The Problem Of The Stone

                                                         

Mar 16:4  And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for it was very great.
 

Mar 16:5  And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were affrighted.
 

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.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Self ~Denial And True~Repentance

                                                                            

Repentance means more than saying, "Lord, I am wrong." It also means saying,"Lord, You are right!"

Repentance means facing the truth about your sin — the truth that it must end now. It is a crisis moment of truth, a place of recognition where you admit, "I cannot continue in my sin and have the Holy Ghost living in me. If I do, I will lose everything. Lord, You're right about sin bringing death upon me. I see that
if I continue in it, it's going to destroy me and my family. God, I make no more excuses."

Simply put, repentance is a confrontation with your sin. The battle is fought before you get to the cross~it takes place as the Holy Spirit deals with you.

The same is true of self-denial. In short, self-denial is a confrontation that  says, "Sin ends now at this point!" Contrary to what many "comfort preachers" say, self-denial is not some heartache you have to bear, or some infirmity of your flesh. When Paul said, "I die daily," he meant simply, "I have to deny that I can continue in sin and still have Christ's favor. I don't
have a special dispensation from God to hold on to a pet sin just because I do good works. No! I agree with the Word of God and I deny all my rights to continue in sin."

The glorious truth of the gospel is that if we die with Jesus, we also come into the glory of His resurrection and into newness of life. His cross is our cross, His death is our death, and His resurrection is our resurrection, through our identification and union with Him. That is the real cross we bear.

Yet this is the cross that many so-called ministers of the gospel have done away with. The real cross is not about lovely words describing our Savior's suffering and bleeding on Calvary. No, the true meaning of the cross is that Jesus bled and died to bring our sin-sick souls into glorious liberty and freedom
To break every chain of sin that binds us.
 ~David Wilkerson~