◄ Spirit and Truth in the Inward Parts ►

Author: T. Austin-Sparks

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!

By T. Austin-Sparks from: Truth in the Inward Parts

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