Will you please turn to 1 Corinthians 2:15?
But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, and he himself is judged of no man.
The same book, 1 Corinthians 15:45-46:
So also it is written, The first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
Howbeit that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; then that which is spiritual.
Turn also to 2 Corinthians 4:7:
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God, and not from ourselves.
And in Philippians:
For to me to live is Christ. — Philippians 1:21
Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. — Philippians 2:5
That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, becoming conformed unto His death. — Philippians 3:10
I can do all things in Him that strengtheneth me. — Philippians 4:13
Or, as another translation says, “I have strength for all things through Him who empowers me.”
Dear Lord, our hearts are awed that Thou dost love us so much and command us to remember Thee at Thy table. We do praise and thank Thee that Thou dost give Thyself to us.
Lord, it is the desire of our hearts that Thou wilt have us wholly for Thyself. On the one hand, we do long for Thy return, that we may see Thee face to face. Yet, on the other hand, we are fearful that very little can really satisfy Thy heart.
So, Lord, it is our prayer before Thee that Thou mayest increase in us and we may decrease. Do not allow us to live in a false condition. Lord, we want to be real. We want Thee to be all, and we trust Thy Holy Spirit to do such a work.
Lord, as we gather here this morning, we feel that the time is so short. Unless Thou dost a deep work in us, Lord, how are we going to see Thee?
We lay ourselves at Thy feet and invite Thee to perfect the good work which Thou hast begun in every one of us, for the praise of Thy glory. We commit this time into Thy hands.
We acknowledge that this is something that Thou alone canst do. We are helpless, and we just lean upon Thee. We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.
In our time together, we are burdened with this one thing, and that is the spiritual. We realize that unless there is true spirituality, not only do we not really have anything, but the Lord will have very little.
It is our desire that the Lord will have much for Himself. He Who loves us so much and gave His all to us deserves to have much from us. So this is why we gather together: to consider this matter of true spirituality. It is really not just for ourselves; it is for Him.
Yesterday morning, we tried to draw a contrast between true and false spirituality. Matthew 5 really describes to us what true spirituality is, and Matthew 23 really tells us what counterfeit, false spirituality is.
After you go through the Beatitudes in Matthew 5, what is the impression that is left with you? I believe the impression that is left with you is Christ. Even though it says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” yet it is Christ that you see in the poor in spirit.
But when you read Matthew 23, what impression do you get? With those who are cursed, you get the impression of religion.
On the one side, it is the living Christ in us. That is true spirituality. On the other side, you find being religious. It is religious flesh—a counterfeit, a pretension, a playing of a part on the stage.
There is nothing more dangerous for God’s children, for there is nothing more opposite to spirituality than religiosity. We become very religious because, by being religious, we think we are spiritual. It is a substitute, a counterfeit, a deception.
We may be very orthodox, but dead. We may be very traditional, but have no revelation. We may be very legalistic, but have no life. We may have a form of godliness, but where is the power of it?
We become divisive and sectarian. Brothers and sisters, we see this situation in Christianity today. We see such a situation among God’s people everywhere.
“We are the orthodox. We have the truth. We know what is right.” We become proud and jealous. But where is Christ? Where do we see Him?
Now this morning, we would like to fellowship together concerning what true spirituality is and what the marks of true spirituality are.
In 1 Corinthians 15, it says that the first Adam was a living soul, and the last Adam a life-giving Spirit. That which is natural comes first, and then that which is spiritual.
I want to borrow these two verses. When you think of Adam, you think of the natural man. When you think of Christ, you think of the spiritual Man. The natural man comes first, and then the spiritual Man.
All that is of Adam is natural. The natural man does not appreciate the things of the Spirit. It is something beyond him. He does not know the things of the Spirit. Therefore, it is impossible for a natural man to be spiritual.
If a natural man tries to be spiritual, you know, it is pseudo-spiritual. It is an imitation.
Now, we who have believed in the Lord Jesus, in a sense, are not classified among the natural men. Yet, as our brother already mentioned, we who are the Lord’s and have believed in the Lord Jesus, even though we do not belong to the natural man, may still be classified as carnal men.
