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No.3.
pp. 54 - 57
In our last article we were writing about the necessary steps that must be taken if we
are to go on with the great quest of getting to know God and His truth.
We must accept Christ as our personal Saviour and then the next thing to realize is
that we are on a journey; we are going home to Christ in glory. This is the Christian
pathway the Bible puts before us, and our great quest now is, how can we keep to this
pathway--not deviating to the right or to the left, because if we do, if we get off the
track, it will result in disillusionment and sorrow. How can we keep on this track with
our faces turned toward heaven, towards Christ and towards glory? And how can we
retain the wonderful joy and peace that we surely shall know when we have committed
everything to Him, and call Him our own Saviour? The Bible again guides us here as in
all things.
One thing we must first see is this, that when we accept the Lord as our Saviour He
gives us a new nature, and this is what the Apostle Peter speaks of in his second Epistle
and the first chapter; "According as His divine power hath given unto us all things that
pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory
and virtue: whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that by
these ye might be partakers of the divine nature". We have something that we never had
before; God has given us part of His own holy and most wonderful nature. We have still
the old sinful nature, alas! But, thank God, there is another nature now, His nature, and if
we will only heed its dictates then indeed we shall find our feet keeping to this Christian
pathway. We shall find too that peace and that joy which is the gift of Christ and it will
be ours day by day until, at last, the journey is finished and we are at home with Him who
has loved us and given Himself for us.
So the Bible talks about `spirit' which is this new nature. It also speaks about the
flesh--not just the human body, but the old nature we inherit from fallen Adam. Calvary,
as we shall see, has dealt with the old nature, and God's precious gift to us is this new
nature, to control, to guide, to help, to lead, to strengthen, to do everything that we shall
need to live lives that God would have us lead, in joy, happiness and fruitfulness and
witness for Him to others. So you see, we now start off with new birth, new life; and
just as we start the natural life with babyhood, so we start this new spiritual life in this
way. And just as the goal for the natural life is to grow up from infancy to adulthood and
become mature mentally and physically, so it is the same goal spiritual for the child of
God--God wants us to grow up and leave babyhood behind and become full-grown
spiritually.
How can we do this? Roughly speaking, the laws that pertain to growth naturally are
the same spiritually. What do we need for natural growth in ordinary life? We want the