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The Developing Man

May your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless. (1 Thessalonians 5:23 NLT)

You see that God never takes our will away, nor our mind, nor our heart. Some people expect God to come and do all their choosing for them, and all their desiring for them, and all their deciding for them, while they are simply to be poor things picked up by God and put into things which He desires and wills. God never does that. He is developing humanity. Were we spirits, I do not know how we might act; we might act spontaneously. But we are not. God has created a kind of being with a rational mind. The three-fold element of spirit, soul, and body is still to be found, yet not now in Adam, but in Christ. God is developing the Christ mind; how He thinks, judges, understands, and when we see the Lord's mind we see how very different it is from our own natural mind; and our own natural mind is beside the mark altogether, and we must repudiate it. This is spiritual understanding, the mind of the Spirit.

The same thing applies to our feelings and our desires. They may lead us all astray. There is a new outfit in Christ for our hearts, but there is always the necessity for our standing with the Lord in what is of Himself. Passivity may be a most ruinous thing. In all the values of Christ risen there has to be a taking of that risen Life for the equivalent need of mind, heart, will; of spirit, soul, and body.

Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.

Where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them. § Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. § My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.

Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. §  “Am I a God near at hand,” says the Lord, “and not a God afar off? Can anyone hide himself in secret places, so I shall not see him?” says the Lord; “Do I not fill heaven and earth?” says the Lord.

Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this temple which I have built! § Thus says the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.” § You are the temple of the living God.

Gen. 28:16;  Matt. 18:20;  Matt. 28:20;  Ex. 33:14;  Ps. 139:7,8;  Jer. 23:23,24;  1 Kings 8:27;  Isa. 57:15;  2 Cor. 6:16

Keep yourselves from idols.

My son, give me your heart. § Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.

Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their hearts, and put before them that which causes them to stumble into iniquity. Should I let Myself be inquired of at all by them?  § Put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. § Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare… For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows… You, O man of God, flee these things.

If riches increase, do not set your heart on them. § My fruit is better than gold, yes, than fine gold, and my revenue than choice silver. § For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. § The Lord looks at the heart.

1 John 5:21;  Prov. 23:26;  Col. 3:2;  Ezek. 14:3;  Col. 3:5;  1 Tim. 6:9;  1 Tim. 6:10;  1 Tim. 6:11;  Ps. 62:10;  Prov. 8:19;  Matt. 6:21;  1 Sam. 16:7

Initial Preparation

Saul armed David with his armor.... And David said unto Saul, I cannot go with these; for I have not tested them" (1 Sam. 17:38, 39).

Years of preparation are worth a moment of truth! Rest assured that once we are developed and trained by the Holy Spirit, the work whereunto He has called us will be ready and waiting (Acts 13:2). "Our Lord must have an instrument which He has formed in the fire and to which He has given peculiar knowledge of Himself."

"The greater the knowledge committed to a servant, the more necessary and important it is that he should be much alone with God about it, in order that he may realize the nature and effect of it on himself before he undertakes to make it known to others.

"It rebukes the haste and readiness with which many now enter the ministry, attempting to impress others with a measure of the truth which they have not proved for themselves. Surely the servant should ever be able to say: I believed, and therefore have I spoken' (2 Cor. 4:13). It is better to lose time as to work in preparation for service than to lose time in repairing one's mistakes in undertaking a work for which one is not yet qualified."

"A servant's discipline must always be in advance of the service prepared for him. He cannot lead beyond the point to which he himself has been led. But when the depth and reality of the truth has been established in his own soul, he is made the channel of it."

"I have found that many a thing which I had presented in an extreme way because I was sure of it, I put forth in a simpler and a more real way when I had touched it in my own experience." -J.B.S.

"That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you" (1 John 1:3).

Blessings of Grace - Growing In Grace (24)

Prepare Yourself