The only difference between the carnal man and the natural man is that the natural man is just soul and body without a living spirit; the spirit is dead. The carnal man has had his spirit quickened and renewed, and yet he still lives according to the flesh, not according to the spirit. The Bible says he is carnal.
A carnal man may know the things of the Spirit, but a carnal man cannot obey the Spirit. It is impossible for a carnal man to be spiritual. Carnality has to be dealt with before there is the possibility of being spiritual.
The Corinthian believers were carnal Christians. They were Christians, but they were carnal Christians. For carnal Christians to pretend to be spiritual is a counterfeit.
So, brothers and sisters, we want to make it very clear that spirituality is not possible for the natural man, and spirituality is beyond the carnal man. God has to do something in our lives to bring us into true spirituality.
Now, what is spirituality? Who is the spiritual one? We have already said that Christ is the spiritual Man. Of all men, Christ is the spiritual Man. He is the spiritual Man in His perfection.
In both the Old Testament and the New Testament, we find a number of people who are spiritual, but they are spiritual within measure. Our Lord Jesus is spiritual without measure. God has given Him the Holy Spirit without measure. So He is the pattern of true spirituality.
Look at our Lord Jesus. Is it because our Lord Jesus is spiritual that He is less human, or that He is inhuman? Probably our concept is that, if we are to be spiritual, we cannot be human. At least we should be less human. Then we become spiritual.
Now, that is a false concept, because our Lord Jesus is the most perfect human being.
He is a friend of sinners and publicans. He loves the children. He is accessible, approachable, and open to all. He is holy and righteous, yet people do not have the feeling that He says, “I am holier than thou.” He is merciful and gracious.
He was tempted in all things. Anything that you can think of—a human being exposed to temptation—our Lord Jesus, while He was on earth, was tempted in all things. There is nothing in which you are tempted that our Lord has not been tempted. He was tempted in all things, yet without sin.
He wept. He was distressed in His soul. He was oppressed in spirit sometimes. When He was rejected, He felt it, and yet He rose above it.
Our Lord Jesus felt the pain, the sufferings, the rejection. Think of Gethsemane. Think of Calvary. Most human, and yet most spiritual.
He was spiritual not because He was less human. He was human because He was spiritual. Now, to us, it is just the opposite. We need to be human before we can be spiritual.
Think about this: if we are not human, we cannot be spiritual. By “human,” I do not mean fallen humanity. I mean the human being that God had in His mind when He created him.
The whole life of our Lord Jesus was one with the Spirit of God. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are all one.
You remember, in His last conversation with His disciples before His death, He said, “I will send you another Comforter. You know Him, because He is with you, and He shall be in you.”
Who was with the disciples at that time? The Lord Himself. Yet the Lord said that this other Comforter was with them because He and the Lord are one. After our Lord Jesus died and was raised from the dead, He was glorified, and the Spirit was given—another Comforter, another of the same kind, not of another kind, but the same as our Lord.
He was born through the overshadowing of the Spirit of God upon the womb of the virgin Mary. After He was baptized, the heavens were opened, and the Spirit of God descended like a dove upon Him—not only upon Him, but taking up His abode in Him.
When He came back from temptation, He was full of the power of the Holy Spirit. When He began His ministry, He said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me; because He anointed Me.”
Throughout His life, you find that He and the Holy Spirit are indivisible. They are one—in His life and in His ministry. It was by the eternal Spirit that He offered Himself once for all, spotless to God, as the sacrifice.
Brothers and sisters, this is spirituality: a life in the Spirit.
Look at the life of our Lord Jesus. You find that our Lord Jesus never lived for Himself. He lived by the Father.
In John 6:57, He said:
As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father; so he that eateth Me, he also shall live because of Me.
In other words, He lived by the Father, not by Himself.
He lived for the Father, not for Himself. In John 17:4, He said:
I glorified Thee on the earth, having accomplished the work which Thou hast given Me to do.
He lived for the Father, and He lived in the Father.
He told Philip, “Have I been so long with you, and dost thou not know Me? He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father. Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me?”
So, brothers and sisters, here you find a Man. He is spirituality in its perfection—very human, and yet highly spiritual. This is our Lord Jesus. This is the pattern of true spirituality.
Let us consider the apostle Paul and how Paul learned of Christ in this area of spirituality. Paul is a man of like passions as we are. Now, if Paul can be spiritual, then we too have hope.
