Each person must be careful how he
builds. (1 Corinthians 3:10 GW)/
In other words, that which is of
supreme importance is not Christian
doctrine, mentally appraised and
apprehended, but a living and clear
spiritual apprehension of Christ. That
is the work. What are you
building? Are you, through a living,
clear, inward, experimental
relationship with the Lord Jesus,
building a structure which comes out
of that inward spiritual knowledge? Is
it by that you are growing? Or
are you growing by things said and
mentally judged, appraised,
dissected, accepted, and assented to?
What is the nature of the
building? The work in which we are
engaged, to which this phrase
“each man's work” applies, is the
building of Christ livingly into
the very substance of our being, into
the very fabric of our lives. It
is not a question of getting to know a
great deal about Christianity.
Let us note that. The heart of the
whole matter is the difference
between the philosophy of
Christianity, of Christian doctrine and
the
spiritual knowledge of Christ.
The Lord would teach us - and this is
the lesson that my heart is bent
upon learning, and that I would urge
upon you to make your quest also
- that the ground of assurance is not
in our having decided for
Christ, nor that we persist in the
Christian life, nor that we feel
strong, nor that we have certain ability
as Christians and are able to
do this or that. It is not the measure
of our activity in the work of
the Lord, nor any one of these things
which constitutes our Christian
life. These are simply the outworkings.
The thing which constitutes us
is that Christ is the foundation, and
that we are inseparably linked
with Him by faith. Everything else can
be suspended as a secondary
consideration until that is settled. It is
as though God, if we may
put it this way to try to simplify the
truth, had given us His Son and
had said to us: "In Him you have
everything, and the first thing is
not what you are, what you can do, or
anything to do with you; /it is
what He is!"/ If
only in the face of all you may see of a
multitude of
contradictions in your own life in
weaknesses, and imperfections, and
lack of attainment, you will persistently
believe in Him as having it
in Himself to bring you through to the
end, you will go through in
spite of all. We begin to take stock of
ourselves, measure ourselves
up, and say: "I am not this, and I am
not that, and I am not something
else; or else, I am this, and I am that,
and all this goes against
me." Nothing of all this is to the point
at all. The totality of every
divine requirement in us is in Christ.