Spring 1978
Reduction The Way to Gods Best
Paul Albee
Pinecrest Graduate

“It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord; and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, and praised the Lord, saying, For he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever; then the house was filled with a cloud even the house of the Lord; So that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud: for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of God’ (2 Chronicles 5:13, 14).

The last three decades have seen the life of men changed on this earth more radically than at any other time in history. Unprecedented discovery in all fields of research strain the limits of human imagination. Man’s achievements loom on all horizons. Yet today, with greater urgency than ever before, the Lord is calling for a reduction in His people. He is calling unto Himself those who value His deepest fellowship enough to turn away from all else and yield themselves to Him with a singleness of heart and purpose.

Throughout scripture, the Lord’s ongoing complaint is that they do always err in their heart; and they have not known my ways” (Hebrews 3:10). In Job 22:21, we are admonished to “acquaint now thyself with him.” Jesus says in John 17:3, “This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God.” And in Jeremiah 24:7 comes the Lord’s promise that “I will give them a heart to know me.”

It has been in the heart of the Lord from the beginning that man might know and understand Him personally and intimately; that there might be a full fellowship and communion between God and His people. Such fellowship and communion is extremely expensive. Notice Jesus’ words concerning the corn of wheat. It had to fall into the ground and die before it could be resurrected and bear much fruit. Such separation unto God will require a total death to the natural order of things. David summed up the correct posture of the heart seeking after God in Psalm 27:4: “One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after.” He had been reduced through the dealings of God to a singleness of purpose. Driven from his place of normal habitation to the wilderness, and far from the House of God, in peril of his life and in a dark place of despair, he cried out, “One thing have I desire.” The only thing that mattered to him was “that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in his temple.” Nothing else mattered. He desired God and only God’s presence could satisfy his heart’s deepest longing.

Today the challenge is before us. May we yield to Him that which is His, letting go of all that is less, thus releasing ourselves to live with Him and discover the wondrous joy of walking in the Spirit, in fellowship and communion with the One whose Glory would fill even our house.