16/10/2024
Though it pains me to agree with the following, it is nonetheless true. One of the most difficult lessons of the cross you will learn, as a Christian, is that NOTHING good proceeds out from you as a source. When the scriptures declare that there is none righteous, no NOT ONE. Believe you me, it means no one! This is a "truth" we all have to come to grips with. Why? Because the elevation of the self was the result of the fall, in the garden. The self, EGO in the Greek! This is the number one nemesis of your soul's salvation! This world and it's kingdom of darkness is hinged upon Satan's own claim in Isaiah 14...12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
In fallen man, this is the very heartbeat of mankind. Which is why so many scriptures talk about pride, arrogance and how God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Unless God builds the house, the builder builds in vain!!!I
"I went in response to a revelation and set before them the gospel." (Galatians 2:2 NIV)
How important it is that every fresh undertaking in work for God should come by revelation to those chosen for it. Because God has so spoken and given revelation to some chosen instrument and a truly spiritual work has been done, others have taken it as a model and have sought to imitate it in other places. The result has been, and is, that they are called upon to take responsibility for it – find the resources of workers, funds and general support. This, in turn, issues in many sad and pathetic, if not evil and worldly, methods and means being employed, and those concerned find themselves in a false position. Conception, not imitation, is the Divine law of reproduction. Anointing, not human selection, is the Divine law of succession. The fact is that the work of God has become a sphere for so many natural elements to find expression and gratification. Man must do something, see something, have something. Ambition, acquisition, achievement, etc., have found their way over to Christian enterprise, and so, very often (let us be quite frank) things have become 'ours' – 'our work,' 'our mission,' 'our field,' 'our clientele'; and jealousies, rivalries, bitterness and many other things of the flesh abound.
It is a very difficult thing, a crucifixion indeed, for the natural man to do nothing and have nothing, and especially to know nothing. But in the case of His most greatly used instruments, God has made this a very real part of their training and preparation. The utter emptying of all self-resource is the only way to have "all things of (out from) God" (2 Cor. 5:18). On this basis, even Christ elected to live. We need not remind you of Moses' "I am not eloquent" (Exo. 4:10), and Jeremiah's "I am a child" (Jer. 1:6), and Paul's "that we should not trust in ourselves" (2 Cor. 1:9). These were of a school in which the great lesson of the difference between natural and spiritual was taught experimentally.
By T. Austin-Sparks from: What is Man? - Chapter 5
