- Overcomer Literature Trust
- Swindon
- Wiltshire
SEPARATION.
By Martin van Driel.
The Lord is showing us more and more the great difference between man’s ways and God’s ways. There will be a continual conflict between our own works and the works of faith, based on revealed truth in God’s Word. The more one enters into the reality of serving God in Spirit and truth the more one enters into the experience of the Cross, a separation of all that is of our own effort from all that is of the Holy Spirit.
Abraham went through different stages of separation which started in his original call to go to a land he did not know, but soon he discovered that he had to be separated from Lot. Lot did not suggest the separation, it was the man of faith who saw the conflict between the two. Abraham had to arrive at separating from all that is of self and from all reliance on the abilities of the natural man. He had to rely only on God and His Word. God was his only hope and answer, his only reality.
We know that in God’s plan we are separated through the Cross of Christ once for all from all that is not His will. By living faith we have to enter into the actual experience of it, accepting what God has done already in Christ.
We know that the Cross is the true basis of the working of the Holy Spirit, first Calvary, then Pentecost. The Holy Spirit has given life to our spirit and He dwells in us. From this flows the reality of serving God in the Spirit, and so producing the fruit of the Spirit. One so led by the Spirit will do what is right, resulting in harmony, producing true happiness and joy. There is nothing artificial, made by human efforts, in the life united to the Holy Spirit, a life related to the Lord. God seeks, “worship in Spirit and in truth”, and this is what we long for, knowing it to be the will of God, well pleasing to Him, satisfying our heart and supplying our deepest need.
We do not desire symbolism but reality, not emotionalism but service in the Spirit, not intellectualism but revelation. God does not want numbers but a testimony for His glory. Our longing is not to see man and his works, but Christ and His beauty in the Church and in the believer.
True humility must be loved, pride must die and sin must be dealt with. There can be no hope of being popular, we will be hated by all that is untrue, as Christ told us. It is not on what we do but on what we are in the sight of God.
In Matthew 16 v16-18 we see there is no place for human wisdom in the Church. The entrance into the Church is by revelation to our spirit of the truth concerning Christ. The Church is His body, His life and nature in us. He is the Rock and we are the stones built on Him. Christ Himself is the Foundation, and at the same time He is the Builder. He builds His Church through the gifts of the Spirit bestowed on His Church. He fills each one with Himself. He is the Head of the Church and is her wisdom, strength, authority and direction. By living faith we stand on Him as the Rock in order to be saved, we are filled with Him to live and led by Him to serve.
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