April
9
But the natural
(soul-istic) man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians
2:14)
When you look at 1
Corinthians, what a lot of soul-ism there is: this wisdom of words, this
wisdom of the world, these likes and these dislikes and preferences and
partialities and antipathies, and then their jealousies. That is no good on
this foundation. Do not bring your own soul-life into relationship with Christ;
it will not tally and it will not go through, it will go up in smoke. Are you trying
to make your Christianity a matter of how you feel? You will have a composite
kind of Christianity of so many varieties, nothing consistent at all, a perfect
patchwork. When you think you have arrived at a very good logical conclusion
about a matter, something will come along and upset the whole thing.... You
never get through that way. Your soul in the realm of its mental exercises and
conflicts will never tally with Christ. And as for our own soul-will, strength
to do, we may feel very strong, we are never going again to be caught like
that, never going down that street again! It is not long before we are there.
Oh, how ashamed our souls make us! How ashamed we have been because of the
instability of our feelings or our wills or our thoughts. Ashamed! Ashamed!
Ashamed! Our souls are making fools of us all the time. “He that
believes on Him shall not be put to shame.” Paul says that this
soul-life business must not come on Christ. It is a contradiction. It is not
what you are, it is what Christ is.
When you cannot see and
understand and work it out mentally, when you cannot feel anything, no feelings
at all, or when they are very bad feelings – that is one realm, that is just
what we are. Christ is not that, and we have at such times to say, "Lord,
this is my infirmity, this is how I am, but You are Other; I transfer my faith
to You from myself and from these things." Christ is the foundation, and
all that we build on the foundation has to be Christ Himself. He is not only
the foundation, but He is the whole building in every part.
By T. Austin-Sparks from: Features of
Zion - Chapter 4
This photograph is by Liz Burnell.
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