THE KNOWLEDGE OF ACCEPTANCE

^[p. 26] THE KNOWLEDGE OF ACCEPTANCE

I believe the defect in souls in general is the incompleteness of their conversion. It is pardon that is apprehended, and not acceptance. Acceptance embraces God’s side — how He feels, and this should be chief, for you as a sinner have offended Him. The offender has been removed from His eye by a Man — the Lord Jesus Christ, and He can receive you on the ground of the Man who glorified Him in bearing your judgment. You do not enjoy acceptance but in the way in which it was acquired or effected for you, and if you are in the acceptance you know that no improvement of the flesh could commend you to God, and that you cannot be before Him but in Christ, and hence “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8: 2). If you are in any degree dark as to the crucifixion of the old man, you are not in acceptance, and your liberty by the Spirit can never go beyond your conscious acceptance.

I feel the Spirit of God does not get His place with us because we do not seek to be in consonance with our acceptance.