THE APPREHENSION OF GRACE ENABLES US TO ACT ACCORDINGLY
THE APPREHENSION OF GRACE ENABLES US TO ACT ACCORDINGLY
It is very interesting and helpful to remember “all the way which the Lord thy God led thee”. The initiative is always with Him. “What hast thou which thou hast not received?” (1 Corinthians 4: 7) - as the Lord says, “I shall shew you plainly of the Father”. (John 16: 25) He shews me. Paul was to be a minister and a witness of the things that he had seen. He shows them to me as He showed the stars in the sky to Abraham. I am given grace to believe what He reveals to me of His favour to me, and as I believe, I act accordingly. The faith comes before the work of faith, as the revelation of His grace comes before faith; as faith comes before works, so works follow faith, or it would be dead, being alone. Faith carries you safe, then you are assured of what grace has made you, and then works are the results; you must have eyes before you can use them; you must have wings before you can fly. You must be over Jordan yourself, over death in the power of life, before you can consign everything here to death, before you can drive out the Canaanite.
As you advance on the up line, so you do on the down line. If you understand me, it is as you by faith apprehend where His grace has set you, the more you ascend, the more power you have to descend. The more you are enriched and captivated with His things, the more will you be loosened from natural attractions, and so be of the heavenly colour, expressive of your heavenly taste - increasing in the high and spiritual things, while correspondingly relinquishing, or dying to, the natural or earthly things.