Interior Revelation
Posted by jerrywhite on Mar 7, 2013
“Paul had already seen Christ exalted at the hand of God, but now He was revealed to Him by the Holy Spirit as dwelling in his unworthy heart. From that moment, there was a new dimension in his experience. ‘It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me’ (Galatians 2:20). In this glorious fact lay, in large measure, the explanation of his flaming ministry.
There is always a moral basis for such a revelation.
‘It is the man who loves Him that Jesus reveals Himself even more fully. Obedient, trusting love leads to a fuller and a fuller revelation…. No evil man can receive the revelation of God. He can be used by God, but he can have no fellowship with God. It is only to the man who is looking for Him that God reveals Himself…. Fellowship with God, the revelation of God, are dependent on love; and love is dependent on obedience.’ (William Barclay, The Gospel of John, Edinburgh: St. Andrew, 1955), 197
But the Holy Spirit does not rest content with a mere revelation of Christ. His objective is a reproduction of Christ in the life of the believer. With this in view, He patiently works until Christ is formed in each (Gal. 4:19).
When an egg is laid, amid the fluid there floats a tiny speck of life. As the egg is incubated, the embryo gradually develops, while the fluid diminishes. At the end of three weeks, no trace of fluid is left. The fully-formed chick pecks its way out of the confining shell and embarks on life in a new world.
When the new life enters the believing heart, it is an embryo life that must be nurtured on the ‘pure milk of the word’ (1 Peter 2:2). Through devout meditation on Scripture and seasons of waiting on God, the Holy spirit fosters and develops that life from within, until the likeness of Christ is more and more apparent without.”
J. Oswald Sanders
Enjoying Intimacy with God, 75-76
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The Spirit’s Ministry
Posted by jerrywhite on Feb 14, 2013
These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
1 Corinthians 2:10 (ESV)
~~~
“There is no darkness that God’s own Spirit cannot scatter, no difficulty He cannot remove, no portion of the Word He cannot explain. All that is necessary to your salvation is revealed in the Word; all that can be known of Jesus is there discovered. All this the blessed Spirit stands prepared to make known to you. He leads you to Jesus; Jesus lifts the veil and reveals the Father; and the Father, when revealed, appears full of love, mercy, and forgiveness to the poor returning prodigal, who in penitence and lowliness, seeks an asylum in His heart. And, oh, how ready is the Spirit to instruct you! He has such love and grace in His heart that the heavenly dove seems always poised on wing, ready to fly to the soul who even sighs for His inward teaching. Does He see a soul oppressed with a sense of guilt? He hastens to apply the atoning blood of Jesus. Does He mark one weary with his fruitless toil? He seals the promise of the Savior on the heart, ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy leaden, and I will give you rest’ (Matt. 11:28). Does He find a soul combating with temptation, tormented with fear, harassed with doubts, struggling with infirmity, or halting through weakness? Oh, how ready is He to show that soul where its great strength, comfort, and grace lie—in the fullness of a most loving, precious, and all-sufficient Savior!
Oh, then, in the name of Jesus, seek this glorious gift of God. Seek Him as a life-giving Spirit who makes Jesus known to you; leads you into the deep things of God’s Word; deeply sanctifies you; imparts to you the love, confidence, and consolation of an adopted child; comforts you in every sorrow; strengthens the divine life in your soul; and proves to be your earnest and seal of eternal glory.”
Octavius Winslow
Evening Thoughts, 75-76
~~~
Often, modern day Christians with busy, distracted minds neglect consciously trusting the loving Holy Spirit who indwells them. His presence does no good without faith.
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The True Christian Life
Posted by jerrywhite on Feb 11, 2013
“The true Christian life, which begins with a supernatural transition, consists and continues in a supernatural transfusion.
The very life and nature of Christ are transfused into the innermost being of the Christian believer by the Holy Spirit. Thus our Saviour’s word is fulfilled: ‘Because I live, ye shall live also’ (John 14:19). Paul not only says, ‘I live, yet not I’; he goes on to say, ‘but Christ liveth in me.’ There is not only transition; there is transfusion. This is the most precious and sacred secret of the Christian life…. The man of the world neither understands it nor even suspects it. Yet oh, how real it is to our Lord’s own!
