God's Reactions to Man's Defections # 75

The Responsibility of the Christian (continued)

b. With Undivided Interests

The second thing that is in these statements is that, if we are going to wage triumphant spiritual warfare, we must be altogether in it. "No soldier on active service" (for that is the literal wording) "entangleth himself with the affairs of this life." He must be disentangled. One of the enemy's most successful tactics is to get us all tied up, tangled up with all kinds of conflicting things, or with some other interests, dividing us in our life and in our strength and in our application. Now this that Paul says to Timothy here dos not mean, 'Look here, you must not go into business - you must come out of business, and be all on spiritual work.' It does not mean that you have got to leave everything else and come  and be a fuller full-time worker, or full-time soldier - it does not mean that at all. It is entirely possible - and, though difficult, this is what the Apostle and what the Lord would say to most of us - it is altogether possible for you to pursue your daily employment, and do it conscientiously and thoroughly, as you should, leaving nothing for reproach, while yet at the same time, whether in it, through it, or over it, your supreme interests are spiritual. The really governing things in your life are the Lord's things.

The warfare, then, may be in the daily business. But if you get all churned up and obsessed, you are put out of the war, out of the fight. Inwardly in our hearts there has got to be a disentangled spirit. Now that could be enlarged upon very much. The Apostle is saying: You must not have two dominating interests in life; you can only have one. You must not be a divided person who has, on the one side, interests in the things of the Lord, on the other side, interests in the world. That is NO good; you will not be a good soldier if you are like that. If you have to be in this world, and do its work, and follow your profession, your dominating concern must be the interests of the Lord, and in that part of your life you must be disentangled. In a word, one thing over all must predominate; there must be no dividedness of heart or mind. "This one thing I do ...", said the Apostle.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 76 - (c. Alongside of Others)