For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.
— Ephesians 5:8
The third class of blessing consists of spiritual treasures which are ours by blood atonement but which will not come to us unless we make a determined effort to possess them. To make things clearer let me set forth four propositions touching this heritage of joy which God has set before us; 3. You will have as little as you are satisfied with. God giveth to all men liberally, but it would be absurd to think that God's liberality will make a man more godly than he wants to be. The man, for instance, who is satisfied to live a defeated life will never be forced to take victory. The man who is content to follow Christ afar off will never know the radiant wonder of His nearness.
The man who is willing to settle for a joyless, barren life will never experience the joy of the Holy Spirit or the deep satisfaction of fruitful living. It is disheartening to those who care, and surely a great grief to the Spirit, to see how many Christians are content to settle for less than the best. Personally I have for years carried a burden of sorrow as I have moved among evangelical Christians who somewhere in their past have managed to strike a base compromise with their heart's holier longings and have settled down to a lukewarm, mediocre kind of Christianity utterly unworthy of themselves and of the Lord they claim to serve. And such are found everywhere. 4. You now have as much as you really want. Every man is as close to God as he wants to be; he is as holy and as full of the Spirit as he wills to be.
Our Lord said, "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled" (Matt. 5:6). If there were but one man anywhere on earth who hungered and was not filled the word of Christ would fall to the ground. Yet we must distinguish wanting from wishing. By "want" I mean wholehearted desire. Certainly there are many who wish they were holy or victorious or joyful but are not willing to meet God's conditions to obtain. That God has placed before His redeemed children a vast world of spiritual treasures and that they refuse or neglect to claim it may easily turn out to be the second greatest tragedy in the history of the moral creation, the first and greatest being the fall of man.
thought
We are to live as children of light because we are light in the Lord. The "living" is our part. The "enabling" is His. Let's not be satisfied with little when He provides so much.
prayer
O Lord, give me a consuming discontent with spiritual poverty! I am a child of the King of kings and the Lord of lords and so I may live.
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
— Matthew 7:7-8
The third class of blessing consists of spiritual treasures which are ours by blood atonement but which will not come to us unless we make a determined effort to possess them. To make things clearer let me set forth four propositions touching this heritage of joy which God has set before us: 1. You will get nothing unless you go after it. God will not force anything on you. As Joshua fought his way into possession of the Promised Land you also must fight on toward perfection, meeting and defeating whatever enemies would stand in the way to challenge your right of possession. The land will not come to you; you must go to the land and on up into it by the way of self-renunciation and detachment from the world. "Those who travel on this road," says John of the Cross, "will meet many occasions of joys and sufferings, hopes and sorrows, some of which are the result of the spirit of perfection, others of imperfection." 2. You may have as much as you insist upon having.
"Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you" (Josh. 1:3) said God to Joshua, and this principle runs throughout the entire Bible. The history of Israel is dotted with stories of those who pressed boldly on to claim their possessions; such, for instance, as Caleb who, after the conquest of Canaan, went to Joshua, demanded the mountain Moses had promised him, and got it. Again, when the daughters of Zelophehad stood before Moses and pleaded, "Give unto us . . . a possession among the brethren of our father" (Num. 27:4) their request was granted. Those women received their inheritance, not by the indulgence of Moses but by the command of God whose promise was involved. When our requests are such as honor God we may ask as largely as we will. The more daring the request the more glory accrues to God when the answer comes.
thought
We may be asking but are we seeking and knocking? God delights to give to the one who will receive. Ask, seek and knock. There is an intensity, a deep desire to see the door open; to claim all that is ours in Christ.
prayer
Father, when I ask for bread You will not give me a stone. You delight in opening to me the treasures in Christ when I ask, seek and knock. May my spiritual knuckles bleed!
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blesising in Christ.
— Ephesians 1:3
Those spiritual blessings in heavenly places which are ours in Christ may be divided into three classes: The first is those which come to us immediately upon our believing unto salvation, such as forgiveness, justification, regeneration, sonship to God and baptism into the Body of Christ. In Christ we possess these even before we know that they are ours, such knowledge coming to us later through the study of the Holy Scriptures. The second class is those riches which are ours by inheritance but which we cannot enjoy in actuality until our Lord returns. These include ultimate mental and moral perfection, the glorification of our bodies, the completion of the restoration of the divine image in our redeemed personalities and the admission into the very presence of God to experience forever the Beatific Vision.
