God Does Everything!

We know that justification is ours through the Lord Jesus and requires no work on our part, but we think that sanctification is dependent on our own efforts. We know we can receive forgiveness only by entire reliance on the Lord; yet we believe we can obtain deliverance by doing something ourselves. We fear that if we do nothing, nothing will happen. After salvation the old habit of 'doing' reasserts itself and we begin our old self-efforts again. Then God's word comes afresh to us: 'It is finished' [John 19.30]. He has done everything for us on the Cross for our forgiveness and He will do everything in us for our deliverance. In both cases He is the doer. 'It is God who works in you.'

The first words of the delivered man are very precious - 'I thank God'. If someone gives you a cup of water you thank the person who gave it, not someone else. Why did Paul say, 'Thank God'? Because God was the One who did everything... Paul saw that he was a 'wretched man', and that God alone could meet his need; so he said, 'Thank God'. God wants to do all, for He must have all the glory. If we do some of the work, then we will get some of the glory; but God must have it all Himself, so He does all the work from beginning to end.

But the Christian life is not a matter of sitting still and waiting for something to happen... All who truly live it know it to be a matter of very positive and active faith in Christ and in an altogether new principle of life - the law of the Spirit of life.

Extract from 'The Measure of Christ' by TAS

The object of the Father from first to last is that the Son, the Lord Jesus, shall fill all things, and all things shall be filled with Christ. The value of everything in the eyes of God is according to the measure of the manifestation of Christ in it. It is from that standpoint God determines the importance of everything.

If we become focussed there, it will make a great difference, much will have to go because it is not manifesting the Lord Jesus. We must understand that the Father has set the Lord Jesus before His eyes, and the Father's eyes are full of only one object, that is the Beloved, His Son; and in the eyes of God the value of everything is determined by the measure in which His Son is manifested and glorified; that is His end and that is His object.

Spiritual service, vision, vocation, glorification, have no existence apart from Christ; they are not things as things, and cannot be had except in the Person of the Lord Jesus...

Christianity is not a doctrine, not truth as truth, but the knowledge of a Person; it is knowing the Lord Jesus. You cannot be educated into being a Christian. Christianity is the knowledge within of a Person, knowing Him as dwelling within us...

You cannot go outside of A and Z in the realm of literature; you box the compass of language with A and Z; likewise Christ Jesus is First and Last of God's new creation, and all that is in between; you cannot get outside of that. We must never think of anything as outside of Christ; He Is Salvation; He Is Sanctification; He Is Redemption, Justification, Peace; Wisdom, Love, Heaven. "Know ye not as to your own selves, that Jesus Christ is in you," this Christ - in you! Do you see the possibilities and the tremendous reach of this?

God will transform His universe, not from without, but from within. How? By putting Jesus Christ within the believer by His Holy Spirit; and thence there will be a two-fold activity - being conformed to Him by His Spirit, and He being formed in the believer; thus He is going to make His new creation...

The Christian life is not by effort, and not by struggle; not merely by trying to put into practice certain maxims, or by trying to attain to a certain measure; but from beginning to end, and all together, it is a matter of knowing the Lord Jesus within. Of course this implies response to Him, and a continual yieldedness to His working by His Spirit within, and so co-operating with Him in His purpose of conformity to His image.

[It would be wonderful to read the entire article on www.austin-sparks.net, the online library of T. Austin-Sparks.]