Fall
1996
Christian Character
a Progressive Development
John Wright Follette.
This that I share is truth which I have discovered in the
field of spiritual reality. This world of spiritual reality
is abstract and invisible, but it is more real than the material
world.
There is a Divine process in which the Lord is far more interested,
than in those things about which most people are concerned.
The entire material scheme of life will someday be pushed
into oblivion, and these former things will no longer come
into our remembrance.
At that time, all that will remain will be as much of spiritual
vision and life as we had possessed during our lifetime.
The Lord will look into the record of our earthly life to
see what we did with the talent He had given us. This "talent"
is not a natural gift, such as music. Rather, He has given
to each of us the same talent, but in a portion which varies
according to our several ability. This talent is the spiritual
potential and responsibility which God places upon a redeemed,
intelligent spirit.
Each one of us should carefully consider how we respond to
this talent. That is, are we rightly related to this marvelous
potential called "spiritual life" which has been
deposited within our being. Do we value it enough, that by
our touching God and He touching us, it is being multiplied?
This multiplication takes place as we through our response
to God in obedience, expend our spiritual lives through the
power of God. This is accomplished through the operation of
gifts. These gifts are given to us, but they are not the talent.
Rather, they are the means by which the talent may become
expressive and develop.
In the realm of the Spirit, God is just as exact in the application
of spiritual laws and techniques as those that operate in
our natural lives. He, the Holy Spirit, will lead us into
all truth. The most powerful, profound agency in the universe
is the Spirit of God; at the same time He is the most delicate
and gentle, and must be approached as such.
After being saved, we may have received many revelations
and have several gifts of the Holy Spirit in operation. But
if there is nothing more, we will remain a babe in Christ.
This is because no experience which God brings to us will
ever mature us. We do not grow by these.
Spiritual growth is not an immediate position, but rather
develops through a process of our being tested and proven.
When we are saved, through the regeneration of the Holy Spirit,
we are made a new creation and become a partakers of the divine
nature. We are no longer the same person who was born into
this world.
As a spiritual babe, the Lord gives us the pure milk of the
Word to satisfy our spiritual hunger. This urge to live and
possess is basic within us. Concerning this seeking element,
which the Lord has placed within us, He says, "I have
given you a vast territory for the expansion of your new creation
life, and its outreach. Possess, multiply, and live."
As the Lord increasingly possesses us, there is a resultant
desire to move toward Him. It is through this eternal urge
that we are brought to the heart of God, where we belong.
There, He will project us upward into new realms of life.
Jesus saw the deeper need of His disciples through His discerning
power. He told them that the seeking urge which was within
them had lost its adjustment, and they were projecting their
desires into lesser realms. He was not condemning their seeking,
but rather correcting it.
He said, "Seek first your spiritual adjustment in the
realm of God, and because of a Divine law, which is just as
real as the law of gravity, all of the things on the lesser
plane will be automatically added to you."
We become concerned with the more tangible things - what
we eat, drink, or wear. The Lord is not condemning possessions;
we are to have all these things, but first we are to seek
our adjustment to spiritual reality and lift our seeking to
this level.
If we will do this, we will have found a spiritual law which
also operates concerning natural things, and all these things
will be added unto us. Many years ago, the Lord caused me
to know that if I would live in Him and allow Him to fully
possess me, I would not have to be concerned about anything.
He has been faithful in this.
The Lord gives us, as a gift, a deposit of spiritual life
and we become partakers of His Divine nature. This is not
the end, but rather the first moving of God. Now He intends
us to build a Christian character that is formed in His image
and likeness. Our body and all that we do will perish, and
all that will remain will be the amount of the image and likeness
of His Son which has been etched upon our immortal spirit.
It is not what we do, but how we do what we do. All these
things are merely for the culture and development of an immortal
spirit which will live forever. He does not give us a reward
on the basis of what we have done. We cannot buy so many pounds
of faithfulness. The reward is a spiritual thing, the character
quality that He is looking for.
The Lord sees our spiritual hunger and then feeds us, not
because we had been seeking Him, but because He has been seeking
us and has at last gained possession of us. This is not so
we will be able to do something for Him, but rather, our doing
will automatically flow out of the fact that the Holy Spirit
is possessing us.
We can be saved in a moment, but we cannot immediately expect
to be spiritually mature. This is a splendid desire, but it
cannot be accomplished overnight. However, the Lord will receive
us as a candidate.
This can be seen in Genesis. The Lord was well pleased with
Adam, but he had not yet functioned. The Lord cannot choose
for us; but He can bring those things into play which will
allow us to make the right choice.
Therefore, God planted a tree of knowledge in the garden.
There is a positive and a negative approach to this tree.
He bid Adam to take the positive attitude toward the tree,
which is obedience - "Do not eat of it."
If Adam had not partaken, the Lord would have had His way
and he, through obedience to the process of testing and proving,
would have been released; and some of the lovely character
qualities that God intended would have come to the surface.
God would then have said, "Well done ... here is another
test."
When we gain a victory, we cannot remain in that victory,
as there will be another test, in His time and way. We are
to rejoice in the overcoming victory we have gained, but we
are not to allow the joy of that victory to blind us to the
next battle that is ahead.
The enemy seeks to steal and destroy through the tree of
(self) knowledge, but our Lord overcame each test that the
enemy placed in His path, and made a way that we also might
gain a victory in each of our testings and come into a greater
release of life. When a trial disturbs us, we should not ask
for prayer that the tree might be cut down. Rather, we are
to learn how to rightly approach it, and then we will grow.
In the life of Jesus, there are two magnificent words. He
"learned" and He "grew." These relate
to Jesus in the human aspect of His life, and they hold the
concept of an eternal progression.
Now, dare to surrender to the Lord all that you are and ever
hope to be, and your Christian character will be built through
a process of growth.