Pioneers 02

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THE HEAVENLY REALM UNKNOWN TO US BY NATURE

 

Again, that other realm, the consciousness of which has come into our hearts, the gravitation toward which has commenced in our spirits, is an entirely unknown world to us by nature. To nature it is another realm altogether – different, unfamiliar, unexplored. It does not matter how many have gone on before us, it does not matter how many there are who have started on this way and gone a long way in it: for every individual it is an altogether new world and it can only be known by experience. We may derive values from the experience of others, and thank God for all those values, but with all their experiences they cannot get us one step further on that way. For us it is new, utterly new, and strange. We have to learn everything about it from the beginning.

 

That makes pioneering – what pioneering always is – lonely way. No one can hand down to us a heritage. We have to obtain our own in that world, strange and unknown as it is; demanding basically a new constitution according to that world, with capacities that are not possessed by nature. No man by searching can find out God (Job 11:7); we have not the capacity. It must be born in us from heaven. We have got to make the discovery for ourselves of everything. We have to discover God for ourselves, in every detail of His willing relationship to the human heart.

 

Light may come through testimony, light may come through the Scriptures, help may come through counsel, inspiration may come to us from those who have ploughed through and gone ahead, but in the last analysis we have got to possess our own spiritual plot in the heavenly country, subdue it, cultivate it and exploit it. You know that is true; that you are going that way in the spiritual life. You are having to find out for yourself.

 

Oh, how we long for somebody to be able to pick us up and put us through on the good of their experience! The Lord never allows that. If really and truly we are on the heavenly road – if we have not just started and sat down or given up: if we are moving on the heavenly road, we are all pioneers. There will be values in it which others will come into because we have pioneered, but there is a sense in which every one, no matter how far behind, has got to make discoveries for himself, and it is best so. Ultimately, there is nothing second-hand in the spiritual life.

Vision and Vocation 03

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Some of us remember well the day of our pressing through fully to experience, when the thing about which we had been talking for so long suddenly, by a marvellous act of the Spirit, became life in us, and we were able to say ”This is THAT”! ”This is that which was spoken by the prophet.” There was a transition from known truth to living truth; from known doctrine to present experience; and the ringing declaration went forth – ”This is THAT”!

 

We have all got to know that transition. We have the doctrine, and now the thing has to be quickened; made life in us, until we independently stand in the power of it. How much do you depend upon conferences and teachers to keep you going? Must you attend meetings just because you feel that the last lot you got has been used up and you must get a fresh supply? Or have you been emancipated from all human props and put into a place of glorious independence, because you KNOW YOUR GOD? It doesn’t matter if you are plunged into the middle of the Sahara, you know your God and can stand independently of all natural helps – this thing has become YOU!

 

That is the kind of knowledge that means power. That is the kind of experience which overcomes the world. That is the kind of thing that makes all the other systems go down, and you rise triumphantly above them. That was the secret of the apostolic church. Let kings do what they like, let the people rage – it goes on, and it is the Roman Empire that goes to pieces before this thing, and not this thing that goes down before the Roman Empire. It is an independent personal knowledge of God, resultant from an inward birth, that lives. Not only an objective truth, but a subjective power, and it is a great day when the slightest fragment of known truth becomes a vital personal experience in its working ability.

 

That is what we want. First-hand knowledge, not second-hand truth. May God work this into our very beings until it becomes us. Take it in fragments if you like, and ask the Lord to work it out in you and make it live in you.

 

Centrality of Christ # 08

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Christ, with whom the Father is completely satisfied on the matter of all righteousness, is within the believer; so that the believer in Christ has all righteousness in Him; God is satisfied. The believer is not any more righteous in himself than he ever was, but the Righteous One is within.

 

God does not look upon us, He looks upon His Son in us; and so now Christ lives within, and Paul says in effect, “Now I live, not by holding on to the law but by holding on to Christ, and the thing with which I hold on to Christ is faith.” “And that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God.” “I am holding on to Him by faith, and I live.”

