The Cross and the Eternal Glory # 27

The Urgency and the Way of Spiritual Reality (continued)

The Love of Christ (continued)

I think we were all very moved by that word last night about the awfulness, its possessiveness, and everything else. What can we do about it? Well, praise the Lord, He has gone to the Cross to deal with it. And at the Cross that old thing has been put away. And we always have got to go back to the Cross and appropriate the mighty putting away. But on the positive side there is a new nature, and a new power imparted, the Holy Spirit.

I was talking to a young brother this morning after the meeting, wondering how it could be made real, and we were talking on this very thing; you cannot do it yourself, the Holy Spirit must make it real! Will you trust Him to make it real? And I believe this is a real issue, I believe w have got to get to grips with this, to cry to the Lord, as Paul did for those saints, that we shall be so strengthened by the Spirit: Spirit energized, that the reality of the thing will be found in us, and increasing us.

The Holy Spirit Came to Glorify Christ ... And He Is Here to Make Christ Real in Us

Now, we have stayed for some time with that passage in Ephesians. But we come to something that is an explanation, if you like, of the whole New Testament. You know when the Holy Spirit is moving among us and working. He is always striking the same note, and you are always noticing how things connect up, and you know the Holy Spirit, when He came, He came to glorify Christ. And that means to bring Christ into view, that we could see Him. And not only to bring Christ into view, but bring Him into Reality in our lives. The Holy Spirit is here to make Christ real in us.

Why did Paul write these letters? Romans; Corinthians; Galatians; Ephesians; Philippians; Colossians; and all the rest of them. Why did he write them? Simply because the Holy Spirit had taken hold of him, with the one intention of making Christ real in all the saints, that is all. That is all the Epistles are about. Here are groups of real Christians, people who have Christ in them, but all sorts of things that are not according to Christ, all sorts of things are not real. You see, it is not the real thing when Christians are quarreling is it? It is not the real thing when they are living defeated lives in sin. That is NOT Christ, not really. It is NOT real when there is not the fullness of love and fellowship and relatedness. We want those things. Well, my message today is that the Holy Spirit is here to do it, to make it a fact that we are a people full of the love of Christ. We can trust Him to do it.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 28)