Who is Paul? He is a man in Christ. In 2 Corinthians 12, he said, “I know a man in Christ, fourteen years ago.” This man was caught up to the third heaven. Whether in the body or out of the body, he did not know. He was caught away to Paradise and heard things that could not be uttered. You know, as you read it, he is speaking of himself. He is a man in Christ.
There are two books in the New Testament that reveal Paul the man and his ministry: 2 Corinthians and Philippians. If you want to use one word over 1 Corinthians, it is carnality. But if you want to use one word to describe 2 Corinthians, it is spirituality.
Even though 2 Corinthians is more a description of the spiritual ministry of the apostle Paul, ministry and life cannot be separated. We can speak of 2 Corinthians from the viewpoint of spiritual ministry, but this morning we want to use that book to look at Paul as a man in Christ.
As you open 2 Corinthians, it opens with tribulation and suffering. That is what life is. Paul was a man who knew tribulations and sufferings, and yet he also knew the consolation of God.
Unfortunately, many people know tribulations and sufferings, but they do not know the consolations of God. Paul had the sentence of death upon his life. He said, “We despaired even of life,” and yet he knew the resurrection power of Christ.
Paul desired to visit Corinth. He loved the Corinthian believers and wanted to give them a double visit. He told them so. But circumstances changed, so he did not go.
Then people said, “Look at this man. He is not dependable.” Paul said, “Yes, I changed my mind. I would rather be true than merely consistent.” But the gospel that he preached was not “yea and nay.” In Christ, it was “yea and amen.”
We might think Paul was so strong. Yet, when he was at Troas, the door of the gospel was wide open, but he could not find Titus. He had arranged for Titus to visit the Corinthians and was waiting for Titus to bring back news. Titus was delayed. Even though the door of the gospel was wide open, Paul could not work. He left and went to Macedonia. Quite a failure—human.
And yet he said:
Thanks be unto God, Who always leadeth us in triumph in Christ.
He was faithful to the Corinthians, and out of his faithfulness he wrote a strong letter to them. That letter was lost; it was not 1 Corinthians. He wrote a letter with tears. He was so burdened for the Corinthians. He spoke the truth in love—a strong letter, but with tears, many tears.
After he wrote the letter, he felt uneasy about it. “Oh, why should I write such a letter? It is too strong.” Yet, when the good news came, he was comforted that that letter had produced the right result. Very human.
When he was rejected, he felt it very deeply. Yet he said, “The less I am loved, the more I love you. I am willing to spend and be spent for you.”
Here is a man who was forced to be a fool, and yet one who had visions and revelations; a man who had a thorn in his flesh, and yet knew that the grace of God was sufficient for him.
What do you see in that man? He is an earthen person, but with a treasure in him.
Brothers and sisters, what is true spirituality? True spirituality is an earthen vessel with a treasure, that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God and not of man.
In other words, it is the power of the treasure that comes through the earthen vessel. That is true spirituality.
True spirituality is not the earthen vessel. We try to refine the earthen vessel, to decorate the earthen vessel, to make the earthen vessel look spiritual. But that is not spirituality.
Or we go to the other extreme and say, “Destroy the earthen vessel. It is such a hindrance. Oh, if only I could destroy that earthen vessel—no more humanity—then I would be spiritual.” No.
The earthen vessel must be there. Humanity is there. But with the earthen vessel by itself, there is no spirituality. There must be treasure in the earthen vessel.
Or, put it another way: what is true spirituality? We say it is the treasure. No. It is not only the treasure without the earthen vessel. That is not true spirituality.
True spirituality is the divine life coming through humanity. That is true spirituality.
It is a paradox. You will always be weak. The earthen vessel is weak. Treasure is easily carried in a cracked vessel. It will always be there.
Yet Paul said, “I boast in my weakness, because when I am weak, then am I strong.” A paradox.
It is Christ getting through a human life. That is spirituality.
So, brothers and sisters, do not be too idealistic, thinking that it is all treasure and no earthen vessel. This is not what God wants. You will never reach there. It is treasure in the earthen vessel.
You see the humanity in Paul—very human. Yet through that humanity, you see Christ. That is true spirituality.
