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God’s Training School

The Lord disciplines the one He loves, and He chastens everyone He accepts as His son. (Hebrews 12:6 NIV)

What is the purpose of sonship? It is to bring us into a place of spiritual responsibility. God never puts responsibilities upon fficial people,but upon sons. Therefore He has to train us as children in order to develop sonship in us, to bring us there where we can take responsibilities for God. He seeks to bring us to a state of spiritual maturity, to full growth. This cannot be done in some Bible school, or by putting people nto the ministry.God never works on an official side. Oh yes, God does take us into His school. He can also take us into His school in some training institute. And it is a blessed thing if He does it.

But God school is something very different from mere scholarly activity. His Word says: i>My son, regard not lightly the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art reproved of Him; for whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.Note this word hom He receives.The exact meaning in the Greek is not eceives,but hom He positionsor places. It is a matter of position. God is seeking to develop a state in us where He can trust us. When God is dealing with us, there is behind it a wonderful assurance that He is going to put His trust in us. He is bringing us into a position of trust. We do not just want to be servants, bits of a machine, but sons who have become one with the Father, and in whose hands He can put spiritual responsibilities. When we truly recognize this, we begin to understand why God is dealing with us as He does. But because God is in it we know that the end is sure. He will bring His children through.

Honour the Lord with your possessions, and with the firstfruits of all your increase.

He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. §  On the first day of the week let each one of you lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper.

God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love which you have shown toward His name, in that you have ministered to the saints, and do minister.

I beseech you … , brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. § The love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again. § Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

Prov. 3:9;  2 Cor. 9:6;  1 Cor. 16:2;  Heb. 6:10;  Rom. 12:1;  2 Cor. 5:14,15;  1 Cor. 10:31

There shall be no night there.

The Lord will be to you an everlasting light, and your God your glory.The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. § They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light.

You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light. § [Give] thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love. § For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.

We are not of the night nor of darkness.

The path of the just is like the shining sun, that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day.

Rev. 21:25;  Isa. 60:19;  Rev. 21:23;  Rev. 22:5;  1 Peter 2:9;  Col. 1:12,13;  Eph. 5:8;  1 Thess. 5:5;  Prov. 4:18

Dual Reckoning

For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (Col. 2:9).

"Reckoning" on the work of the Cross is the only relief from the carnal burden of self. Then comes the spiritual burden of Christ - to be more like Him. "Reckoning" is the answer there, too. "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through [in] Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 6.11). If we seek to escape the death, we will not experience the life.

"We are not to try to crucify self, but we are to agree (reckon) with what God has said and done. In the lives of most believers self has usurped the place belonging to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a criminal worthy of death, but the trouble is that they do not realize that this self-life has been crucified on the Cross. They do not believe the facts of the Word, and sin therefore reigns in their lives; they live in bondage to sin, praying for deliverance, praying that they may die to sin, but refusing to believe what God says He has already done." -L.L.L.

"The constant tendency is to try to improve the manner of one's life here below by adopting Christian principles, whereas you will never arrive at it unless you start from crucified with Christ.' Then it is not thinking of what I am, but of what He is, Christ liveth in me.'" -J.B.S.

"And ye are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power" (Col. 2:10).

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