Progressiveness In God's Dealings

In the course of our spiritual history God deals with us in ever-deepening ways. Down, down, down, He goes, until He touches bottom to have things true at our very depth.

He undercuts all our professions, doctrines, assumptions, pretensions, illusions, and customs.

There is no mere formalism about this; no mere Jewish ritual in this; no mere outward observance of rites and ceremonies in this! No! 

This has got to go right into the inmost being, in the inward parts. God works toward that.

God is ever working toward the most inward parts. Do you recognize that? 

Do you understand what He is doing with us? 

Oh, He will meet us with blessing on a certain level, as we walk before Him, like the man in Psalm 1.

He will meet us with His gracious provision when we transgress and trespass and fail, and do wrong - He will meet us there in grace. 

But God is going to pursue this matter to the most inward place of our being, and register there His work of grace and redemption.

"Thou desirest...", and David did not come to that until he reached the profoundest, the deepest place of need, of failure, of conscious weakness and worthlessness. Then he cried.

It is not enough to just please God in ordinary ways; it is not enough to observe the ritual of the Law, and go to the ceremonies, and carry out all that which is external.

God is after truth in the inward parts, right down into the depths of our being.

Why? Why? Because truth is a major feature and constituent of the Divine nature.

God is called the God of Truth; Jesus Christ, the second Person of the Godhead, called Himself the Truth - "I am... the truth";

"To this end am I come into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth"; the Holy Spirit is described as the Spirit of Truth - "when He, the Spirit of truth, is come...".

The Godhead, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, are characterized by this one feature - truth!

And God desires and has set His heart upon having people who are partakers of the Divine nature, and so He is working ever more deeply toward this end: what is true of Himself shall be true of His children - those begotten of Him - that they should be true sons of God in this sense.

~T. Austin Sparks~