IF YOU MINISTER TO THE NATURAL, YOU CANNOT HAVE THE SPIRITUAL

IF YOU MINISTER TO THE NATURAL, YOU CANNOT HAVE THE SPIRITUAL

You are not to be surprised or discouraged because you find your flesh opposing you in seeking after the Lord. The more you minister to the flesh, even in a common, that is, in a natural way, even reading about natural things, or talking about them, the more will it ^[p. 196] intrude when you do not want it, or rather when you do not wish to be disturbed by it, and when you consider it an intruder. If you would be free from the flesh when praying, etc., you must be careful not to encourage it at other times. People often think that they can do with the flesh what they can do with their clothes, that is, wear them and change them when they like; they think they can give their minds and thoughts to the things that please the flesh, and then in a few minutes get rid of it, as one would a dress, and put on quite a different one, to come into the presence of the Lord. The flesh once encouraged, once allowed to be about you as a dress, it is not so easily put off, even though you may most truly desire to be fit for the presence of the Lord, and to be happy there. This is in principle making the best of both worlds, and it cannot be. It must be either Christ who died for man, or the man by whom Christ was crucified. It is when you desire to enjoy the presence of Christ that you first discover that you have been cultivating a hindrance to it. You have been drinking old wine, you have been wearing natural clothes, and pleasing yourself; and then when you seek the Lord, all these things, which have previously engrossed you, are like a mob refusing you leave to pass the way you desire. It is a good sign when you feel this mob, because it shews that you are not content with being absent from the Lord, but yet, on the other hand, it shews that you have been tampering with the enemy, instead of refusing all his offers, so as to be ready dressed at any moment for the presence of the Lord. The more and the longer we are away from the Lord, the less we feel it, and the less we are conscious of the mob which hinders and depresses us. The more we wear common every-day clothes, and like them, the less do we care for state robes. We are not aware of our defects until we come in contact with that which is vastly superior. Many a one thinks that he dresses very well until he comes to town, and then ^[p. 197] he sees how shabby he is; he did not feel his shabbiness before. Thus it is with you; while you are happy and satisfied in your intercourse with those around you, your dress is in your own eyes nice enough; but when you would enjoy the Lord’s presence, you find that you have been fostering and surrounding yourself with things that will get no place there, and then you find that it is no easy matter to change your dress, and put on quite a different one.

The only way to secure constant joy in the Lord’s presence, that is, to be so dressed as to be unhindered there, is to seek His pleasure in the commonest details of our lives, not seeking anything for ourselves, but the things that are pleasing in His sight (1 John 3: 22). “Enoch ... before his translation ... had this testimony, that he pleased God” (Hebrews 11: 5). Study to please the Lord, and thus you rebuke the tendency in your own heart to please yourself, you keep off the common garments of the flesh, and you increase your taste for the dress that suits the Lord’s presence, which is simply a devoted heart.