These treasures are as surely ours as if we possessed them now, but it would be useless for us to pray for them while we journey here below. God has made it very clear that they are reserved for the time of the manifestation of the sons of God (Rom. 8:18-25). The third class of blessing consists of spiritual treasures which are ours by blood atonement but which will not come to us unless we make a determined effort to possess them. These are deliverance from the sins of the flesh, victory over self, the constant flow of the Holy Spirit through our personalities, fruitfulness in Christian service, awareness of the presence of God, growth in grace, an increasing consciousness of union with God and an unbroken spirit of worship. These do not come to us automatically nor must we wait to claim them at the day of Christ's coming. They are to us what the Promised Land was to Israel, to be entered into as our faith and courage mount.
thought
What immense spiritual wealth is ours in Christ! Some to experience today and some tomorrow. Some which is ours because of spiritual birth as a child of God. Some to be experienced only by deliberate faith appropriation.
prayer
Forgive me, Father, for living in spiritual poverty when You have provided such blessings. I want to experience them all, that I may be what You desire me to be.
Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.
— 1 Timothy 4:16
Truth is like a bird; it cannot fly on one wing. Yet we are forever trying to take off with one wing flapping furiously and the other tucked neatly out of sight. Many of the doctrinal divisions among the churches are the result of a blind and stubborn insistence that truth has but one wing. Each side holds tenaciously to one text, refusing grimly to acknowledge the validity of the other. This error is an evil among churches, but it is a real tragedy when it gets into the hearts of individual Christians and begins to affect their devotional lives. One thing hidden in such teachings as have been mentioned above is unconscious spiritual pride.
The Christian who refuses to confess sin on the ground that it is already forgiven is setting himself above prophet and psalmist and all the saints who have left anything on record about themselves from Paul to the present time. These did not hide their sins behind a syllogism, but eagerly and fully confessed them. Perhaps that is why they were such great souls and those who claim to have found a better way are so small. And one has but to note the smug smile of superiority on the face of the one-prayer Christian to sense that there is a lot of pride behind the smile. While other Christians wrestle with God in an agony of intercession they sit back in humble pride waiting it out. They do not pray because they have already prayed. The devil has no fear of such Christians. He has already won over them, and his technique has been false logic. Let's use both wings. We'll get further that way.
thought
Emphasis on certain aspects of truth to the neglect of others causes unbalanced living and teaching. We can see it through the history of the Church and even today. Are we using both wings?
prayer
Father, give me breadth as well as depth of understanding of Your truth. Particularly do I need this in relating to other members of Your family who come from traditions other than mine.
Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.
— Luke 18:1
It is written that Christ died for our sins, and again it is written that "if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins" (1 John 1:9). These two texts are written of the same company of persons, namely Christians. We dare not compel the first text to invalidate the second. Both are true and one completes the other. The meaning of the two is that since Christ died for our sins if we confess our sins they will be forgiven. To teach otherwise is to attempt to fly on one wing. I have met some who claim that it is wrong to pray for the same thing twice, the reason being that if we truly believe when we pray we have the answer the first time; any second prayer betrays the unbelief of the first; ergo, let there be no second prayer. There are three things wrong with this teaching.
One is that it ignores a large body of Scripture; the second is that it rarely works in practice, even for the saintliest soul; and the third is that, if persisted in, it robs the praying man of two of his mightiest weapons in his warfare with the flesh and the devil, viz., intercession and petition. For let it be said without qualification that the effective intercessor is never a one-prayer man, neither does the successful petitioner win his mighty victories in his first attempt. Had David subscribed to the one-prayer creed he could have reduced his psalms to about one-third their present length. Elijah would not have prayed seven times for rain (and incidentally, there would have been no rain, either), our Lord would not have prayed the third time saying the same words, nor would Paul have "besought the Lord thrice" (2 Cor. 12:8) for the removal of his thorn. In fact, if this teaching were true, much wonderful Biblical narrative would have to be rewritten, for the Bible has much to say about continued and persistent prayer.
thought
Wrote George Mueller: "It is not enough to begin to pray, nor to pray aright; nor is it enough to continue for a time to pray; but we must patiently, believingly, continue in prayer until we obtain an answer."
prayer
Teach me to pray, Lord. Teach me to faithfully keep on prevailingly praying in faith. Deliver me from seeking quick, easy answers.
Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my inquity. I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD"?and you forgave the guilt of my sin.
— Psalm 32:5
Lack of balance in the Christian life is often the direct consequence of overemphasis on certain favorite texts, with a corresponding underemphasis on other related ones. For it is not denial only that makes a truth void; failure to emphasize it will in the long run be equally damaging. And this puts us in the odd position of holding a truth theoretically while we make it of no effect by neglecting it in practice. Unused truth becomes as useless as an unused muscle. Sometimes our dogmatic insistence upon "It is written" and our refusal to hear "Again it is written" makes heretics of us, our heresy being the noncreedal variety which does not rouse the opposition of the theologians. One example of this is the teaching that crops up now and again having to do with confession of sin. It goes like this: Christ died for our sins, not only for all we have committed but for all we may yet commit for the remainder of our lives.
