Posted on 08/25/2008 4:26:59 PM PDT by guitarplayer1953
1-16 MUTUAL VIEWPOINT
"That ye may know what is the hope of His calling and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints" (Ephesians 1:18)
In order to share effectively with needy believers it is essential to know what the Father has purposed for His own. And this understanding results from personal growth in the Lord Jesus. Those who are merely well-versed may be able to teach, but they cannot truly share; their understanding of the needs of the heart is deficient, and this becomes all too evident to the hearers. Head-knowledge (study) must be integrated with heart-knowledge (experience) in order for there to be Spirit-motivated sharing.
"The true hope makes all the difference to us in our ministry. Our expectations have been personally proven. It makes possible joy in the midst of sorrow, confidence in the midst of defeat. It changes our attitude toward those to whom we minister. We see them not as they are at the moment but as we know the Lord is going to make them. Then patience and forgiveness are easy, for we already see the Lord's finished work. It changes our prayer for them. We ask not for some little progress or partial blessing for them but for the Lord's complete victory. It changes our teaching ministry to them. Instead of fearfully giving a little more of God's truth, we confidently declare all the counsel of God. There is ever before us the joy of the finished work which we know the Lord is going to accomplish." -A.M.
"Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:6)
1-17 RESTFUL ACTIVITY
"In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength" (Isaiah 30:15)
There is a great difference between sloth, and rest; between deadness, and quietness. There is also a vast difference between constant nervous busyness, and Spirit-controlled activity; between working for God, and having Him do His work through us. It is the infinite difference between self, and Christ,
"In God and man working together, there is nothing of the idea of a partnership between two partners who each contribute their share to a work. Rather, the true plan is that of co-operation founded on subordination. As the Lord Jesus was entirely dependent on the Father for all His words and all His works, so the believer can do nothing of himself. What he can do of himself is altogether sinful. He must therefore cease entirely from his own doing, and wait for the working of God in him. As he ceases from self-effort, faith assures him that God does what He has undertaken, and works in him.
"And what God does is to renew, to sanctify, and waken all his energies to their most useful power. So that just in proportion as he yields himself a truly passive instrument in the hand of the Father, will he be wielded of Him as the active instrument of His will and power. The soul in which the wondrous combination of quiet passivity with the highest activity is most completely realized, has the deepest experience of what the Christian life is." -A.M.
"So He fed them according to the integrity of His heart; and guided them by the skillfulness of His hands" (Psalm 78:72)
1-18 DEVELOPED GIFT
"But the Lord is faithful, who shall stablish you, and keep you from evil" (2 Thessalonians 3:3)
Though we receive our faith from Him, it must be developed in us by Him. Undeveloped faith never progresses beyond the babe-in-Christ, milk-of-the-Word stage. "But solid food is for adults that is, for those who through constant practice have their spiritual faculties carefully trained to distinguish good from evil. Therefore leaving elementary instruction about the Christ, let us advance to mature manhood" (Hebrews 5:14-6:1, Weymouth).
"You will never learn faith in comfortable surroundings. God gives us promises in a quiet hour; He seals our covenants with great and gracious words. Then He steps back and waits while we believe; then He lets the tempter come, and the test seems to contradict all that He has spoken. It is then that faith wins its crown. Then is the time to look into His face and say, 'I believe, Lord, that it shall be done as it was told me.'"
"Without trials of faith we should all be ruined. These trials give us opportunities of linking on to the mighty promises of God and finding through the trials come blessing that wonderfully glorifies Him, or else, missing God, turns the blessing into a burden that fills the heart with weariness and pain." -G.W.
"Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy" (James 5:11)
1-19 NOT "HOW?" BUT "WHAT?"
"And God is able to make all grace abound toward you" (2 Corinthians 9:8)
Once we come to rest in the fact of what He has accomplished for us in Christ, there need be no concern as to how and when He will carry it out in our daily life.
"How many a child of God remains weak and timid because, instead of being occupied with what God has promised, he is considering how it can be fulfilled. But we have nothing to do with the how; it is enough that our Father has given us His Word. Whatever, therefore, may be the nature of the suffering or trial through which we have to pass, let us ever account that God is able to fulfil all His promises.
"Let nothing ever lead us to doubt the certainty of His Word, though we may be utterly at a loss to understand the manner in which He may see fit to accomplish it. We shall then be able to testify, with Joshua of old:
'Not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spoke concerning you; all are come to pass unto you, and not one thing hath failed thereof' (Joshua 23:14)." -E.H.
Our Father often encourages the weak in faith by giving speedy answers to prayer; but the strong in faith will be further developed by God's delays. Delayed answers to prayer are not only trials of faith, but opportunities of honoring God by our steadfast confidence in Him."
"For all the promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him Amen" (2 Corinthians 1:20)
1-20 SATISFYING PORTION
"God is the strength of my heart, and my portion forever" (Psalm 73.26)
Finally, when all else fails us, we find that God is enough. That which we most need in life; love, unfailing love; is abundantly and satisfyingly ours in the Lord Jesus. But we so often seek it elsewhere.
"Nothing can be sweeter than the repose in divine love when it is known and the heart is free to rest in it. The soul may have a long journey to reach it experientially; there may be many needs and exercises to be met and removed on the way; self and the world will have to be learned; but the great end of all our exercises; and, I may add, of all our deliverances; is that we rest in the thoughts of divine love, and that love becomes in a very real way the portion of our hearts. If our hearts are not in the circle of divine love they have really got nothing, for as Christians we have no portion on earth. Thank God! it is a blessed and satisfying portion." -C.A.C.
"There is no reserve in God's love; He has given the best in heaven for the worst on earth, and in this way has rebuked distrust and established confidence, so that 'the works of the devil' might be undone in our hearts. If we only want what God gives us we shall be perfectly happy. Nothing is of real value to us that we cannot take from our Father's hand and thank Him for."
"And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God" (2 Thessalonians 3:5)
1-21 PREARRANGED
"As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him" (Colossians 2:6)
How readily and eagerly we take His Word when He says, "I go to prepare a place for you" (John 14:2), yet how slow of heart we are to believe that He has prepared a walk for us, here and now!
"For we are God's [own] handiwork (His workmanship), recreated in Christ Jesus, [born anew] that we may do those good works which God predestined (planned beforehand) for us, (taking paths which He prepared ahead of time) that we should walk in them living the good life which He prearranged and made ready for us to live" (Ephesians 2:10, Amp.).
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ" (Ephesians 1:3, ASV).
If you can run over in your mind and find one single blessing with which God might bless us today, with which He has not already blessed us, then what He told Paul is not true at all, because He said, 'God hath....' It is all done, 'It is finished.' God hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies! The great pity of it all is that we are saying 'O God bless us, bless us in this, bless us in that! and it is all done; He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ in the heavenlies. It is our place to believe and receive." -L.L.L.
"According as His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness" (2 Peter 1:3)
1-22 FREEDOM TO "BE"
"Having died to that wherein we were held; so that we serve in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of the letter" (Romans 7:6, ASV)
The law was applied to the natural man, that he might produce; grace is given to the spiritual man, that He might produce.
"Almost every believer makes the same mistake as the Galatian Christians. Very few learn at conversion at once that it is only by faith that we stand, and walk, and live. They have no conception of the meaning of the Word about being dead to the law, freed from the law, about the freedom with which Christ makes us free (Romans 7:6). Regarding the law as a divine ordinance for our direction, they consider themselves prepared and fitted by conversion to take up the fulfillment of the law as a natural duty. They cannot understand that it is not to the law, but to a living Person, that we are now bound, and that our obedience and growth are only possible by the unceasing faith in His power and life ever working in us (Philippians 2:13)." -A.M.
"Good and holy and perfect as the law of God is, it is entirely powerless either to justify or sanctify. It cannot in any way make the old nature better; neither is it the rule of the new nature. The old man is not subject to it, and the new man does not need it. The new creation has another object before it, and another power that acts upon it, in order to produce what is lovely and acceptable to God Christ the object, realized by the power of the Holy Spirit." -W.K.
"Not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life" (Hebrews 7:16)
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