divine revelation by the Holy Spirit in their own hearts as to God‟s purpose in this dispensation, and the particular Divine emphasis for the present hour.
There can be much enthusiasm and zeal put behind a more or less generally conceived idea of what needs to be done, with a resultant activity and "movement." The opposite of this, and that which we are seeing to be so much more needed, is a burdening of the hearts of "chosen vessels" with
God‟s own most pressing concern at this time, resulting in an allconsuming passion which will accept all the cost of its realization....
There are very few men in our day of whom it can be truly said, "That man has had a revelation from God." There is all the difference between being saved and then going into Christian service with the resultant studying of the Bible, the preparation of sermons, addresses, lessons; collecting material, mastering themes and subjects; etc., etc., and giving this out as required or as opportunity affords – there is all the difference between this and an open heaven, an anointing, a revelation by the Holy Spirit. It is the difference between our laboring to get, in order to meet a constantly recurring demand, and the Holy Spirit continually revealing Christ in us. This is a general difference, but it is a very great one, and it may represent all the difference between bondage and liberty, between limitation and fullness, even between Life and death in ministry. But this is not our particular point. The need of the hour is not only for a higher spiritual level of ministry in general, it is for men with a specific revelation which will meet the situation as it is now.
From: The Need of the Hour www.austin-sparks.net/english/000466.html
September 11
Christ‟s love compels us. (2 Corinthians 5:14 NIV)
"The love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit" (Rom. 5:5). That was the dynamic of service. Now, that is simple and it works in two ways. All activity, work, and what is called "service" for the Lord, without that behind it, is lacking in the true power of fruitful service, but if that is there, we cannot help being the Lord‟s servants. Nothing can make us true servants of the Lord but a personal passionate love for Himself. Nothing can substitute that. But given that, there is no need for any kind of human ordination, or an ecclesiastical setting apart. You are the Lord‟s servant right enough if you have an adequate love for Himself in your heart. It will be, it will work out. All our value to the Lord depends upon the measure of our heart-love for Himself. That is all. There is nothing profound about that, but it is testing.
We may do many things, like the church at Ephesus later on. It did many things, but the Lord said, "I have this against thee, that thou hast left thy first love" (Rev. 2:4). And in effect He said: "There is no justification in your lampstand remaining, it is merely an empty profession, an outward vessel without the inner Lord, the inner light." And unless this original first love is recovered, it is mere profession, doing many things, but the thing which justifies our existence is that love and only that. Nothing but that love will keep us going. It is the power of endurance through the years, and
it is an awful thing to come to a Christian life which has got to be kept up without that love for the Lord in the heart. It is only that love that really makes the Christian life possible under all the strain of the years. I am quite sure that in the case of the apostle, with all his suffering and all he had to meet, the thing that kept him going was that flame of love in his own heart for the Lord Himself. Through the suffering, nothing but a strong love for the Lord will keep us going.
From: The Representation of the Invisible God - Chapter 5 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002148.html
September 12
I pray... that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His
glorious inheritance in the saints. (Ephesians 1:18 NIV)
What is Christ‟s inheritance in the saints? What are the riches of the glory of Christ‟s inheritance in the saints? It is that the saints are to provide Him with the means of the universal manifestation of Himself as God has purposed Him to be. It is a part of the arrangement in those counsels of the Godhead, that He shall be the central fullness, but that the fullness should not be manifested, displayed in an isolated way. There would be no purpose in that, because He could have done that in Deity without incarnation, He could have possessed the fullness in that way, and that is what the letter to the Philippians says. He was equal with God, and had all the fullness, but He emptied Himself. Why? In order that others might be brought into the fullness, that He might not hold it all for Himself. That is what Satan wants to do.
The Lord Jesus let go in order to bring others in. The apostle says, "Let this mind be in you." If any of you are inclined to stand for your own rights, on your own ground, to hold things for yourself, you are violating the very spirit of Christ who let go His own rights in order that others might come into them and get the benefit. So the inheritance of Christ is this: that He is made heir of all things, but He can have all things only as He has the saints, and He gets those "all things" through and in the saints. It is a part of the arrangement, the agreement. It is not as one isolated unit in God‟s universe, that He is to have everything, but by appointment manwise, in a corporate sense, and not only in a personal sense....
The Lord is not satisfied with His people just being saved, and the Lord is not satisfied that people should just remain saved. The Lord has fixed this as His goal: the full knowledge of Him. It is indispensable to the Lord. His inheritance is bound up with it. The need today is that the Lord‟s own people should come into a knowledge of Himself which they do not
possess, into a position in relation to Himself which they do not occupy; in a word: into the full knowledge of Him.
From: The Church of the Firstborn - Chapter 3 www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/003330.html
September 13
Strive earnestly to guard and keep the harmony and oneness of the
Spirit in the binding power of peace. (Ephesians 4:3 AMP)
Oneness in Christ as a Body fitly framed together is what is portrayed. How is this perfect unity reached? By all that is individual and personal being left, by the Lord being the focal center, and by our giving diligence to maintain the unity in that way; keeping all personal things out, and keeping Christ and His interests always in view.... This is not visionary, imaginative, or merely idealistic, it is very practical. You and I will discover that there are working elements of divisiveness, things creeping in amongst us to set us apart. The enemy is always seeking to do that, and the things that rise up to get in between the Lord‟s people and put up a barrier are countless; a sense of strain and of distance, for example, of discord and of unrelatedness. Sometimes they are more of an abstract character; that is, you can never lay your hand upon them and explain them, and say what they are; it is just a sense of something. Sometimes it is more positive, a distinct and definite misunderstanding, a misinterpretation of something said or done, something laid hold of; and of course, it is always exaggerated by the enemy.