Called Chosen Faithful

                                     

Gen 12:1-2 Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:

The call of God contains both grace and truth. 

Truth is the separating instrument. "Get thee out." Grace is the promise. "I will bless and make a blessing."

Man often grasps at the grace, the "I will bless" of God, and fails to comply with the demand thereof - "Get thee out." 

Now this does not only apply in the matter of our salvation in its first steps, but it comes in new revelations and calls at different times in the Christian life.

The call of God to some fuller and higher acceptance of truth and ministry; of testimony and witness; of surrender and experience, will undoubtedly come by one or another of the Divine forms of visitation to such as the Lord wishes to lead in grace.

This will be timed, definite, and challenging. 

A messenger may come as out from nowhere; the nowhere of reputation, recognition, worldly fame or honor. 

He will deliver a message, only staying long enough to leave its essential implications with those who hear.

Then, having passed on, things can never be the same for them again.

The "call" has sounded. The crisis has been precipitated. 

The issue is between the life which has been with its limitations known or unrecognized, and that which God offers.

But, as usually is the case, this truth is going to call for a "getting out." 

Getting out, it may be, of a certain popularity, a comparative easy going. There may be a risking of reputation, a loss of prestige, a disfavor among men, a being labeled "singular," "peculiar," "extreme," "unsafe." 

It may mean a head-on impact of all the prejudice, tradition, and disfavor of the religious world.

It may involve exclusion, ostracism, and suspicion.

These are the accompaniments of all calls of God to advance with Him beyond accepted standards. 

This is the cost of path-finding for souls. This is the price to be paid for the higher serviceableness to God and men.

~T. Austin Sparks~

The Divine Gardener

We may think that our lot is especially hard  and may wish that it were otherwise.

We may wish that we had a life of ease and luxury, amid softer scenes with no briers or thorns, no worries or provocations. 

We think that then we would be always gentle, patient, serene, trustful, happy. How delightful it would be never to have a care, an irritation, a trouble, a single vexing thing!

But the fact remains that the place in which we find ourselves is the very place in which the Master desires us to live our life!

There is no haphazard in God's world. God leads every one of His children by the right way. He knows where and under what influences, each particular life will ripen best. 

One tree grows best in the sheltered valley, another by the water's edge, another on the bleak mountain-top swept by storms.

Every tree or plant is found in the precise locality to enhance its growth. And does God give more thought to trees and plants than to His own children? No!

He places us amid the circumstances and experiences in which our life will grow and ripen the best. 

The peculiar trials to which we are each subjected is the exact discipline we each need to bring out the beauties and graces of true spiritual character in us.

We are in the right school. We may think that we would ripen more quickly in a more easy and luxurious life. But God knows what is best for us He makes no mistakes!

There is a little fable which says that a primrose growing by itself in a shady corner of the garden, became discontented as it saw the other flowers in their mirthful beds in the sunshine, and begged to be moved to a more conspicuous place.

Its prayer was granted. The gardener transplanted it to a more showy and sunny spot.

It was greatly pleased but a change came over it immediately. 

Its blossoms lost much of their beauty, and became pale and sickly. The hot sun caused them to faint and wither.

So it prayed again to be taken back to its old place in the shade. The wise gardener knows best, where to plant each flower.

Just so, God, The divine Gardener, knows where His people will best grow into what He would have them to be.

Some require the fierce storms; some will only thrive in the shadow of worldly adversity; and some come to ripeness more sweetly under the soft and gentle influences of prosperity whose beauty, rough experiences would mar.

The divine Gardener knows what is best for each one! 

There is no position in this world in the allotment of Providence, in which it is not possible to be a true Christian, exemplifying all the virtues of godliness.

The grace of Christ has in it, potency enough to enable us to live godly wherever we are called to dwell.

When God chooses a home for us He fits us for its peculiar trials.

God adapts His grace to the peculiarities of each one's necessity.

