When you were young, you
used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted (John 21:18 ESV).
The "eyes which are
as a flame of fire" are looking for reality. They pierce through many
things. In the first place, they pierce through traditional and formal religion
or "Christianity." Their interrogation is – Is your religion a matter
of attachment or adherence to a system, a historical tradition, a family
inheritance; and so on? Or is it born – is it a birth in you;
is it something that has happened to you; is it your very life, your very
being? Secondly – and I concentrate more especially upon this for the moment – [these
eyes] pierce through temperament and disposition. They demand to know whether
the reason why you are where you are, are concerned for what you are concerned
for, are connected with what you are connected with, and are disposed as you
are, is because your particular temperament leans that way. You are artistic
and mystical in your tastes and constitution: therefore you choose or make your
religion after your own image. Your temperament is melancholic, and so the more
abstract, profound, serious, intense, introspective, and speculative, appeals
to you and finds a natural response in you. You [have made or
are making] God, Christianity, Christ, the Bible, after your image.
Or again, you are of the
practical temperament. To you everything is only of value as it is
"practical." You have no patience with these contemplative people.
You are irritated by the "Marys," for "many dishes" are
your concern. To you, how the end is reached is of much less importance than
the end itself. You are not bothered much with imagination, and you would put
all the value on things done – how much there is actually to show for your
day. Your God and your Christianity are
entirely, or almost entirely, of the practical kind, after your own
image. And so we could go on with all the other temperaments. But this will not
do, for Christ is not any one of these; He is different. He may combine the
good in all, but that does not wholly mean Divine nature. He is different. All
this is the human soul, but the essential nature of Christ and true
Christianity is of the Divine Spirit – it is heavenly! If new birth means
anything, it means this, that another nature and disposition is born into the
believer, so that he or she is "carried whither they (naturally) would
not."
By T. Austin-Sparks from: The Only Reality
This photograph is from a Facebook page called Live Life in Color.
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