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Truly Spiritual

I have told you all this so that you may find your peace in Me. You will find trouble in the world but, never lose heart, I have conquered the world! (John 16:33 Phillips)

When the spiritual stands to confront the merely formal, traditional, nominal and "natural," then there is going to be trouble. This is not now merely the reaction from the world: it is the reaction from religion. I would go further, and say it may be the reaction from Christianity. There is a very great difference between formal, traditional, nominal, "natural" Christianity, on the one side, and spiritual Christianity, on the other; a great deal of difference. So much so, that this also becomes a battlefield the battlefield of a lot of trouble.

Leave formalism alone, and everything will go on quite quietly. Leave traditionalism alone that is, the set order of things as it has always been; that framework of things as it has been constituted and set up and established by man; that Christianity which is the fixed, accepted system of things and you will escape a great deal of trouble. But seek to bring in a truly spiritual order of things, and trouble arises at once. And YOU are the trouble maker! The truth is that the trouble lies in the existing condition, the situation, the state; but it is only brought out by your action. And so spiritual men and women, and spiritual ministry, are called "trouble makers," because the two things cannot go on together. That is where Israel was. They had the traditions, they had the oracles, they had the ordinances, they had the testimonies; they had the forms, they had the system they had it all; but, in the days of the prophets, there was ever this vast gap between the "externals" and "internals" of life in relation with God. The heart is far removed from the lips. The spiritual reality is not found in the formal. You may have it all but then bring in the truly spiritual meaning of things, and trouble begins in that very realm. It is the trouble which arises when what is external and traditional comes into conflict with something which is truly spiritual.

I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.

Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day. § Your words were found, and I ate them, and Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart. § I sat down in his shade with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. § I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food.

I delight to do Your will, O my God, and Your law is within my heart. § My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.

The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes … More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. § Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror.

Rom. 7:22;  Ps. 119:97;  Jer. 15:16;  Song 2:3;  Job 23:12;  Ps. 40:8;  John 4:34;  Ps. 19:8,10;  James 1:22,23

The Lord your God accept you.

With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the High God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?

We are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags. § “There is none righteous, no, not one.” …  For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness … that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Accepted in the Beloved. § You are complete in Him.

2 Sam. 24:23;  Mic. 6:6:8;  Isa. 64:6;  Rom. 3:10,  Rom 3:23,24;  Rom. 3:25,26;  Eph. 1:6;  Col. 2:10

Dependable Dependence 

For we walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Cor. 5:7).

Our Father often uses our failure to foster and fortify our faith.

"Faith is dependence upon the Father. And this God-dependence only begins when self-dependence ends. And self-dependence only comes to its end, with most of us, when sorrow, suffering, affliction, broken plans and hopes bring us to that place of self-helplessness where we throw ourselves upon our Father in seeming utter helplessness and defeat. And only then do we find that we have learned the lesson of faith; to find our tiny craft of life rushing onward to a blessed life of fruitfulness and service undreamt of in the days of our fleshly strength and self-reliance."

"The divine counsel shall stand, and the divine good pleasure shall be accomplished. What relief for the heart amid rebuffs and disappointments! The Father will perfect that which concerns His own; and even where there are mistakes and failures, as alas! there are in abundance with all of us, His rich grace abounds over all, and actually takes occasion from our very mistakes to shine out all the more brightly - though, assuredly, the mistakes must produce their own painful and humiliating consequences.

"It is the remembrance of this which alone can give calm repose in the midst of the most discouraging circumstances. If we take the eye of faith off the Father, our souls must soon be overwhelmed. It is our privilege to be able, in our little measure, to thank our Father in view of everything, and take refuge in His eternal counsels, which must be made good despite all the unbelief of the Christian, and all the malice of Satan." -C.H.M.

"We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is fitting, because your faith groweth exceedingly" (2 Thess. 1:3).

Our Holy Helper

Holy Conduct