◄ ►

The Higher Service

Get out of your country to a land that I will show you. I will bless you. (Genesis 12:1,2)

The call of God contains both grace and truth. Truth is the separating instrument. "Get thee out." Grace is the promise. "I will bless and make a blessing." Man often grasps at the grace, the "I will bless" of God, and fails to comply with the demand thereof - "Get thee out." Now, this does not only apply in the matter of our salvation in its first steps, but it comes in new revelations and calls at different times in the Christian life. The call of God to some fuller and higher acceptance of truth and ministry; of testimony and witness; of surrender and experience, will undoubtedly come by one or another of the Divine forms of visitation to such as the Lord wishes to lead in grace. This will be timed, definite, and challenging. A messenger may come as out from nowhere; the nowhere of reputation, recognition, worldly fame or honor. He will deliver a message, only staying long enough to leave its essential implications with those who hear. Then, having passed on, things can never be the same for them again.

The "call" has sounded. The crisis has been precipitated. The issue is between the life which has been with its limitations known or unrecognized, and that which God offers. But, as usually is the case, this truth is going to call for a "getting out." Getting out, it may be, of a certain popularity, a comparative easy going. There may be a risking of reputation, a loss of prestige, a disfavor among men, a being labeled "singular," "peculiar," "extreme," "unsafe." It may mean a head-on impact of all the prejudice, tradition, and disfavor of the religious world. It may involve exclusion, ostracism, and suspicion. These are the accompaniments of all calls of God to advance with Him beyond accepted standards. This is the cost of path-finding for souls. This is the price to be paid for the higher serviceableness to God and men.

Your name shall . . . be called . . . Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.

In his strength he struggled with God. Yes, he struggled with the Angel and prevailed; he wept, and sought favor from Him. § [Abraham] did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God.

Have faith in God. For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, “Be removed and be cast into the sea,” and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.  Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them § If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes. § Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord.

Increase our faith.

Gen. 32:28;  Hos. 12:3,4;  Rom. 4:20;  Mark 11:22;  Mark 11:23;  Mark 11:24;  Mark 9:23;  Luke 1:45;   Luke 17:5

Little children, abide in Him.

He who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. … for let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another… Even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.

You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace … You ran well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?

As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me… If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. § For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.

1 John 2:28;  James 1:6,8;  Gal. 1:6,8;  Gal. 5:4, 7;  John 15:4,7;  2 Cor. 1:20

Eternally Nigh

But now in Christ Jesus ye who once were far off are made near by the blood of Christ" (Eph 2:13).

Until we know our position in the risen Lord Jesus, we can never really face up to the sinfulness of our old nature. But "hidden with Christ in God," we can both face up to and face away from the old, "looking unto Jesus, the author and perfecter [marg.] of our faith" (Heb. 12:2).

"God sets me in nearness to Himself in the Lord Jesus; and as I learn my nearness to Him, I am prepared for the exposure of my natural distance from Him, and I am, through grace, morally apart and sheltered from it (Rom. 8:9), at the very moment when I see it. The greater my height, the greater the enormity of the depth appears; but I am safe from it. As a consequence I rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh' (Phil. 3:3)."

"Two things mark spiritual growth; one is a deeper sense of the sinful old nature, the other is a greater longing after the Lord Jesus Christ. The sinfulness is discovered and felt as the power of the Holy Spirit increases; for many a thought and act passes without pain to the conscience where the Lord Jesus is less before the soul, which will be refused and condemned as the knowledge of the Lord increases in spiritual power within." -J.B.S.

"When the Lord Jesus Christ is enjoyed, things unlike Him drop off like fading leaves."

"For the word of God is living, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart" (Heb. 4:12).

Spiritual Truth - Man’s Nature and Destiny (25)

The Source Rule