01.50. Excerpt13 - Spiritual Maturity

Excerpt13 - Spiritual Maturity

Spiritual maturity comes not by book knowledge
but by strict compliance to the revealed
will of God. I believe in instant purity for the believer,
but I do not believe in instant maturity by God
in Grace.
Cleansing is immediate - by the Blood.
Conformity is progressive - by the rod!
Through the atoning death of Christ, heart
purity is instant-
but progress is constant. The law of spiritual progress goes like this:
Process then crisis,
followed by a process then crisis,
ad infinitum. There is a "deeper life."
It is deep as a personal Gethsemane
and costly as a personal Calvary. We are, each of us, as spiritual as we want to
be.
The throttle is in our own hands. Too many of us want to make a peace treaty
with Christ, but will not make a total surrender
to Christ. A secret of victory:
To do what God wants me to do;
To do it as He wants it to be done;
To do it when He wants it done. There may be no more theological frontiers to
explore,
but there are new dimensions of spirituality to
explore -
new possibilities of Grace! The Christian has every right to tell God he
wants to be a saint, but the Christian has no
right to tell God how to make him one. It is much easier to wear a cross
than to bear a cross. Whom the Lord loveth, He corecteth.
Correction is criticism in action. Sanctification is not isolation (Simon Stylite’s
style), but rather constant, Spirit-operated
purification in a world of militant corruption. Knowledge is not character, but character is
developed from knowledge and obedience. Lord, let nothing live in me that should die
and let nothing die in me that should live. The worst thing that God gives us
is better than the best thing Satan offers. No fruit is better than its tree. I do not know the weather ahead,
I do know the path that I must tread. Truth can be a mental idol until it gets into the
"blood stream."
It then becomes a motivating force. The Beatitudes should really "be" attitudes of
the Christian’s life. The Beatitudes should "be" attitudes in our
daily walk with God. Cultivate cheerfulness. Every mother is a career woman. "He anointeth my head with oil."
If He does not anoint it, no one else can. "He anointeth my head with oil."
Without the anointing, what use is a bishop’s
miter?