When we accept Christ we receive the benefit of everything He did for us in His dying and rising again. In Christ all our current sins are forgiven beforehand. It is therefore unnecessary for us to confess our sins. In Christ they are already forgiven. Now, this is completely wrong, and it is all the more wrong because it is half right. It is true that Christ died for all our sins, but it is not true that because Christ died for all our sins we need not confess that we have sinned when we have. This conclusion does not follow from that premise.
thought
Confessing sin is openly and explicitly acknowledging it before God. No denying or redefining or otherwise trying to hide sin. Confession expresses repentance. When we confess, because of Christ's sin-debt payment on our behalf, God forgives!
prayer
Oh thank You, Lord, for forgiving and cleansing me as I confess my sin to You. Now, strengthen me to continue to turn from it.
Then he [Jesus] opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.
— Luke 24:45
The New Testament draws a sharp line between the natural mind and the mind that has been touched by divine fire. When Peter made his good confession, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matt. 16:16), our Lord replied, "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven" (16:17). And Paul expresses much the same thing when he says, "No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost" (1 Cor. 12:3). The sum of what I am saying is that there is an illumination, divinely bestowed, without which theological truth is information and nothing more. While this illumination is never given apart from theology, it is entirely possible to have theology without the illumination.
This results in what has been called "dead orthodoxy," and while there may be some who deny that it is possible to be both orthodox and dead at the same time I am afraid experience proves that it is. Revivals, as they have appeared at various times among the churches of the past, have been essentially a quickening of the spiritual life of persons already orthodox. The revivalist, as long as he exercised his ministry as a revivalist, did not try to teach doctrine. His one object was to bring about a quickening of the churches which while orthodox in creed were devoid of spiritual life. When he went beyond this he was something else than a revivalist. Revival can come only to those who know truth. When the inner meaning of familiar doctrines suddenly flashes in upon the heart of a Christian the revival for him has already begun. It may go on to be much more than this but it can never be less.
thought
As Jesus opened the minds of His disciples in order that they might understand the scriptures, so the Holy Spirit does today, illuminating spiritual truth. We don't have to stumble in darkness!
prayer
You, Holy Spirit, are the Divine Illuminator. Open my heart and mind to see and then obey.
Surely God has that to say to the pure in heart which He cannot say to the man of sinful life. But what He has to say is not theological, it is spiritual; and right there lies the weight of my argument. Spiritual truths cannot be received in the ordinary way of nature. "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Cor. 2:14).
So wrote the apostle Paul to the believers at Corinth.
Our Lord referred to this kind of Spirit-enlightened knowledge many times. To Him it was the fruit of a divine illumination, not contrary to but altogether beyond mere intellectual light.
The fourth Gospel is full of this idea; indeed the idea is so important to the understanding of John's Gospel that anyone who denies it might as well give up trying to grasp our Lord's teachings as given by the apostle John.
And the same idea is found in John's first epistle, making that epistle extremely difficult to understand but also making it one of the most beautiful and rewarding of all the epistles of the New Testament when its teachings are spiritually discerned.
The necessity for spiritual illumination before we can grasp spiritual truths is taught throughout the entire New Testament and is altogether in accord with the teachings of the Psalms, the Proverbs and the Prophets.
The Old Testament Apocrypha agrees with the Scriptures here, and while the Apocryphal books are not to be received as divinely inspired, they are useful as showing how the best minds of ancient Israel thought about this matter of divine truth and how it is received into the human heart.
verse
Whoever does not have the Spirit cannot receive the gifts that come from God's Spirit. Such a person really does not understand them; they are nonsense to him, because their value can be judged only on a spiritual basis (TEV).
— 1 Corinthians 2:14
thought
Those outside of Christ are unable to grasp spiritual truth. Only by means of the Holy Spirit is spiritual truth discerned. If we better understood this we would give far greater priority to prayer than to clever presentations.
prayer
Father, often I am satisfied with an intellectual grasp of Your Word when it is the spiritual understanding of it that matters. And You have given Your Spirit to enlighten me.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
There are areas in our lives where in our effort to be right we may go wrong, so wrong as to lead to spiritual deformity.
To be specific let me name a few:
4. When we seek to be serious and become somber.
The saints have always been serious, but gloominess is a defect of character and should never be equated with godliness. Religious melancholy may indicate the presence of unbelief or sin and if long continued may lead to serious mental disturbance.
Joy is a great therapeutic for the mind. "Rejoice in the Lord alway" (Phil. 4:4).
5. When we mean to be conscientious and become overscrupulous.
If the devil cannot succeed in destroying the conscience he will settle for making it sick.
I know Christians who live in a state of constant distress, fearing that they may displease God.
Their world of permitted acts becomes narrower year by year till at last they fear to engage in the common pursuits of life.
They believe this self-torture to be a proof of godliness, but how wrong they are.
These are but a few examples of serious imbalance in the Christian life. I trust the remedy has been suggested as we went along.
verse
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace . . .
— Galatians 5:22
thought
There is a freedom of spirit we may experience as believers. Joy and peace are part of the fruit of the Spirit. Gloom and inner turmoil are not!
prayer
Lord, may Your joy and peace spill out of me and splash those around me. For Jesus' sake.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/