Well, if that is true spirituality, how do we get there? I do thank God. Even though we three brothers have not talked together about what we were going to share, we have really been led to speak along the same line. I do thank the Lord that we do not duplicate each other. I believe this is of the Lord. The Lord gives us one spirit and one mind.
Let me put it very simply. First of all, it has to begin with regeneration—with new birth. As we have said many times, spirituality has its source in the spirit.
Thank God, when He rebirthed us and quickened our dead spirit into life, He put His own Spirit in us. The Holy Spirit is the sole agent of spirituality. Without Him, there can be no spirituality.
Every child of God, every born-again person, not only has a new spirit, but has the Holy Spirit dwelling in his spirit. The work of the Holy Spirit is to bring us into spirituality, to make us spiritual, because this is the will of God.
God’s will is not for you to be carnal all your life. God’s will is for you to be sons and daughters of God. In Romans 8, it says that as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. So we need to be led by the Spirit. That is what the indwelling Spirit is doing in our lives.
Both of our brothers have mentioned this matter of consecration. Romans 12. Consecration is a key.
You have the new spirit. You have the Holy Spirit dwelling in your spirit. Everything is already there on the road to spirituality, but the door needs to be opened. The key is consecration.
Our brother mentioned that when he consecrated himself, he was told to become a Baptist. Well, the same thing happened to me—not to become a Baptist pastor.
When I was saved, I was fifteen. I sought the Lord for a whole year. The Lord evaded me. But after a whole year of seeking after Him, finally He met me.
When I was ready to give up, I told Him so. I told the Lord, “If You do not save me this time, bye-bye.” And He saved me that very afternoon. Thank God.
But according to traditional Christianity, the last day of every convention conference is always on consecration. By consecration, it means becoming a minister, a Bible woman, or a missionary. That was the concept.
A large map of China hung on the wall behind the platform, and the preacher was just pounding: “If you love the Lord, give yourself—consecrate yourself to Him—and go and preach the gospel.” He even told us, “You can choose where you want to go.”
I was a young man, so grateful to the Lord. When the preacher said, “Now, come to the platform. Put your finger at the place where you want to go,” I thought, “In China, where is the most difficult place, the farthest place? Mongolia.”
So I went to the platform and put my finger in Mongolia. “That is where I am going.” I was serious. But even now, I have never been to Mongolia.
What is consecration?
Consecration is not doing something for God. Consecration is giving yourself to Him and letting Him do the work. That is consecration.
He is going to do a great work in your life to make you spiritual. But He will not force you. He is waiting for you to open the door, to give Him permission.
Think of that. He has every right over you, and He waits for your permission. Consecration is to offer yourself: “Present your bodies a living sacrifice.” Say, “Lord, I am here, at Your disposal. Do what is upon Your heart.”
That opens the door for the Holy Spirit to begin to work in your life.
Brothers and sisters, our soul needs to be sanctified. Who is dwelling in our soul? Self—you, me.
Even though we were saved by the grace of God, the work of grace has already begun in our spirit. But it has to reach out to the soul.
Yet you find that our self is on the throne of our soul—this fallen self, this sinful self, this selfish self. It is in control of our soul-life.
Self is expressing itself through our emotions. It is expressing itself through our mind, our thought-life. It is expressing itself through our volition, our will.
As our brothers said, a transformation has to come so that our soul may express Christ and not ourselves. Or, put it another way, Christ has to be enthroned in our soul. Our self has to be displaced and replaced by Christ.
That is what you find in Ephesians 3, in Paul’s prayer: that Christ may dwell in your heart. Christ dwells in your spirit today, but does He dwell in your heart? Do you allow Him to come and fill your heart, take charge of all your soul faculties, and express Himself through you?
How does it come about? The Holy Spirit arranges your environment.
Remember, brothers and sisters, to a sovereign God even the hairs of your head are numbered—not only counted, but numbered. Every hair has a number. So when you comb your hair in the morning, certain numbers fall out, and God knows it. You do not know it, but God knows it.
He can love us to such an extent. Do you think your environment can be changed by coincidence? Never.
As you give yourself to the Lord, He will arrange your circumstances. Through these circumstances, He is bringing in the cross for you to bear.
Do not create your own crosses. It is the work of the Holy Spirit. There will be plenty.
