May 1
I pray that the eyes of your heart may be
enlightened in order that you may know.... (Ephesians 1:18 NIV).
The Holy Spirit's illumination concerning the
church is a thing so difficult to explain to any who may not have experienced
it. But to those who have seen it, it needs no explanation. It makes such a
difference on all these matters. You will be able to preach Ephesians,
Colossians, Romans; preach all about the church as the Body of Christ; you may
read it all in books, and still there may be no real expression of it. Then one
day it is as though the heavens opened and the thing broke upon your spirit,
and you saw it; and all kinds of adjustments became necessary
in life. You can say – I saw that the church was no denominational or national
thing; I believed in the oneness of all believers. Yes, you can say all that!
And yet there is something more. That something can only come by revelation.
You can have the other, and it will just take you so far. But get that
something more, and it will take you a long way ahead. It brings you into the
realm of the conflict and cost, but you are out in an altogether new realm. It
is necessary to God’s end.
It is one thing to say these things and point
them out and emphasize them; you say: "How do you get it? We see what you
mean, it is all quite clear, but we have not got it!" Well, if you really
are of the undivided heart, if your heart is wholly set upon the Lord and you
see as far as you can see these things, and have very definite dealings with
the Lord about it; (it may not be in a day, it may be slowly, steadily,
quietly) you begin to move into a new realm of understanding. And you find that
your point of view changes; your standard of values changes; your insight
changes. It may take months, but at the end of the time you say: "I am
changed! Something has happened to me. I can no longer accept what I used to
accept!" It may be like that, or it may come in a flash. How it comes does
not matter very much, the fact is the importance of this thing – spiritual illumination.
The apostle prayed that these to whom he wrote might have it. Let us pray that
we might have it, and that all the Lord’s people might come into that.
By T. Austin-Sparks from: Filled Unto All
the Fullness of God - Chapter 2
This photograph is from a Facebook page called Live Life in Color.
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