For rough, flinty paths He provides shoes of iron. He never sends anyone to climb sharp, rugged mountain-sides, wearing silken slippers. He always gives sufficient grace.

As the burdens grow heavier the strength increases. As the difficulties thicken He draws closer. As the trials become sorer the trusting heart grows calmer. 

Jesus always sees His disciples, when they are toiling in the waves  and at the right moment He comes to deliver them. Thus it becomes possible to live a true and victorious life in any circumstances. 

Christ can as easily enable Joseph to remain pure and true in heathen Egypt as Benjamin in the shelter of his father's love.

The sharper the temptations the more of divine grace is granted. There is, therefore, no environment of trial, or difficulty or hardship in which we cannot live beautiful lives of Christian fidelity and holy conduct.

Instead, then, of yielding to discouragement when trials multiply and it becomes hard to live right, or of being satisfied with a very faulty life it should be our settled purpose to live, through the grace of God a patient, gentle and unspotted life in the place, and amid the circumstances, He allots to us.

The true victory is not found in escaping or evading trials but in rightly meeting and enduring them.

The questions should not be, "How can I get out of these worries? How can I get into a place where there shall be no irritations, nothing to try my temper or put my patience to the test? How can I avoid the distractions that continually harass me?" There is nothing noble in such living.

The questions should rather be, "How can I pass through these trying experiences and not fail as a Christian?

How can I endure these struggles and not suffer defeat?

How can I live amid these provocations, these testings of my temper and yet live sweetly, not speaking unadvisedly, bearing injuries meekly, returning gentle answers to insulting words?"

This is the true problem of Christian living.

~J. R. Miller~

How Much Did He Leave?

People are badly cheated in this world. They imagine that the things they can see are the real things... that the gold, lands, and stocks are the true treasures. So they toil for those things and gather them into their possession, piling up what they suppose to be wealth. Thus they live in pomp, with their fine houses, and all their brilliant show.

But one day their supposed riches sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle. Or they may keep their wealth, perchance, and die at last in the midst of it, and have a great funeral; but they find that they cannot carry a penny of it with them. "How much did he leave?" was asked about a rich man who had died. "All of it!" was the answer.

If only people knew that there are things which will never fly away  they would no longer live for fleeting worldly wealth. They would pass by the glittering unrealities, to lay hold of the true riches. He who is rich toward God is the truly wealthy man.

~J. R. Miller~

What Is It For You To Be A Christian?

We ought to seek to gather in this world treasure that we can carry with us through death's gates, and into the eternal world.  

We should strive to build into our lives qualities that shall endure.

Men slave and work to get a little money, or to obtain honor, or power, or to win an earthly crown but when they pass into the great vast forever, they take nothing of all this with them!

Yet there are things---virtues, fruits of character, graces, which men do carry with them out of this world.

What a man IS he carries with him into the eternal world. 

Money and rank and pleasures and earthly gains he leaves behind him; but his character, he takes with him into eternity!

This suggests at once, the importance of character and character-building.

Character is not what a man professes to be but what he really IS, as God sees him.

A man may not be as good as his reputation. A good reputation may hide an evil heart and life. Reputation is not character. Reputation is what a man's neighbors and friends think of him; character is what the man IS.

Christ's character is the model, the ideal, for every Christian life.

We are to be altogether like Him; therefore all of life's aiming and striving should be towards Christ's blessed beauty.

His image we find in the Gospels. We can look at it every day. We can study it in its details, as we follow our Lord in His life among men, in all the variations of experience through which He passed.

A little Christian girl was asked the question, "What is it for you to be a Christian?"

She answered, "It is to do as Jesus would do, and behave as He would behave if He were a little girl and lived at our house."

No better answer could have been given. 

And there is scarcely any experience of life for which we cannot find something in Christ's life to instruct us. 

We can find the traits and qualities of His life, as they shine out in His contact with temptation, with enmity, with wrong, with pain, with sorrow.
 
