STATE AND PRACTICE

STATE AND PRACTICE

As to the leaflet you enclosed I had seen it before. Many mistake their own state for their true state. Our true state is the Spirit in us. As He is ungrieved He occupies us with Christ. All real ministry leads to Christ, and when you are ^[p. 90] led by the Spirit you pray that you may apprehend that for which also you are apprehended. Much damage has been done to souls by after insisting on the sovereign grace of God, then passing on to walk and conduct. The teaching is that all is done for me; that is right; but then conduct and behaviour are pressed without seeing that there is a divine state. This leads to a certain self approbation, and while assured of God’s absolute grace, there is neither knowing nor seeking personal intercourse and communion with Him; satisfied so long as outward conduct is commendable. All is ours, but then I enter on what is mine in peace and in the knowledge of His love, and as I do, I am near Him, and in intimacy with Him, and thus I am led on in nearness to Him to do His pleasure. It is not watching my conduct, but watching Him, as the moon’s measure of light is as she catches the sun. There is a divine standing and a divine state, and divine practice; the second is not without the first, and the last is never without the second. The second is very little known.