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The Totality of Divine Requirement

Each person must be careful how he builds. (1 Corinthians 3:10 GW)

In other words, that which is of supreme importance is not Christian doctrine, mentally appraised and apprehended, but a living and clear spiritual apprehension of Christ. That is the work. What are you building? Are you, through a living, clear, inward, experimental relationship with the Lord Jesus, building a structure which comes out of that inward spiritual knowledge? Is it by that you are growing? Or are you growing by things said and mentally judged, appraised, dissected, accepted, and assented to? What is the nature of the building? The work in which we are engaged, to which this phrase ach man workapplies, is the building of Christ livingly into the very substance of our being, into the very fabric of our lives. It is not a question of getting to know a great deal about Christianity. Let us note that. The heart of the whole matter is the difference between the philosophy of Christianity, of Christian doctrine and the spiritual knowledge of Christ.

The Lord would teach us and this is the lesson that my heart is bent upon learning, and that I would urge upon you to make your quest also that the ground of assurance is not in our having decided for Christ, nor that we persist in the Christian life, nor that we feel strong, nor that we have certain ability as Christians and are able to do this or that. It is not the measure of our activity in the work of the Lord, nor any one of these things which constitutes our Christian life. These are simply the outworkings. The thing which constitutes us is that Christ is the foundation, and that we are inseparably linked with Him by faith. Everything else can be suspended as a secondary consideration until that is settled. It is as though God, if we may put it this way to try to simplify the truth, had given us His Son and had said to us: "In Him you have everything, and the first thing is not what you are, what you can do, or anything to do with you; it is what He is!" If only in the face of all you may see of a multitude of contradictions in your own life in weaknesses, and imperfections, and lack of attainment, you will persistently believe in Him as having it in Himself to bring you through to the end, you will go through in spite of all. We begin to take stock of ourselves, measure ourselves up, and say: "I am not this, and I am not that, and I am not something else; or else, I am this, and I am that, and all this goes against me." Nothing of all this is to the point at all. The totality of every divine requirement in us is in Christ.

Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.

Your labor is not in vain in the Lord. § As you … have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. § He who endures to the end shall be saved. § The ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience.

By faith you stand.

I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work.

He who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.

1 Cor. 15:58;  Col. 2:6,7;  Matt. 24:13;  Luke 8:15;  2 Cor. 1:24;  John 9:4;  Gal. 6:8;  Gal. 6:9;  Gal. 6:10

He is also able to save to the uttermostthose who come to God through Him.

I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. § Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. § He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. § Is anything too hard for the Lord?

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to God our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen.

Heb. 7:25;  John 14:6;  Acts 4:12;  John 10:27,28;  Phil. 1:6;  Gen. 18:14;  Jude 1:24,25

Cross Continuity

That I may know Him. . . being made conformable unto His death" (Phil. 3:10).

The wondrous depths of the finished work of the Cross will always be adequate to deal with the terrible depths of the unfinished work of the old man. As we glory in the Cross, the flesh is denied.

"When we have apprehended our death-position with the Lord Jesus (Rom. 6:6; Gal. 2:20, etc.), we may have failed to see the on-going conformity to His death (2 Cor. 4:11; Phil 3:10, etc.). The absence of this brings the anomaly of the Cross being preached with little or no marks of the Calvary spirit.

"This is the problem of teaching the identification' truths without the consequent conformity of death which brings forth life. We may rely upon the fact that we died' with the Lord Jesus, and assume that it is entirely wrought in us at once, not realizing that the fellowship of His sufferings' follows the apprehension of identification. That delivery unto death' must become deeper and deeper, until the conformity to His death' in the path of the Cross becomes a very real characteristic of the life."

"We are not to think that our exalted position in the Lord Jesus, seated with Him in heavenly places, frees us from the need of further application of the Cross. We never reach a point where we can leave the Cross. We are invincible, more than conquerors through Him who loved us, only as we are brought into ever deeper conformity to the Lord Jesus' death unto sin. Otherwise the flesh reinstates itself and we once more fall prey to the old man's reign. There are always remaining, however much we have advanced, hidden strongholds of the old man which must be rendered inoperative by the finished work of the Cross." -F.J.H.

"Let him deny himself, and take up his Cross daily" (Lk. 9:23).

Assurance And Security

The Work of Obedience