Of His
fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. (John 1:16)
It is a grand thing and a source
of tremendous strength to come to the same position as that of Christ as Man,
where we know that boundless heavenly resources are available. I think we only
come there progressively, and not all at once. We only come there by the way of
discipline - discipline which takes the form of bringing us to an utter
dependence, but which is yet not an emptying and a breaking down as an end in
itself, but one which is accompanied by that grace of God - that graciousness
of God - which, when we are empty, makes His fullness to abound.
There is a positive as well as a
negative side. God is no believer in negatives as being the ultimate goal; but
when He breaks and when He empties, He does something on the positive side
which ever causes us to marvel, and we have to say every time: "Well, that
was the Lord, not ourselves." We come progressively by that way of
discipline to know that there are heavenly resources which far outstrip all
human possibilities, and these resources are operative. This is what
constitutes spirituality - this is what makes a life or service spiritual: it
is the drawing upon heavenly resources, living the life as out from heaven. That
is spirituality. That constitutes a spiritual life and a spiritual walk. The
resources are not drawn from self or from the world; they are all drawn from
above. The government is not that here of men or of the world, but that which
is from above. Everything is so utterly from above - and so utterly not from
man - that the life or work becomes spiritual as a consequence.
T. Austin-Sparks
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