Faith Unto Enlargement Through Adversity # 30

Faith In Relation to Life (continued)

e. Intelligence: Life Recognizes Life

This life is something which is only appreciated and understood by those who have it. Those who do not possess it can see its effect or its fruit, but they do not understand it at all. They may say, 'Well, those people have got something that I do not know anything about: I do not understand it at all, I do not know what it is. They seem to be happy about it, but I am certainly a stranger to all that.' Or it may not affect them at all. They may come in where there is abundant life and go away unaffected. They jut do not understand it or appreciate it. But those of us who have this life both appreciate and understand it. We cannot explain it to anyone else, any more than we can explain what natural life is. No one can explain what life is. But if we are spiritually alive, really spiritually alive, and we go in among other children of God, we sense something. It may be we feel death, a lack of life, something here that is not alive; there is some check to life here. On the other hand, we may sense the presence of life. Now, that capacity to appreciate and to understand is the guide of the Lord's people. It is a very intelligent faculty - it is, indeed, our 'intelligence,' in more senses than one. Why do we say, "Something is wrong here," because we do not sense the life; there is something that is not alive. We are 'alive" to the fact that something is wrong.!

I believe that is exactly what Paul knew when he found those disciples at Ephesus. They were having some wonderful Bible teaching from Apollos, who was a man mighty in the Scriptures; but Paul had to say when he came down to them: 'You have a lot of Bible teaching here, and you are professing disciples of the Lord - but what is the matter with you? There is something amiss here. Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed:' (Acts 19:2). The Holy Spirit in Paul, as the Spirit of life, registered here the absence of life; there was no witness of life, even with all the Bible teaching and the profession. The Spirit enabled Paul to put his finger upon the situation, and to clear it up.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 31 - (Life Through Faith)