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The Renewed Spirit

That which is born of the flesh is flesh. (John 3:6)

It is possible for a man to be marked by an analytical mind, so that he wants to argue out everything, reason out everything and subject everything to the microscope of his own brain, his own reason, and just see the whole thing right through in that way not accept it until he can understand it like that. And so he becomes very analytical, very investigating in his mind over the thing, and until he can have the very best answer to all his questions from every side, he is not going to accept it. That man will make very slow progress. The same will apply to one who thinks that by getting a mighty wave of religious emotion he is going to enter into the things of God. That is one of the great snares of the devil today. Religious emotion is no criterion; it is no ground of true spirituality.

Our knowledge of the Lord, the very remotest bit of it and the very first ray of it, depends upon our spirit being awakened and illumined by the Holy Spirit. Progress in the things of God is simply the growth of our inner man and not the acknowledgment of our intellectual capacity to grasp truth. We may have an increasing capacity, by reason of association and familiarity with truth, for grasping ideas and grasping truth and teaching. And that capacity may expand and expand until there is very little that is available to be grasped, and yet with such there may be the very smallest measure of real spirituality.... The child of God is one whose spirit has been renewed and who has, at the center of their being, a union and a communion with God which is not the possession of any man by nature, and which cannot come in any other realm but in the renewed spirit.

They shall be Mine,” says the Lord of hosts, “on the day that I make them My jewels.”

I have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world. They were Yours, You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word … I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours. And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them …Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.

I will come again and receive you to Myself. § He comes, in that Day, to be glorified in His saints and to be admired among all those who believe. § Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. § You shall also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.

Mal. 3:17;  John 17:6,24;  John 14:3;  2 Thess. 1:10;  1 Thess. 4:17;  Isa. 62:3

Please, show me Your glory.

It is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. § The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth … No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? § When You said, “Seek My face,” my heart said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek.”

We all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. § Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.

Ex. 33:18;  2 Cor. 4:6;  John 1:14,18;  Ps. 42:2;   Ps. 27:8;  2 Cor. 3:18;  John 17:24

The Cross For Self

I have been crucified with Christ" (Gal. 2:20, ASV).

The Cross is the height of paradox; it is at once God's greatest agony, and His eternal glory. For the growing believer it means daily crucifixion, and at the same time freedom from the penalty and the power of sin and self. "But may it never be mine to boast of anything but the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world!" (Gal. 6:14, Wms.).

"We need to enter deeply into the truth that Christ the Beloved Son of the Father could not return to the glory of Heaven until He had first given Himself over to death. As this great principle opens up to us, it will help us to understand how in our life, and in our fellowship with the Lord Jesus, it is impossible for us to share the fulness of His life until we have first in very deed surrendered ourselves every day as having died to sin and the world."

"Many believers appear to think that when once they have claimed Christ's death in the fellowship of the Cross, and have counted themselves crucified with Him, they may now consider it as past and done with. They do not as yet understand that it is in the crucified Christ, and in the fellowship of His death, that they are to abide daily and unceasingly. The fellowship of the Cross is to be the life of a daily walk - His taking the form of a servant, His humbling Himself and becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross; this mind that was in the Lord Jesus is to be the disposition that marks our daily life."

"Have this mind [attitude] in you, which was also in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 2:5, ASV).

Fear Not Life - (Thoughts on FEAR - 1)

Perfect Peace At Such A Time As This