The Word of God makes it clear in more than one place that there is a
sovereignty behind the lives of His own, "the called according to His
purpose"...
Which may have not just let that thing happen, but actually
ordained it...
And made that very thing, ordered by the will of God, the
means by which something should come from our lives very much to the
glory of God. I know that it is not easy to take that attitude toward
things when you are in them - it is the most difficult thing... But here is something which is concrete as a statement, and it says in a
general way to us, "to them that love God... that are called according
to his purpose" (Rom. 8:28):
Rom 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. ~T. Austin Sparks
Psalm 107:4 They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way; they found no city to dwell in.
All who fight the Lord's battles must
be content to die to the favorable opinions of men and the flattery of
human praise.
We cannot make an exception even in favor of the good
opinions of the children of God.
It is very easy for the insidious
adversary to make this also an appeal to the flesh. It is all right when God sends us the approval of our fellow men...
However, we must never make that approval a motive in our life.
All such
motives are poison and deprive us of the strength with which we are to
give glory to God.
Rather, we must be content with the solitary way and
the lonely wilderness. The man of God must walk alone with God.
He must be content in the
realization that God knows all things.
It is such a relief to the
natural man within us to fall back upon human countenances and human
thoughts...
And sympathy that we often deceive ourselves and think it
"brotherly love"...
When, in fact, we are just resting in the earthly
sympathy of some fellow worm!
You and I, dear friends, individually, and if we belong to a company of the Lord's people, that company, will only make progress toward that full, ultimate end of God in Christ if we have a spiritual vision of Jesus Christ.
Vision is essential to progress. Is it necessary
for me to stay with the word 'vision'? I am not thinking about something
objective that you see with your eyes of flesh. It is something that has happened inside of you, and your inner spiritual eyes have been opened. You can say: I have SEEN, and that has revolutionized my life.
That has put me on my feet.
That has set me on a course. That has become a dynamic in my life which, IN SPITE OF MYSELF, keeps me going.
Yes, thank God, it works like that. I
know the aspect, the factor, of our responsibility, but God help you
and me if it is all going to be left to our responsibility and what we
do! I tell you - and this may have been your experience, or it
may interpret your present experience - many, many times I would have
given up the race. That is an awful confession!
Indeed many
times I have given it up in my heart.
It became so difficult that I
could go no further, so I gave up. It was not, therefore, my persistence that enabled me to go on, but what the Apostle calls "the power that worketh in us". What is that?
The Holy Spirit has put a dynamic in us and we have seen.
We cannot un-see!
We cannot go back. The
seeing may fade, and it may even be eclipsed by days of darkness and
trouble.
We may know what Paul meant when he said: 2Co 1:8 For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life: That was a terrible thing for the
greatest of all apostles to say!
What happened?
Did Paul give up and
say: 'Well, I cannot go on!'?
No, not at all! The power that
worketh in us got him on his feet again and again.
Let Elijah seek out
his juniper tree and say: 'Take away my life!', but the Lord does not
agree....
He has given Elijah a part in his great, eternal purpose, and so
he will come up again. Be encouraged! Are you down? Are you despondent? Are you despairing? Are you feeling you cannot go on? You still come up again, for something has taken place. I
am calling it 'vision', but that may be misleading.
What I mean is that
something has come into our life which is a spiritual knowledge and has
become a spiritual dynamic, giving us a sense of purpose, God's
purpose. It is something that God has done, and that is going to be the secret of our survival, at least. But for that we will not survive. We
will not get through on any resource of our own, but we will go on in
the going as the eternal goings of God if there has been this initial
seeing of God's purpose in Jesus Christ. ~T. Austin Sparks
