Living the Christian Life One Day At a Time — John MacArthur

John MacArthur,

While all Christians are spiritual positionally, they are not always spiritual practically. That is, we do not always act spiritual. That is why Paul wrote about spiritual babies in 1 Corinthians 3:1-3. Paul said that he should have been able to talk to the Corinthians as spiritual men, but they were not acting like spiritual men. They were not receiving the Word, and there was unholiness in their lives. They were behaving carnally, requiring him to deal with them as babes in Christ.

The Corinthians were not unique. All Christians face the same problem. All Christians are “spiritual” because they know Christ as Savior and have the Holy Spirit dwelling within, but all Christians do not always act spiritual. Sometimes we act in very carnal and natural ways.

A good illustration of that is the apostle Peter. In Matthew 16 Peter recognized Christ as the Son of the living God. Jesus immediately responded, “Blessed are you, Simon, and now I am going to change your name to Peter [the word meant "rock"]. You are going to be a new person, solid as a rock” (see 16:17-18). But in the twenty-first chapter of John, Jesus met Peter on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, following Peter’s failure on the night before the crucifixion. There Jesus called him Simon, because Peter had been acting like his old self–like the man he was before he believed in Christ.

What Peter had done–and what all of us do from time to time–was temporarily cease following closely after Christ. Even after Pentecost, Peter continued to struggle occasionally with fleshly behavior. At one time even Paul had to rebuke him face to face (see Gal. 2:11-21)

Paul himself understood firsthand the Christians unrelenting struggle with the flesh, and wrote movingly of it in Romans 6-7. The point is, spirituality is not a permanent state you enter into the moment you get “zapped” with some kind of spiritual experience. Spirituality is simply receiving the living Word daily from God, letting it dwell in you richly, and then living in obedience to it through a moment-by-moment walk in the Spirit. Paul said as much in Galatians 5:16: “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.”

The word “walk” is a very important word in the New Testament. To walk speaks of moment-by-moment conduct. Paul taught the church to walk in accord with the Holy Spirit: “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit” (Gal. 5:25). Walking speaks of a measured pace, taking one step at time. That is, after all, how true spirituality functions: one step, one moment at a time.

taken from: Charismatic Chaos. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992. pp. 250-251. (emphasis added)

View the original article here

The Living Word of the Lord Endures Forever — Charles Spurgeon

“For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” – Hebrews 4:12

“‘The grass withers and the flower thereof falls away—but the Word of the Lord endures forever.’ Its vitality is such as it can impart to its readers. Hence, you will often find, when you converse with Revelation, that if you yourself are dead when you begin to read, it does not matter—you will be quickened as you peruse it. You need not bring life to the Scripture. You shall draw life from the Scripture. Oftentimes a single verse has made us start up—as Lazarus came forth at the call of the Lord Jesus. When our soul has been faint and ready to die, a single word, applied to the heart by the Spirit of God, has aroused us.

It is a quickening as well as a living Word. I am so glad of this because at times I feel altogether dead. But the Word of God is not dead. And coming to it we are like the dead man, who, when he was put into the grave of the Prophet, rose again as soon as he touched his bones. Even these bones of the Prophets, these words of theirs spoken and written thousands of years ago, will impart life to those who come into contact with them. The Word of God is thus exceedingly alive. I may add it is so alive that you need never be afraid that it will become extinct.

They dream—they dream that they have put us among the antiquities—those of us who preach the old Gospel that our fathers loved! They sneer at the doctrines of the Apostles and of the Reformers and declare that Believers in them are left high and dry—the relics of an age which has long since ebbed away. Yes, so they say! But what they say may not after all be true. For the Gospel is such a living Gospel that if it were cut into a thousand shreds every particle of it would live and grow. If it were buried beneath a thousand avalanches of error, it would shake off the incubus and rise from its grave, If it were cast into the midst of fire it would walk through the flame as it has done many a time, as though it were in its natural element.

The Reformation was largely due to a copy of the Scriptures left in the seclusion of a monastery and there hidden till Luther came under its influence and his heart furnished soil for the living seed to grow in. Leave but a single New Testament in a Popish [i.e., Roman Catholic] community and the evangelical faith may at any moment come to the front—even though no preacher of it may ever have come that way. Plants unknown in certain regions have suddenly sprung from the soil—the seeds have been wafted on the winds, carried by birds, or washed ashore by the waves of the sea. So vital are seeds that they live and grow wherever they are borne.

And even after lying deep in the soil for centuries, when the upturning spade has brought them to the surface, they have germinated at once. Thus is it with the Word of God—it lives and abides forever and in every soil and under all circumstances it is prepared to prove its own life by the energy with which it grows and produces fruit to the glory of God. How vain, as well as wicked, are all attempts to kill the Gospel. Those who attempt the crime, in any fashion, will be forever still beginning and never coming near their end. They will be disappointed in all cases, whether they would slay it with persecution, smother it with worldliness, crush it with error, starve it with neglect, poison it with misrepresentation, or drown it with infidelity. While God lives His Word shall live. Let us praise God for that. We have an immortal Gospel incapable of being destroyed which shall live and shine when the lamp of the sun has consumed its scant supply of oil.”

- C.H. Spurgeon (1834-1892)
taken from: The Word a Sword, Sermon No. 2010, May 17, 1887.

The Mysterious Spirit of the Living God

It may be, that during a sermon two men are listening to the same truth; one of them hears as attentively as the other and remembers as much of it; the other is melted to tears or moved with solemn thoughts; but the one though equally attentive, sees nothing in the sermon, except, maybe, certain important truths well set forth; as for the other, his heart is broken within him and his soul is melted. Ask me how is it that the same truth has an effect upon the one, and not upon his fellow—I reply, because the mysterious Spirit of the Living God goes with the truth to one heart and not to the other. The one only feels the force of truth, and that may be strong enough to make him tremble, like Felix; but the other feels the Spirit going with the truth, and that renews the man, regenerates him, and causes him to pass into that condition, that gracious condition which is called the state of salvation. This change takes place instantaneously. It is as miraculous a change as any miracle of which we read in Scripture. It is supremely supernatural. It may be mimicked, but no imitation of it can be true and real. Men may pretend to be regenerated without the Spirit, but regenerated they cannot be. It is change so marvelous that the highest attempts of man can never reach it. We may reason as long as we please, but we cannot reason ourselves into regeneration; we may meditate until our hairs are gray with study; but we cannot meditate ourselves into the new birth. That is worked in us by the sovereign will of God alone.
–Charles H. Spurgeon