To The Sufferer God Seems To Move So Slowly!

Luke 8:41  And, behold, there came a man named Jairus, and he was a ruler of the synagogue: and he fell down at Jesus' feet, and besought him that he would come into his house:

Luke 8:42  For he had one only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she lay a dying. But as he went the people thronged him.

It was not far from the shore to Jairus house, but it never seemed so long to Jairus as that morning. 

The news soon spread up the street that Jesus was back...

At every turning the crowd gathered and grew, until at last, the way was almost blocked, and Jairus almost in despair. 

Then came an unexpected interruption. 

A poor sick woman had touched the tassel of Jesus' robe and had been healed...

And Jesus had to halt and call her forth, and teach her that there was no magic in the tassel, but that her faith had healed her. 

And all this took so long-or seemed to Jairus to take so long-that when he saw a movement in the crowd, and caught sight of his servant forcing his way through, he knew in a moment that his daughter was dead. 

How slow God often seems! 

How hard it often is to wait with Christ! 

I saw a little girl once playing on the seashore at building castles. 

She built her fort and dug her trenches, and then waited for the waves to fill them. 

But the waves were so long in coming that the little girl lost patience, and in a fit stamped down her battlements and went away. 

And all the time, ceaseless and irresistible, the ocean was creeping up. 

Invisible fingers were drawing the whole sea up to her moat. 

I think she would have waited had she been sure of that. 

So Jairus and you and I must wait. 

Things seem all wrong sometimes. 

We cannot understand why Christ delays. 

Fear not, believe only, and she shall be made whole.   

The Shaking Of The Earthly

Mat 24:1  And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.

How does that strike you? 

The disciples wanting to take the Lord Jesus on a sightseeing trip, and show Him the buildings of the temple! 

That is where their eyes are, that is what they are thinking to be important, that is their idea of impressiveness, importance, greatness and grandeur.... 

You know what follows through Matthew 24. 

We see that material and temporal things according to this world’s ideas and standards of greatness and even of the religious world’s standards, are the things which govern the mentality of these disciples after all this time. 

There is something there so deep-rooted, so inveterate, so persistent. 

We do not judge them, we are just like them. 

However spiritual we may think we are, the fact remains that we are tremendously influenced by temporal standards. 

It is a continuous battleground as to how things stand in this world before men, and even as to what the great religious leaders, and even evangelical leaders of our time regard as the important thing. 

It has a good deal of influence with us.

The Lord makes His pronouncement about that. 

The whole thing is going to be completely disintegrated. 

And it is on a mountain that He takes up this whole question, and you cannot get away from the fact-however it may be chopped up by those who are interested in these things-that at least the first part of this chapter relates to Jerusalem, and what comes out is that it is going to be broken up, shaken to its foundations and will totter to the ground. 

All that which they thought so great and so permanent is going. 

All that which they thought so established here will not have one stone left upon another. 

On the Mount He begins to show the disintegration of the one in order to make room for the other. 

On the Mount heaven touches earth and from there the heavenly dispensation is clearly in view.

~T. Austin Sparks

No Good Thing In Us EXCEPT Christ!

Col 1:27  To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:

What does this mean? 

Not that I come before God saying, “I have had pure motives; I have been very honest, earnest and conscientious, and my intentions have all been of the best.” 

Let us stop talking nonsense. 

It is utter folly to talk like that. 

We do not know ourselves. 

Only God knows the truth about us, and none of that finds a place with Him or counts with Him for a moment. 

The point is, have I recognized that the Cross of the Lord Jesus was the smashing and ending of me, good and bad, so that I am not holding up before the Lord anything? 

I am as capable of the worst as any being in God’s creation is. 

For anybody to take the attitude that they are not capable of the worst is an attitude of the deepest deception. 

We do not know the power in our beings until we are put to it. 

If we have never committed the worst, it is because we have never been put to it in the mercy of God, but it is all there. 

The Lord puts His finger upon it in principle when He says, “He that hates his brother is a murderer.” 

It is the same spirit. 

You have only to extend that, provoke that anger enough, put that nature into certain circumstances, and you will discover that you are capable of things of which you would have stood in utmost horror at one time.

You and I have got to come down before God and admit that we are capable of the worst, not standing on the ground of our right. 

The only right one is Christ from God’s standpoint. 

The only safe one is Christ, and therefore the only one who stands in God’s eyes is Christ...

And it is as you and I, in all the brokenness, frailty, conscious weakness and humility of our own beings, by faith cling to Christ that we shall find the way out, the deliverance, the salvation. 

We must look behind God’s words to see bigger things than words on the surface indicate. 

To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and that trembles at My word. 

That statement embodies all that we are saying. 

To what one will He look? 

To the one who never says, “I am right!”...

But to the one who says, “I may be as wrong as ever a man or woman was wrong, there is nothing of which I am not capable...

My only ground is Christ; so help me God, Christ is my ground!

To stand on Christ is to stand always in the consciousness and recognition that this other ground, ourselves at any point, is dangerous ground.  

He is so Other, and there is the great divide, there is no overlapping. 

Between Christ and us there is a gaping chasm. 

God never sees that bridged, but thank God He will put Christ into us by the Holy Spirit...

And while the two will ever remain apart, the old creation will go one day and that which is of Christ, as wrought into us, will abide.

~T. Austin Sparks