SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY

There are two things essential for spiritual progress: first, the heart must be in the right direction; second, we must be spiritual, that is, walking not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

The heart is only in the right place when Christ is the paramount object; but that carries the heart away from earth to heaven where He is. We have our duties on earth, and we have to be diligent and conscientious in fulfilling them, serving the Lord; but the heart is not in these things. Christ has passed outside all that is according to flesh. He once came into the circumstances of man according to flesh; He attended the marriage feast, He made Himself the guest of the three friends at Bethany, He ate and drank with men, would even be the social guest of a Pharisee, was found, too, in the house of mourning, as it says, He came eating and drinking. But now everything is changed. He has been rejected here, and by His death He passed out of this order of things, left it all behind. In resurrection He entered upon new ground, is no longer known according to flesh, has become the beginning of an entirely new creation outside of flesh. We can only reach Him on this new ground in the Spirit, that is in spiritual power. Therefore, even if the heart is right, we could not get on if we were not spiritual.

Matthew 14 gives the idea of it. The Lord being rejected leaves the disciples for a time, they have to go over to the other side in the ship. They were according to flesh, the ship was the natural way of getting through the sea. When He appears to them it is in an entirely new way. He is not according to flesh, He does not join them in the ship, but is seen walking on the water. He is completely superior to all the power of evil here, it is under His feet. This was actually verified in His resurrection. It was a wonderful sight, after Satan had put forth all his power to destroy Him and so defeat the whole purpose of God, after the whole world had arrayed itself against God and His Christ; to see Him stand on the earth as a risen Man, manifestly superior to all the power of evil here, the triumphant Man, the Victor: not however come back into earthly things, into associations according to the flesh, but now to reveal and administer the purpose of God, what God had pre-determined before the ages for our glory. But this is all outside the apprehension and the reach of the natural man. Now in the figure Peter’s heart was in the right direction, he was attracted to the Lord and desired to join Him in His new out-of-the-world, out-of-the-flesh, resurrection position. He said, “If it be thou, bid me come unto thee”, Matt 14: 28. Then he left the ship, he left that which is according to flesh, to join the Lord. (We cannot join the Lord on resurrection ground unless we leave the ground of flesh.) But then he found that he had entered upon a path which was impossible to flesh, he needed divine power to support him, and he got a new experience; viz, what it is to walk in divine power, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. The lesson we have to learn is that it is only in the power of the Spirit that we can leave the ground of flesh, get beyond flesh, and be in communion with the Lord, who is no longer known according to flesh.

This shows the need of the second essential for spiritual progress, on the new lines of Christianity, association with a risen and heavenly Christ. We cannot possibly get on save in the power of the Spirit. If the Lord had come back to man’s things to establish peace and prosperity on earth, to secure ‘a cow and three acres of land’ for everybody, to remove all our trouble and woes, and prolong life on earth and make it everything which man could desire, all this flesh could appreciate, there would be no need of spiritual power for this kind of life. But for us life is outside of all this in a risen and heavenly Christ, and in the power of the Spirit, and to enjoy the ministry and power of an ungrieved Spirit, demands the constant mistrust and refusal of the flesh, and there is nothing but death for the flesh in this path. If we desire it, we must go in for it, and we shall find that the Lord will support us, but the devil will seek in every possible way to hinder us, he will raise the winds and the waves. We have nothing to fear except our own flesh. We can face all the opposition if our eye is on the Lord, as Paul said, “I have strength for all things through Christ which strengtheneth me”, Phil 4: 13. He knew what it was to walk on the water, to be carried through in divine power, in the sense of being identified with a victorious Christ.

From Words of Encouragement vol 3 (1897)