As the Holy Spirit arranges your circumstances—whether people, events, relationships, or whatever it may be in daily life—the Holy Spirit arranges it, and He speaks within your spirit. He tells you, “Take up your cross and follow the Lord.”
What is a cross? A cross is something that crosses your way.
You want to go in one direction, and the Lord says, “No, it is the other direction.” That is a cross. You want one thing, and the Lord says, “No, the other thing.” That is a cross. You want your will, and the Lord says, “No, My will.” That is a cross.
The cross serves only one purpose: to crucify the self.
That is the reason why our Lord Jesus said, “Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me.” Otherwise, you cannot be My disciples. That is to say, you will never learn.
Denying self is a matter of the will. After you have given yourself to the Lord, then the will is there. Taking up the cross—you have to do it. It is active and positive. You can evade it; you can bypass it.
But if you are willing to take up the cross so that the self will be crucified and done away with, then, brothers and sisters, Christ will come in and take the rightful place.
That is the reason why you find Paul saying in 2 Corinthians 4:
Always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body.
We are delivered unto death daily, that we may know life daily.
If we evade the cross, self will never be dethroned, Christ will never be enthroned in our heart, and transformation will not come.
So it is very important, brothers and sisters: on this way to spirituality, you will find it is a way of the cross.
I wonder if any one of you has read Francis Schaeffer’s True Spirituality. In that book, he says that the “how” of true spirituality is not by human effort or energy.
He says the “how” of true spirituality is actually Romans 6:11:
Even so reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus.
Dead unto sin in Christ: that is the negative aspect. Alive unto God in Christ: that is the positive aspect.
So he says that the “how” of true spirituality is simply this: it is the power of the crucified, resurrected, and glorified Christ Jesus, through the agency of the Holy Spirit and by faith.
I remember James Stewart saying that true spirituality is not necessarily a high intellectual understanding of the doctrines of Scripture. You find true spirituality in the most common believers whose all is Christ.
True spirituality is Christ in you.
Philippians is a letter that reveals Paul the spiritual man. In Philippians 1:21, he says, “For to me to live is Christ.” Well, that is the meaning of true spirituality.
For me to live is Christ. You have the “me” there; you have Christ there. It is not I that live; it is Christ Who lives. For me to live, it is Christ Who lives in me. That is true spirituality.
You live, but it is not you. It is a mystery. It is Christ living in you.
The sign of true spirituality is the mind of Christ. As our brothers have already mentioned, the mind of Christ is a sign of true spirituality—a mind of humility, a mind of emptying oneself, esteeming others as more excellent than oneself, a mind of obedience.
The way to true spirituality is found in Philippians 3:10: to know Him, the power of His resurrection, the fellowship of His sufferings, and conformity to His death.
The power of true spirituality is found in Philippians 4:13: “I can do all things through Him Who empowers me.”
You know, brothers and sisters, all spirituality says, “I can do all things.” But the Lord says in John 15:5, “Apart from Me ye can do nothing.” Have we come to that point yet? Apart from Him, we can do nothing.
But some brothers and sisters stop there: “So I can do nothing, so I do nothing.” They become very passive. Well, this is only the preparation.
If you can do all things, then Christ can do nothing. So you have to be brought to the point where you see that you can do nothing apart from Him. Then you realize, “I can do all things through Him Who empowers me.” That is the power of true spirituality.
Well, what are the marks of true spirituality? I will just mention a few. Our brother has already mentioned some.
First of all, I think the mark of true spirituality is to be poor in spirit.
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
— Matthew 5:3
Pseudo-spirituality is the spirit of the Laodiceans: “I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing.” But the Lord says, “Thou knowest not that thou art the wretched one and miserable and poor and blind and naked.”
The Pharisee went into the temple and prayed, “God, I thank Thee, that I am not as the rest of men.” “Oh, I am not like that publican. I give one-tenth of everything. I fast twice a week. I am thankful to Thee. Thou shouldst be thankful to me.”
Hypocrite. That is false spirituality.
True spirituality is manifested in poverty of spirit. Why? Because one has seen the Lord.
If you have seen the Lord—how rich and how full He is—you realize how wretched, how poor, how blind, and how naked you are.
