WALK IN THE SPIRIT
WALK IN THE SPIRIT
I have found, and have spoken of it here, that those who only see their sins put away through the blood of Christ, are often practically more separate from the old man, than those who both accept and teach that the old man as well as the sins was put away in the cross. I ask, why is this? I believe because the Holy Spirit is not honoured by the latter, though they admit the truth about Him. This to me is the real cause of the brethren’s break-down.
The first thing for the soul, at all times, is to ascertain, ‘What is God’s feeling about it?’ That is, I want to know how He feels; and this is uppermost in my mind, and not how I feel even about Him. This the prodigal learns - how the Father feels; and it is the first duty of light; as with the thief who says, “Dost not thou fear God?” (Luke 23: 40) - “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned” (Psalm 51: 4). When I am occupied with my own feelings, I am seeking to commend myself; when I am occupied with His feelings towards me, I am learning His blessed grace,
[p. 278] and how He has placed me, through the work of His Son, according to His full pleasure - even as Christ is, beside Him. And if I were to live a thousand years, I should not be one whit better in His eyes.
Two things occurred at my conversion: one, that I was complete in Christ - you cannot add to what is complete; the other, that the body of sin was destroyed. You and I are only learning the truth of these two all our journey; and the better I learn them (they are only learned concurrently, and this is very important), the more I am for Christ here, and the more I enjoy my birthright. Where you fail, and where I fail, is, that knowing the truth, we do not dread the flesh more, and rely on our only support or power to keep us in the ways of the new man; that is, that we are not careful enough to walk in the Spirit. We have no power to act for Christ but in the Spirit. The attempt to utilise mind, feelings, or carnal strength of any kind for Christ is a delusion; and, like all delusions, diverts us from the true thing, more than if we had never tried to do anything. We are not sufficiently afraid of the flesh. For instance, if you talk politics with a man in the morning, you may think you are free of it in the evening, when you go to a meeting. No, you are not. You are like one who has swallowed a needle; it will work out somewhere; in the spot possibly least expected. The poison of the flesh has been imbibed; communion interrupted. The Spirit has been slighted, and He will have you to learn that it is a very bitter thing to forsake the Lord for the pleasure of the mind. There is no remedy but to be more afraid of the flesh, and more separate from it. The Romanist uses penance, because he feels it ought to be burnt out. It cannot; and therefore you say, ‘It is there’. But if I walk in the Spirit, I am preserved from its influence. The poison of the flesh never, I might say, betrays itself in any likeness to the way it had entered. If it came in by politics, it might expose itself by temper, and vice versa.