Planted by Water

Apologies for not posting them when I had originally planned, but here are the remainder of the gems from Rivers of Living Water by T.Austin-Sparks. I love his emphasis on ’spirit and life’ and the work of the Cross as the means of bringing life - resurrection life!

The test of the value of everything - the test of our Bible knowledge, the test of all the wealth that we have derived from Bible study, the test of all our association with Christian things, the test of all the work that we may be doing in the Lord’s Name, the test of every institution and every means of Christian service - rests just here, on one thing only: how far is it producing spiritual men and women.

The truth is that which in its very nature and essence is spiritual.

Only spiritual men and women have any place, or right, or authority, or knowledge, or liberty to touch the things of the Kingdom of Heaven.

It cannot be too strongly emphasised that there is only one thing in all history that matters with God and with man is the matter of eternal life. Life in its fulness, then, rests firstly upon the Cross and what the Cross means. You and I will only know that life, possess that life and increase in that life, as the Cross is a basic and primary reality in our lives, as an applied thing; not merely a doctrine which we accept and assent to, but something which has an operative power  in us.

And all teaching, all instruction is intended to result in our coming into more life - it is to be living  teaching. No amount of teaching or meetings or conferences has any meaning or value if there is not more life resulting from it.

If he can possibly do it, the Devil is going to prevent men from having this life, and to strangle and quench it in those who have it…….God is going to be triumphant at the end, but this is the battle, this is the issue now….The one issue for us, for the Church, for individual Christians, is just this: that we shall become an embodiment of the absolute triumph of Christ in resurrection - that the reurrection of the Lord Jesus should not be a part of the Christian creed, but a part of the Christian’s very being.

God is a God who is on the move, and He is on the move with this one things in view: the full flood of the river of life, absolutely triumphant, in you, in me.