Now just because of this supernatural transfusion, the New Testament ideal for our Christian life is that there shall be within us a continual displacement of the old self-life, and an ever-clearer enthronement of the new Christ-life. All of us, by nature, are ego-centric, self-centered; but we are meant to become Christocentric, or Christ-centered. Christ is to be the new life within our life; the new mind within our mind; the new will within our will; the new love within our love; the new Person within our personality.
We cannot always be on the mountaintop of transfiguration, seeing heavenly visions and hearing heavenly voices. We cannot always be experiencing spiritual raptures and sensory ecstasies. A high frequency of these is neither necessary nor desirable in our present state; nor could our nervous system sustain too much of it.
Often we must be down on the long-stretching plains of every-day hum-drum realities; and sometimes we must needs be down in some grim valley, drawing the sword in fierce battle against Apollyon himself.
Yet, whether up on the mountain top, or down on the monotonous plain, or deep in some valley of trial, I am convinced of this, that we Christian believers need never lose an uninterrupted consciousness of our indwelling Saviour. Surely this is implied in the words, ‘Christ liveth in me.’ To be Christocentric is to be all the while Christ-conscious.”
J. Sidlow Baxter
His Victorious Indwelling, 105-106
Nick Harrison, Editor
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Living With Sublime Confidence
Posted by jerrywhite on Jan 31, 2013
I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
Philippians 4:13 (ESV)
~~~
“Paul faced life with an air of sublime confidence because he was conscious of possessing reserves adequate for meeting any situation whatsoever. His assertion is so remarkable that we should be quite clear about the nature of the power that made such poise possible.
It was not human power. No man, however strong in himself, would dare to say, ‘I can do all things.’
It was not human power reinforced. We have heard of the soldier in Wellington’s army who asked to be allowed to grasp the Iron Duke’s ‘all-conquering hand’ before going on a dangerous mission. A magnetic personality can do much to brace the flagging morale of another.
But the power of which Paul spoke was more than that. It was nothing less than Christ’s own power communicated to him and into him through the medium of mystic union. We might translate still more accurately: ‘I am strong for anything in Him Who infuses strength into me.’
Christ’s own strength within me! I see the Man of Nazareth moving from task to task in a great calm that was never disturbed. He knew no defeat. He was never thrown off balance. In one day He was confronted successively with a raging sea, a raving demoniac, a disease that no man could heal, and finally with death itself. He was equal to everything.
The power that made Him competent for His tasks is available to make me competent for mine. Should I not live in Union with Him and use the power? Then I, too, shall have the rest of adequate resources.”
G. H. Morling
The Quest for Serenity, 84-85
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A Savior Born
Posted by jerrywhite on Dec 27, 2012
Let the stable still astonish:
Straw—dirt floor, dull eyes,
Dusty flanks of donkeys, oxen;
Crumbling, crooked walls;
No bed to carry that pain,
And then, the child,
Rag-wrapped, laid to cry
In a trough.
Who would have chosen this?
Who would have said, “Yes,
Let the God of all the heavens
And earth
Be born here, in this place?”
Who but the same God
Who stands in the darker, fouler rooms
Of our hearts and says, “Yes, let the God
Of Heaven and Earth be born here—
In this place.”
Leslie Leyland Fields
~~~
That the Creator Himself would be born as a creature in a stable is astonishing, but that He would actually come to live inside His followers by His Spirit is incomprehensible. That the Lord Jesus is all the fullness of God in a body is unfathomable, but that we as His believers have this very same fullness in Him is staggering (Colossians 2:9-10). What difference would it make to us if we really believed that we have all of His fullness in our very selves—that we are literally the temple of His Holy Spirit—that He is truly closer to us than our own breath—that we are as one with the Lord Jesus as He is with His Father? For this miraculous Gift I praise you, O God! I receive it with deep thankfulness. I marvel at how You love me!
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