 

There is no condemnation, therefore there is no death; for righteousness is here, and where righteousness is there is no condemnation. There is no sin in Him, and there being no sin in Him, death and judgment have no power, no relationship. He is here, and therefore, He is the living One in the power of a life indestructible, unassailable. “I live by holding on to Him in faith.” How? By saying, when the Accuser comes to lay a charge at my door, to bring me under condemnation and death: “Christ is my righteousness.”

 

When the Accuser assails with a fiery dart and says: “You are displeasing to the Father” (providing I am not willfully indulging in sin, knowingly doing that which is displeasing to the Lord, and the enemy tries to bring upon me the sense of being displeased to the Lord and get me down into death), I say: “Christ, who satisfies the Father for me, is in me, the Father is well pleased with Him and He is in me”; and if by faith I hold on to Him, link myself with Him, instead of dying I live, instead of coming under condemnation I triumph; and in that sense Christ within is the life, that life which we live. We live triumphantly not by struggling against sin, and not by trying to answer back the Accuser as on our own ground, but by presenting Christ and holding on to Christ as within us, by faith.

 

Christ is God’s satisfaction within our own hearts. What more do you want? And faith constantly holds on to Him as God’s satisfaction. “I have been crucified with Christ” – Why rake me up then? “… and it is no longer I that live” – Why try and charge me with something then? “He that hath died is justified from sin” “… but Christ liveth in me.”

 

If you can charge Him with sin, and if you can lay sin to His charge, then there is no hope for me; but inasmuch as He is to the Father all that the Father requires in me, and I constantly keep the link of faith strong in what He is to the Father for me, I live. I do not die, I live, He is my life; He becomes my life in that sense. You see it is something more than our regarding Christ as the vital energy within us which keeps us alive.

 

There is a great background to this whole thing. It gathers up all that Christ is in His person towards the Father, and all that Christ has done in His work on the Cross to satisfy the Father, and that is brought into us to be our indwelling portion, and then faith links on with that, keeps hold of that, and we live, “… and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me.”

The Purpose of Ministry

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The Purpose of Ministry and Fellowship

 

What should be the predominant motive and aim of ministry, whether to us or through us? It certainly should be with God’s end in view. . . and everything should be sacrificed for, or brought into line with, that. God’s one end is likeness to His Son.

 

In ministry everything must be subjected to the test as to how far it is calculated to reach that end. With God Himself, the value of anything and everything is determined by this. Methods, materials, manner, personal presence, and everything are to come under this test. Only the Holy Spirit can bring to Christ and conform to Christ; hence, ministry is of value according as it is in the Holy Spirit.

 

Not only does this apply to our ministry, but it must influence us in the matter of what we accept and where we go. Are we being built up in Christ? Does what we receive really tend to increase Him inwardly in us? Is it Christ who is being ministered to us in the Holy Spirit? If not, then no matter how interesting, brilliant, informing, or attractive the ministry may be, we are wasting our time, the eternal thing is not being done, and God’s end is being missed.

 

This principle must also apply to the fellowship of believers. It is so easy to fall into the trap of talking on all sorts of commonplaces – matters of interest – and often, into a spiritually dissipating jocularity and frivolity; and then, when the time is gone, to realize that the heart cries out in hunger for that which alone is its Bread – even Christ. Fellowship should be unto mutual upbuilding. . . and, definitely, unto imparting Christ to one another.

 

Hebron was the place where they made David king and feasted for days in happy fellowship. Fellowship should always be the festivity of the crowned, exalted, glorified Lord. . . and more of Himself in our heart should be the outcome.

 

Everything in the life of the believer from the beginning is related – directly. . . and in a practical way – with Christ in glory; and the nature of union with Christ is that of the Holy Spirit’s activities unto our conformity to His image, individually and corporately.