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Spirit and Truth in the Inward Parts

y thoughts are not your thoughts, and My ways are not your ways,declares the Lord. ust as the heavens are higher than the earth, so My ways are higher than your ways, and My thoughts are higher than your thoughts.(Isaiah 55:8,9 GW)

God's thoughts about things arevery different from ours. We would often allow what God wouldnever allow. He has an altogether different point of view aboutthings. We judge in one way about things, and God judges inanother. It is necessary for us to come to God's standpoint. "Oh,"we would say, "There is no harm in such-and-such a thing. Oh,there is no wrong in that; look at So-and-so and So-and-so," andwe take our standard, perhaps, from other people. We have knownpeople to do that; point to some outstanding figure in the workof God, in whose life was a certain thing - that one has beentaken as the model, to be copied, and so the thing has been takenon. "Oh, there is no harm in it; look at So-and-so." And I haveknown lives and ministries to be ruined on that very excuse.

Thequestion is: What does the Lord say about it? God says, "Walkbefore Me!" Not before any human model; not before any humanstandard; "There is no harm in it; So-and-so does it; it is quitea common practice." No, no! "Walk before Me," says theLord. We have got to get this in the spirit, in the inward man.It is deeper than our best moral standards. Otherwise there is nopoint in it being in the Bible at all, if our moral standards canrise to God's satisfaction - why must we be so handled andreconstituted? It is deeper than our intellect, than our reason.You cannot, by reason or intellect, arrive at God's standard atall. Not at all! Oh, do not think that by any method ofreasoning, you are ever going to reach God's standard. You neverwill. Here, it is only by revelation of the Holy Spirit. Christhas got to be revealed in our hearts by the Spirit. There is nopoint in Jesus saying: "When He, the Spirit of truth, iscome, He shall guide you into all the truth," if we couldget there by our own intelligence. Not at all. It must come bythe revelation of Christ in our hearts, in the inward parts.This is something spiritual. "God is Spirit; they thatworship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth"- spirit and truth go together. Only what is spiritual, what isof God, is truth - only that!

Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed.

A just God and a Savior. § The Lord is well pleased for His righteousness’ sake; He will exalt the law and make it honorable.

God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them. § God set [Him] forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. § He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. § Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. § To him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.

Ps. 85:10;  Isa. 45:21;   Ps. 42:21;  2 Cor. 5:19;  Rom. 3:25,26;  Isa. 53:5;  Rom. 8:33;   Rom 4:5

How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?

Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. § As we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man.

The Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, . . . will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.

Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them, and said to them, “Peace to you.” But they were terrified and frightened, and supposed they had seen a spirit. § He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once.

If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

1 Cor. 15:35;  1 John 3:2;  1 Cor. 15:49;  Phil. 3:20,21;  Luke 24:36,37;  1 Cor. 15:5,6;  Rom. 8:11

Transferred And Transformed

If [since] ye, then, be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God" (Col. 3:1).

The growth truths seem complicated and difficult to understand on first encounter. However, with progress in grace we find them to be as clear and logical as the truth of justification. For both time and eternity, all is summed up in John 17:3: "And this is life eternal. . . [to] know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ." Study on!

"The marvel of divine grace is that not only has everything according to the heart of God been secured for me through the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, but that I, a child of Adam, should be, not only in peace with God where I was under His judgment, but that I am transferred from Adam to Christ, and I am to have Christ formed in me now.

"I am born of God - of new and divine origin - a new creation to be here on earth now where I was a child of Adam, in the grace and beauty of Christ, led by His own power to stand for Him; daily more and more transformed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord' (2 Cor. 3:18)."

"I used to study this passage and that passage to obtain guidance and light. I see now that if I were really near Him beholding His glory (2 Cor. 3:18), I should be transformed, should come from Him so impressed with Himself that His interests would, as it were, naturally control me." -J.B.S.

"When the heart has found its rest and satisfaction in Him, it can turn to Him naturally and continually in every circumstance."

"Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth" (Col. 3:2).

Romans 6 and Romans 7 - Growing In Grace (28)

A Faithful Servant