Don’t let your faith become religious fiction. Instead, welcome the Spirit to rule in every situation so that you’ll experience a life that truly triumphs.
Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada with a devotional thought for you today.
Every morning after my girlfriends get me up and ready to sit in my wheelchair, in the bathroom we take a moment to read from a devotional book before we head out into the day. This year we’ve been reading from “Streams in the Desert” and invariably, the Holy Spirit always has a special word, a unique encouragement for us from the pages of that acclaimed work written by Mrs. Charles Cowman.
The other morning, I was struck by one particular vignette, and I decided I just had to share it with you. The verse at the top of the devotional page was from 2 Timothy 2:24 and it says simply, “The servant of the Lord must be gentle.”
And this is what Mrs. Cowman has to write about the virtue of gentleness. She says, “When God conquers us and takes all the flint out of our nature we then see as never before the great rarity of gentleness of spirit in this dark and unheavenly world. The graces of the Spirit do not settle themselves down upon us by chance, and if we do not discern [these] states of grace, and choose them, and in our thoughts nourish them, they never become fastened to our nature or behavior. Every [step in advancing grace] must be first preceded by apprehending it, and then a prayerful resolve to have it. So few are willing to undergo the suffering out of which gentleness comes. We must die before we are turned into gentleness, and crucifixion involves suffering; it is the real breaking and crushing of self.”
Wow! I just love what Mrs. Cowman says there. We think we grow in Christ by chance. We think that just you know, knowing the way the Spirit works, we think that means he’ll do his work in us without any effort on our part. But not so. When the graces of God's Spirit settle upon us, you gotta choose them, you gotta nourish them – you gotta choose patience; you gotta choose to persevere; choose self-control; we must choose to hold our tongues. Then and only then do these things become fastened, become riveted to our nature and our character is changed. Mrs. Cowman has one more observation about this.
She says, “There is a good deal of mere mental sanctification going on nowadays, which is only religious fiction. It consists of mentally putting oneself on the altar, and then mentally saying that the altar sanctifies the gift, and then logically concluding therefore [that you are] sanctified; and then [go forth] with flippant, theological prattle about the deep things of God. [But you have not experienced those deep things]. The natural heartstrings have not been snapped, and the flint of Adam has not been ground to powder, and your chest has not throbbed with the lonely, surging sighs of Gethsemane. And because you have not experienced the death marks of calvary, there cannot be that soft, sweet, gentle, victorious, triumphant life that flows like a spring morning from an empty tomb.” Wow!
I believe that, like me, you do not want your life to be religious fiction. You don’t want to merely place yourself mentally on the altar and assume that in so doing, you are being sanctified. No, I believe that when the grace of God falls upon you, especially in times of trial; I believe you want to embrace that grace; so choose it, nourish it, apprehend your living Savior and welcome his Spirit to rule in every situation; welcome Jesus as preeminent in your pain. For then the old Adam in your life will be ground to powder and you’ll experience life that truly triumphs. Good thoughts today from the devotional book “Streams in the Desert.”
© Joni and Friends