The next thing, when we have the vision of Christ before us, is to get it implanted into our own life. 

We cannot merely dream ourselves into godly manhood or womanhood; we must forge for ourselves, with sweat and anguish, the beautiful visions of Christ-likeness which we find on the Gospel pages!

It will cost us self-discipline, oftentimes anguish, as we must deny ourselves, and cut off the things we love.

SELF must be crucified.

It is not easy to become a godly man, a Christlike man.

~J. R. Miller~

He Gathers Together In One All Things In Christ

There is one comprehensive and all-embodying truth which, if it really gained the complete mastery of our hearts and dominated our whole consciousness, capturing our will, our hearts, and our minds, would really revolutionize everything, just as the new covenant represents a revolution from the old covenant.

The great truth which embodies everything is this: that God has determined that nothing which is not Christ shall remain.

And He is working toward that end, on the one hand to rid this universe of everything that is not Christ; on the other hand to fill this universe with that which is Christ. 

That means that God does not accept or recognize anything whatever that is not Christ. 

Then again, it means that God puts His seal upon what is Christ, and it is all a matter of the measure of Christ.

It is a tremendous thing when that really does come to our hearts with the force and the power which it really does represent.

It explains everything of God's dealings with us. 

It gives us the key to our problems. It sets us at once upon the highway of God's own purpose.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Go Dogs, And Eat The Garbage!

                                                   
I believe that one reason why the church at this present moment has so little influence over the world, is because the world has so much influence over the church! 

Nowadays, we hear professors pleading that they may do this, and do that--that they may live like worldlings. 

My sad answer to them, when they crave this liberty is, "Do it if you dare."

It may not cost you much hurt, for you are so bad already.

Your cravings show how rotten your hearts are. If you are hungering after such dogs food---go dogs, and eat the garbage!
 
Worldly amusements are fit food for pretenders and hypocrites. 

If you were God's children, you would loathe the thought of the world's evil joys.

Your question would not be, "How far may we be like the world?" but your cry would be, "How can we get away from the world? How can we come out of it?"

Php 4:8  Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. 

~Charles Spurgeon~

Surgery For Healing

Come, and let us return unto the LORD: for He hath torn, and He will heal us; He hath smitten, and He will bind us up (Hosea 6:1).

It is the LORD's way to tear before He heals.  

This is the honest love of His heart and the sure surgery of His hand. He also bruises before He binds up, or else it would be uncertain work.

The law comes before the gospel, the sense of need before the supply of it.

Is the reader now under the convincing, crushing hand of the Spirit?

Has he received the spirit of bondage again to fear?

This is a salutary preliminary to real gospel healing and binding up.

Do not despair, dear heart, but come to the LORD with all thy jagged wounds, black bruises, and running sores. 

He alone can heal, and He delights to do it. It is our LORD's office to bind up the brokenhearted, and He is gloriously at home at it. 

Let us not linger but at once return unto the LORD from whom we have gone astray. 

Let us show Him our gaping wounds and beseech him to know His own work and complete it.

Will a surgeon make an incision and then leave his patient to bleed to death?

Will the LORD pull down our old house and then refuse to build us a better one? 

Dost Thou ever wantonly increase the misery of poor anxious souls? 

That be far from Thee, O LORD

 ~Charles Spurgeon~ 

TURN FROM SIN!

There is grace for the man who quits his sin, but there is tribulation and wrath upon every man who continues in evil.

If you do not turn, he will whet his sword; he has bent his bow, and made it ready.

The gospel is all tenderness to the repenting, but all terror to the obstinate offender. It has pardon for the very chief of sinners, and mercy for the vilest of the vile, if they will forsake their sins.

But it is according to the gospel that if a person goes on in his iniquity, he shall be cast into hell, and he that believes not shall be damned.

With deep love to the souls of men, I bear witness to the truth that he who does not turn with repentance and faith to Christ, shall go away into punishment as everlasting as the life of the righteous.
 