Even Daniel, the beloved of God, when he saw the Lord, said, “My comeliness was turned in me into corruption.” Only one who has not seen the Lord thinks that he is righteous above all others. But when Job saw the Lord, he repented in dust and ashes.
Dear brothers and sisters, the sure mark of true spirituality is poverty of spirit—not pretending to be poor, but truly poor because one has seen the Lord. The more you see the Lord, the more you realize how poor you are.
Second, the mark of true spirituality is richness in love.
Knowledge puffeth up, but love buildeth up. Our mental knowledge, even our mental knowledge concerning the Scripture—we know doctrine, we have a high intellectual understanding of the doctrines of Scripture—that only puffs us up. It is pseudo-spiritual.
But love builds up. True spiritual knowledge produces love.
In Paul’s prayer in Ephesians, he prays that we may be granted the spirit of wisdom and revelation unto the full knowledge of God. Then he follows this prayer with another prayer: that our inner man may be strengthened by the Holy Spirit, that Christ may dwell in our hearts, that we may apprehend with all the saints the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of God which passeth knowledge.
Dear brothers and sisters, real knowledge brings in love—love to God, love for the brethren, and love for people. True spirituality is expressed in love because God is love.
It is not expressed in knowledge only, or in the expression of power. That is not the real thing.
The third mark of spirituality is the sentence of death.
Paul said in Galatians 6:17, “I bear branded on my body the marks of Jesus”—the wounds of Christ. Dear brothers and sisters, are we intact, never having been dealt with?
Have we never been poured from one vessel to another, so that our flavor remains the same? If we have been dealt with by the Lord, there will be the sentence of death upon us. We dare not trust in ourselves. We dare not raise our heads.
Yet we know the resurrection power of the life of our Lord. That is the true mark of spirituality.
Number four: true spirituality is marked by vision and revelation. By that, I do not mean what people today say: “Well, I have a vision. I have a dream. I have a revelation.”
What I mean is that he who is spiritual is so pure in heart that he sees God. He sees the very heart of God, the very mind of God, the very purpose of God.
He is enlightened. He walks in the light as God is in the light, and has fellowship with one another; and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses him from all sin.
Number five: the spiritual discerns all things. Spiritual discernment comes through much experience with the Lord.
It is because you become transparent. As you become transparent, everything comes through.
You know, the Lord Jesus, when He was on earth, did not need people to tell Him about man, because He knew. He saw through and through. He looked at Peter, and Peter withered.
Brothers and sisters, the spiritual discerns all things. They are not deceived by appearances; they can see through.
But spiritual discernment is not for judgment. It is for ministry.
Our problem is that the more we see, the more we judge. We become the judge in the Supreme Court. We judge everybody and everything.
But true spirituality gives you discernment in order that you may serve. How can you serve your brothers and sisters if you cannot discern? You do not know where they are or what their spiritual condition is. They may say one thing, but they are not saying what is really there. Oftentimes we say one thing, but we mean another. You need discernment.
It is for service, for ministry. But, unfortunately, another mark of the spiritual is that he is judged of no one. In other words, he will be much misunderstood by everybody. That is the price you have to pay.
When we sang the song “Maranatha,” it touched me very deeply. The Lord is coming soon. I do believe that we have the desire to see Him.
But I was thinking, when I see Him, how much will He receive back to Himself? How much will be burned? How many things—months and years—have I lived in that section, thinking that I had it, but it was a counterfeit, a pretense, not real?
It is not Christ in me. It is me trying to be like Christ.
I really feel fearful. That is the reason why we feel burdened, brothers and sisters. These are not days for playing around anymore—playing with your spiritual life, playing with church life. We do not have time for that.
My prayer is that the earlier we know in our lives how much is not real, the better—that we may allow the Spirit of God to really bring Christ into our lives.
And when we see Him, as Paul said, we shall not be ashamed. May the Lord help us. Shall we pray?
Lord, we may talk about spirituality. We may take up the terminology and try to appear spiritual. Forbid it.
We pray that we may all fall at Thy feet, allowing Thee to examine us and to prove us.
Lord, whatever the cost may be, if it means that we be reduced to zero, Lord, do it.
We pray that from now on, it is Christ in us, the hope of glory. In the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.