To be penitent, to feel sorry for sin, to shed tears, to even make decisions does not bring in salvation. Confession, decision, and many other religious acts can never be and are not to be construed as new birth. Rational judgment, intelligent understanding, mental acceptance, or the pursuit of the good, the beautiful, and the true are merely soulical activities if the spirit is not reached and stirred.
Actually, only God can satisfy a Christian’s heart; man cannot. The failure of many is to seek from man what can be found only in God. All human affection is empty; the love of God alone is able to fully satisfy one’s desire. The moment a Christian seeks a love outside God his spiritual life immediately falls.
If you have not experienced the death of self, your spiritual life will have little real progress.
If any person desires to think, he must possess memory, imagination and reasoning power; but the Christian has presently lost these powers, hence is unable to think. He cannot create, deduce or recollect, nor can he compare, judge and apprehend. Therefore he cannot think. And should he attempt to do so he experiences a kind of dazed sensation which stifles any productive thought.
God’s Word tells us that God has spoken of old in many portions and in many ways through His servants concerning His heart’s desire and that He loves us. But man did not understand. Therefore, God had to personally come to this world and become a man. This man is Jesus, the Christ, whom we know.
Lord, I do not know fully what the value of the blood is, but I know that the blood has satisfied Thee; so the blood is enough for me, and it is my only plea.
God must bring us to a point – I cannot tell you how it will be, but He will do it – where, through a deep and dark experience, our natural power is touched and fundamentally weakened, so that we no longer dare trust ourselves.
Other people cherish another thought. They conclude that life is power. To have the Lord as our life means to be given power by Him to do good. Nevertheless, God shows us that our power is not a thing; it is simply Christ. Our power is not the strength to do things; rather, it is a Person. Life to us is not only power but also a Person. It is Christ who manifests himself in us, instead of our using Christ to display our good works.
Andrew Murray once said that what the church and individuals have to dread is the inordinate activity of the soul with its power of mind and will. F. B. Meyer declared that had he not known about the dividing of spirit and soul, he could not have imagined what his spiritual life would have been. Many others, such as Otto Stockmayer, Jessie Penn-Lewis, Evan Roberts, Madame Guyon, have given the same testimony.
The soul seeks to retain its authority and move independently, while the spirit strives to possess and master everything for the maintenance of God’s authority.
They are trying to look within, to differentiate, to discriminate, to analyze, and in doing so are bringing themselves into deeper bondage. Now this is a situation which is really dangerous to Christian life, for inward knowledge will never be reached along the barren path of self-analysis.
The reason for so many defeats in the spiritual realm is because this sector of the soul has not been dealt with drastically.
The daily life of the Christian can be summed up in one word: receive.
But Christianity is a queer business! If at the outset we try to do anything, we get nothing; if we seek to attain something, we miss everything. For Christianity begins not with a big DO, but with a big DONE.
The knowledge of Christ which is produced by man’s own cleverness and wisdom is not a rock that can stand firm.
It is because we know God’s will that we may say to Him: “God, we want You to do this thing, we are determined that You do it, You cannot but do it.
He who has ascended the cross and refuses to drink the vinegar mingled with gall is the one who knows the Lord. Many go up to the cross rather reluctantly, still thinking of drinking vinegar mingled with gall to alleviate their pain. All who say – “The cup which the Father has given me, shall I not drink it?” – will not drink the cup of vinegar mingled with gall.
How many of us dare not use our time or money or talents as we would, because we realise they are the Lord’s, not ours?
It is not a matter of how many loaves we have in our hands, but whether or not God has blessed them.
Man’s failure is not due to his weakness, but to his not accepting God’s strength. It is not in his inability but in not allowing God to enable him. He cannot do it, but why not let God deliver him? This is what the Lord stresses here. The things which are impossible with men are possible with God. Our Lord wanted to prove to the young ruler what God can do, but he, instead, went away with the conclusion that the thing was impossible to him.