09/20/2023
Reposting from at David Starnes! Take the time to read it!
https://www.facebook.com/david.starnes.986?mibextid=D4KYl
God revealed something to me last week. Me! Me, who is of no importance.
The Message of the Cross is spiritually revealed to us. That is not an earth shattering conclusion. We know knowledge from the Lord is spiritually revealed.
But did you know that same knowledge must be spiritually maintained? Read that again.
Spiritually revealed knowledge must be spiritually maintained.
That is what the Lord revealed to me through His word.
Many are proclaiming this great message, yet some who proclaim it show little evidence of it continuously changing them.
So many have had a great change for a time, but even though the right words are said, it seems the progression by faith has stopped.
There is bickering. Division. Malice. Pride. In the very children of God!
How can people who know the Message of His Cross fail to produce the fruit of the Spirit? How have we come to this?
People speak of sides! Like middle school children forming little gangs! You are not allowed in the clubhouse if you don’t know the password! Say the right things or we can’t hang together!
How is this possible?
I will tell you why.
People have tried to store up their knowledge of this great gospel. We have built up barns in our mind to collect it. Like the children of Israel trying to store up the mana, we are trying to live on yesterday’s revelation.
But that is not how it works. It will rot!
It doesn’t matter how great a teacher of this message you are. It doesn’t matter how deep the revelation goes. It doesn’t matter how great of deeds you have worked in His name.
It doesn’t matter that you have known and have learned and have taught His great message.
The maintenance of this revelation of His Cross must occur continuously.
You can’t know it once, and thus know it forever. It is continuously revealed to you and grows as you become less.
Only the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, can continuously reveal the Message to you. And the Holy Spirit moves when you place your faith in what Jesus did for you.
But if you have faith in your faith, in your knowledge, your are placing the object of your faith in something that is not Jesus.
Only the Spirit can maintain the Knowledge of the Message of the Cross. Not your study, not your power, not your willpower, not your dedication. Only the Holy Spirit.
If the Spirit is not actively maintaining your knowledge, you are walking in your intellectual ability regarding the gospel.
In other words, you are saying the right words about His Cross while walking in the vanity of your own mind.
We must have our mind renewed daily! We must be transformed!
We have NO capacity to maintain spiritual knowledge with our natural mind. NONE! By what power do we in our arrogance believe that we are capable of such a feat?
Only the Holy Spirit can keep what the Spirit has revealed. We are altogether at the mercy of God!
Even the very faith we believe Him with is a gift from God. How weak we are! Oh God save us from our pride!
Romans 12
1] I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
[2] And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
[3] For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.
