Winter 2000
Refocusing Our Vision
EV Baker, (Elizabeth Baker)1895

The work of the Holy Spirit is to bring us out of our own ways; not sinful - but those unlike the Lord, that He might bring us into a personal, active relationship with Jesus.

We may have thought that these ways were right, but because they hinder our spiritual relationship to the Lord and His purpose for us, the Holy Spirit must bring us out of these into the life of Christ. It is not Adamic perfection, but a Christ life that He intends.

The Holy Spirit contends against the old creation that is within us in order to make room for the Christ life. When we feel this process of reduction, we may think that we are not spiritual and will never get to where we desire to be.

We must come to understand that the Lord calls us holy and acceptable in the midst of this processing. As the Lord tells us these things in the presence and activity of our old nature, we draw back, feeling so unlike Him. But the Holy Spirit quietly continues, kneading, molding, and fashioning, without expressing the least condemnation toward us. If we will keep our hands off and trust Him, He will bring us through, so long as our will is surrendered to Him.

All we need consider is - "Have we fully yielded all to Him, and is our desire one with the Lord?" The rest is His work. We have a tendency to resist His discipline because we do not understand what He is doing within us. But the Lord continues to rejoice over us, as He works away within us.

We often attempt to superintend our own spiritual development. Our eyes are on ourselves with all our lacks and failures. This is not progress, but rather it produces a circular pattern in which there is little spiritual growth. But if we will look to the Lord and unconditionally yield to Him, much progress will be made.

The reproduction of the Christ life is not accomplished in an instant, and He is very patient with us. So also, the Lord desires us to be patient with ourselves.

We must allow the Lord to have liberty within us to do the work that must be done. He does not always work in the same way, nor guide us as being in a groove. Rather, the Lord seeks liberty to have a diversity of operations in the Spirit affecting us. At times we will be full of praise and running over, and at other times we will be quiet. This is His business and not ours, providing we remain in His hands without rebellion.
We are not to judge ourselves by our feelings. The Holy Spirit does work upon our sensibilities and He does cause praise to rise up like a fountain within our heart, but He does not always work on that line, and it often takes more grace to be still than to be doing something.

The Lord lifts us up, and He puts us down, for He is training us. He is molding us to make us pliable in His hands; to get us out of our old thoughts and ideas of what He ought to do, or not do. If we could see this, we would condemn ourselves less and glorify God more.

He is working for eternity; therefore He is not in a hurry. We would slur things over quickly, but He is taking His time, for He is making something that is to be like Jesus. He is bringing us out of our own ways, out of ourselves, to make room for the Christ life. The Father never sees us as separated from Christ, but always sees us in His Son. All that is His belongs to us. He desires us to appropriate His life, and acknowledge no other life as our own.

As the vine depends upon the branch for fruit bearing, the Lord depends on His branches to bear fruit. He is saying, if we will hold steady in Him, if we will trust Him and live in Him, we will bear fruit. Our business is to worship and to stay in Him; to be so fully yielded to Him that He can fully have His way in our lives. Then fruit will be observed by others.

We wear ourselves out with a conflict which the Lord did not intend. It is not enough to continue reckoning ourselves dead, but we must take our place as one who is alive unto God. We are dead in just that measure that we have turned from self to God.

From this hour, trust the Lord to work within your life, just what He pleases, one day at a time. Be occupied with the Lord and live in the Spirit. Our real warfare should not be with ourselves, but rather with the enemy. The more we rise into the heavenly places, the more we will feel the conflict with the powers of darkness, for Satan ever seeks to drive us from the heavenlies back into our flesh life.

Whenever Satan seeks to tell us that we have failed the Lord in the midst of our trials and tribulations, we must not acknowledge him, but rather respond that indeed we are alive and seated with our Lord in heavenly places.

Now the Holy Spirit will make this statement real in our experience, as we yield and trust Him alone.