Words of Wisdom and Revelation # 3

Words of Wisdom and Revelation # 3

Spiritual Gifts vs. Spiritual Persons

There is a difference between spiritual gifts and spiritual persons. The gifts - what are they? The result of the Spirit coming upon a person. The spiritual person - what is he? He is spiritual as the results of the Spirit forming within. There is a lot of difference between inward formation and merely outward action.
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Accredited Ministry

Truly accredited ministry is through suffering. Accredited ministry represents a tremendous victory, set in a background of great conflict.

A determined effort is made through the age to discredit spiritual ministry, and to do so through the one engaged in that ministry.

One who counts for the Lord, is a joint of supply, who can be of value in any way to the Lord's people, and stand in His testimony, will know the enemy's effort to render those spiritual values nil by discrediting.

All ministry that is to be accredited will be bound up with suffering; a decision we have to make is as to the object of our ministry. A good many things can be taken into consideration, but there comes a point where all other things have to be ranged on one side, and one thing on the other side - the real spiritual value, without alloy: that which is wholly of God and not at all of man. In the measure in which that is true there will be suffering. To stand utterly for what is spiritual is a costly thing.

There must be a willingness to be dealt with by the Lord, in such a way as to keep the ministry living and pure. All ministry which issues from such suffering is going to count. It may not be welcomed or desired by the mass, but where there is need and a call for that which we have gained through suffering, there will be response.

But the treasure is in vessels of fragile clay; the vessel is being broken day by day.
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Holding the Ground

We do not know why we are in the place that we are in. Everything seems so difficult, so contrary, and then we see things begin to break up. It looks like calamity, and in the end there is something secured for God. But it necessitates our being there pronouncedly the Lord's to secure it. This does not just happen.

He may hold us in a place and not let us go until that testimony is there established, and then perhaps He will give the situation, or those there, into our hands.
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Enlargement Through Perplexity

The facts are that there is often a large service through a certain curtailment, a fuller life through a deeper death, a richer gain by a keener loss, and we have to look for the impact of the operation of God in us in a realm where the eye of man cannot trace...Supposing the deepest purposes of God can only be realized by His hiding from our flesh all that that flesh craves for its life, and - more - supposing His work in us, whereby triumphant faith and obedience reach their highest form, necessitates His concealing Himself and accepting the risk of being considered to have been unfaithful? There is no doubt that most of those who have been called into some of the most vital expressions of the eternal purpose have been trained in the school of apparent Divine contradiction, delay, withdrawal, and darkness.
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The Faith That Challenges Mountains

Here is a situation full of difficulties, full of threatenings, full of adversities; why, it is almost an appalling prospect, yet nevertheless give me a chance there! You see the challenge. Do difficulties appall you or do they at once present a great opportunity for the Lord? How are we facing the big difficulties? and there are difficulties! there are problems! and these mountains seem to pile up upon one another as we go on. Sometimes it seems an impossible outlook and prospect, a hopeless situation. Perhaps for our own lives individually for some reason withing ourselves or outside of ourselves, or for that work to which we are called, the ministry, the testimony that is laid upon us, it seems so utterly hopeless, the mountain is impossible. Well, what about it? Is it - Give me this mountain! Nothing but a real faith in God can take things on like that, and say - All right, it is difficult, there is no doubt about it, it is an appalling prospect naturally, a hopeless outlook; nevertheless let us take it on in the Name of the Lord; it may be that the Lord ... THE LORD - looking at the mountain through the Lord, and not at the Lord through the mountain.

I think that is the kind of faith that we need, that brings into rest. A mountain - yes, it is a mountain right enough, a physical mountain, a circumstantial mountain, a mountain of outlook in the work Naturally we would do the right thing, the wise, commonsense thing if we said, No, we are not going to touch that! But faith says, I am not going to try and skirt that mountain, I am not going to turn my back on it and run away; give me this mountain!

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 4)