Monday: The Mastery of Inner Conflict and Decision
WEEK 13
MONDAY
THE MASTERY OF INNER CONFLICT AND DECISION
James 4:1-3
We have been studying the mastery of the various aspects of outer life, and we finished with the mastery of the material. One phase of this mastery of the material, namely, the basis on which the material goods are to be distributed, must await further consideration later. It is not being bypassed. We will run straight into it—later. We must now turn to some of the more personal masteries that lay behind these outer masteries.
We saw some of the things that were temporary accompaniments of the coming of the Holy Spirit; we must now look at three things that were permanent. One of them was the mastery of inner conflict and division. This purity seemed to be permanent. Peter described what happened in these words: “And God who knows the heart bore witness to them, giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us; and he made no distinction between us and them, but cleansed their hearts by faith” (Acts 15:8-9 RSV). Here Peter, describing what happened when the Holy Spirit came upon the Gentiles at the house of Cornelius, said that the Jews and the Gentiles both received the Holy Spirit and both without distinction were purified through faith. Here was a permanent element, passing from the Jews’ Pentecost to the Gentiles’ Pentecost; they were cleansed by the coming of the Holy Spirit. The cleansing was a cleansing from contradictory things within them.
They were obviously already converted when the Holy Spirit came upon them in that upper room. Jesus had said that they were not of the world even as he was not of the world (John 17:16). Note “of the world” (RSV); the sources of their life were not in the world but in Jesus. They were following him—not the world. Yet while they were not in the world, a good deal of the world was still in them. They were irritable—wanting to call down fire. They were self-seeking—a dispute arose over who should be greatest, and two wanted to outsmart the rest and get special seats at the right hand and the left. They still needed cleansing.
O Divine Spirit, reveal to me my deepest needs, and when you do, help me not to wince and whine and explain. Help me to face things boldly and honestly. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: If I am an inner contradiction, I shall be an outer blur. I will be neither.