~Charles Spurgeon~

Stand upon The Truth

For I am the LORD, I change not. (Malachi 3:6)                                         

The authority of darkness is a very real thing to us.

We have experiences, and if we were to capitulate to them, that would be the end of us. He tries to bring upon us that impingement of the authority of darkness, and if we surrender to it, capitulate to it, accept it, we are beaten.

If we are the Lord's, Christ is within, and Christ is supreme and we must go on even if we have no feeling, or if we have a very bad feeling; when it seems to be the last thing we ought to be saying, we say it because it is God's fact, and when we begin to affirm God's fact we win through.

Believers know what it is for the enemy to try to make them accept the authority of darkness. 

Stand upon the truth of God. God does not change with our feelings. God does not alter with our consciousness.

This whole life of ours is subject to variation more swift than the variation of weather, but He rules, unalterable, unchangeable.

He is "the same yesterday, and today, and for ever."

And if He is there within, He has come to stay, and victory is in faith; believing that, standing on that, holding to that; and we must carry that through to its final and full issue, that He is Lord of all, "Head of all principality and power." 

Satan will sometimes try to make us believe that he is in the place of ascendancy, the place of supremacy, but since Calvary he is not, we stand there.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Walking Around In The Fire

Daniel 3:25  He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.

When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were thrown into
the furnace, the fire did not stop them from moving, for they
were seen “walking around.”  

Actually, the fire was one of the streets they traveled to their destination.

The comfort we have from Christ’s revealed truth is not that it teaches us freedom from sorrow but that it teaches us freedom through sorrow.
 
O dear God, when darkness overshadows me, teach me that I am merely traveling through a tunnel. It will then be enough for me to know that someday it will be all right.
 
I have been told that someday I will stand at the top of the Mount of Olives and experience the height of resurrection
glory. 

But heavenly Father, I want more---I want Calvary to lead up to it. 

I want to know that the shadows of darkness are the shade on a road---the road leading to Your heavenly house.
 
Teach me that the reason I must climb the hill is because Your
house is there! 

Knowing this, I will not be hurt by sorrow, if I will only walk in the fire. 

~George Matheson~
 
The road is too rough, I said; It is uphill all the way; No flowers, but thorns instead; And the skies overhead are gray.
 
But One took my hand at the entrance dim, And sweet is the road that I walk with Him.

The cross is too great, I cried---More than the back can bear, So rough and heavy and wide, And nobody near to care.
 
And One stooped softly and touched my hand: I know. I care. And I understand.
 
Then why do we fret and cry; Cross-bearers all we go: But the road ends by and by In the dearest place we know, And every step in the journey we May take in the Lord’s own company.

GOD Is Developing The Mind Of Christ In You

1Th 5:23  And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  

You see that God never takes our will away, nor our mind, nor our heart. 

Some people expect God to come and do all their choosing for them, and all their desiring for them, and all their deciding for them, while they are simply to be poor things picked up by God and put into things which He desires and wills. God never does that.

He is developing a humanity. Were we spirits I do not know how we might act; we might act spontaneously. But we are not.

God has created a kind of being with a rational mind. The three-fold element of spirit, soul and body is still to be found, yet not now in Adam, but in Christ.

God is developing the Christ mind; how He thinks, judges, understands, and when we see the Lord's mind we see how very different it is from our own natural mind; and our own natural mind is beside the mark altogether, and we must repudiate it. 

This is spiritual understanding, the mind of the Spirit.

The same thing applies to our feelings and our desires. They may lead us all astray. 

There is a new outfit in Christ for our hearts, but there is always the necessity for our standing with the Lord in what is of Himself. 

Passivity may be a most ruinous thing. In all the values of Christ risen there has to be a taking of that risen Life for the equivalent need of mind, heart, will; of spirit, soul, and body.

~T. Austin Sparks~