Read the whole series here, or by clicking on the Release of the Spirit link at the bottom of this post.
In a previous chapter Watchman Nee wrote about a person’s most prominent feature. (43) When our outer person remains unbroken, that prominent feature is what we display to others. God must use discipline to break that prominent feature, because it blocks others from genuinely connecting with God. (77) This is because, when others look at us, they see our prominent feature rather than God living in us.
Along with discipline, God also works in us by enlightenment or revelation. As shared in Chapter Seven, revelation is when God enables us to see what he sees. In this context it is seeing what God sees in us. (72)
Of these two tools, revelation and discipline, discipline is usually a slower process. As already stated, God’s hand of discipline is often not recognized for what it is. That discipline, recognized or not, will continue until the outer person is broken, and the spirit is released, allowing God to be revealed through us. (81)
Nee writes that God is not nearly as concerned with what comes out of our mouths, as he is with what comes out of our inner person. (82) Every time we connect with other people, we leave an impression—they either see us or they see the Lord. (81) Getting back to our first point (the need for our prominent feature to be broken), God must discipline, reveal and destroy anything in us that gets in the way of others seeing God in and through our lives.
We have each dealt with both kinds of people, those whose lives point to God, and those whose lives point only to themselves. On different occasions, we have probably been both of those people. Can you give any examples of when you (or others) got in the way of people who needed to see God, because your (or their) outer person was not broken?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment