Quotable Quotes

July 3

I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named (Ephesians 3:14,15).

God is acting in this dispensation to get a family, and God’s present dispensational activity is not going to be defeated by death, and He is not going to be cheated of it by death. He will get a Family, and will cheat death of that Family. It is not God, Infinite and Mighty, as such, it is the Father; and it is a deathless Family that He is after. This Family is never divided by death, this Family is never broken into by death, this Family knows no such thing as bereavement by death, this Family will never lose a child by death. Of course, as the Family, when we enter into the appreciation of that, that is our comfort: that in this Family we do not lose anyone. Death may touch things here, but the spiritual Family is no more separated in the spiritual reality and in the eternal oneness of the Father’s house, than they would be if they were still here. It is the natural, human side of us that suffers the loss and knows all that pain. But what is the comfort of the believer? We sorrow not as those who have no hope. What is our hope? Because we have a Father who has got a Family that can never be broken up by death and never lose a member by death. Our hope is that the whole Family will be together with not one missing. The hope is that we have not lost any. Ours it is to be together forever. “The whole family in heaven and on earth....” That is a part of the meaning of Fatherhood, and that is what the Father is doing in this dispensation; getting that kind of Family.

The mentality of “God” is sometimes severe. We can never have a severe mentality in the right atmosphere of “the Father.” All these things have to be brought into that realm; the Lord’s dealings with us now are the dealings of the Father and are along the family line. That is what is happening in this dispensation.... The revelation above all revelations of God in the history of the world is the revelation in which we are now living; the revelation of the Father, brought to us by the Son, Jesus Christ. In future when we say “Our Father” may it have a fuller meaning for us.

By T. Austin-Sparks from: Filled Unto All the Fullness of God - Chapter 7 

This photograph is from a Facebook page called 3dfirstaid visual architecture.