How To Develop The Recreated Spirit
I think that I have found the answer to the problem of how the recreated human spirit cam he developed. The thirteenth chapter of I Corinthians has the answer to it. The last clause of the 12th chapter of 1 Cor. is also striking in this connection. He says, "But I show you a more excellent way," and then he proceeds to tell us the new kind of love way. This is the Iove that Jesus brought to the world. He compares it with linguistic ability, "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal."
How greatly we have appreciated linguistic abilities, and vet, with one stroke he has shown us how empty it all is without love. Next, he tells us, "If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing." Here he is showing us how empty sense knowledge achievements and gifts are without Agapa. The next verse takes us still further into the picture, "And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing."
These pictures are of natural man in his highest development in comparison with Agapa. How humble and lowly is this choicest of all gifts. "It suffers long and is kind." It wears the garments of apparent weakness. "It envieth not, it is never proud, it never behaves itself unseemly " (in quarreling and nagging and the divorce court) "love seeketh not its own." The biggest struggle of natural mean is to get something, and he is not so careful how he gets it, or from whom he gets it. "It is not provoked," it does not lose its temper easily.
"It does not take account of evil, it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth." Notice the seventh verse, "Beareth all things, believeth all things." "Beareth all things," might be translated, "covereth all things." It does not repeat the unseemly things that are said in scandal, but covers them up. Love acts contrary to every law of the senses. "Believeth all things," that is, all things of the Father. The Word is acted upon with simplicity and unconscious faith. "Hopeth all things," you see, believing is now, and hope is future. If we believe all things of the Word, we face the future with quiet rest. "Endureth all things." What endurance was manifested in the Master! How He endured the scoffing and slandering of those who crucified Him!
But the last sentence thrills one, "Love never faileth." We cannot depend upon our senses for they may fail us. Our eyes may be injured, and our sense of sight is gone. Our sense of hearing or feeling may be destroyed. Agapa is not like that, for it springs from the recreated spirit, the "hidden man of the heart." It is that "hidden man," that unseen man, that has the Divine life. In Galatians we have the contrast of Agapa and the senses. The fruits of the senses are recorded in Gal. 5:16, and the fruits of the recreated spirit are recorded in the twenty-second and twenty-third verses.
The senses have always been a traitor to the spirit. They are ever seeking their own. They are hungry, and vet they are never satisfied. They are always seeking and never finding that for which they seek. Solomon said a wise thing in Ecclesiastes when he said, "The eyes are never satisfied nor the ears filled with hearing." Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life." He was God's love way. He is the only way of life, and the only way to the Father. He is love's way. He lived it in His earth walk, and He imparted to us His nature so that we might live this love life.
In Eph. 5:1 we are told that as children of love we are to walk the love life way and bear the fruits of love. Now we can understand how we are to develop our spirits; it is done by walking in love, and meditating in love. We have come to know that the recreated human spirit is the fountain out of which love and faith, peace and joy, and all of the other beautiful products that belong to the love life, spring. Faith is not a product of the reasoning faculties, it is a product of the spirit. Now we can understand this fact, that to develop this recreated spirit, it is necessary that we practice love and walk by faith. We must feed on the "Bread of Heaven." "For man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."
Jesus put it in a new way, "Except one eat my body and drink my blood." The body was the Word made flesh. We' must feed upon the living Word. Blood is life, so we are to drink deeply of the life that He wrought. He said, "I am come that ye might have life and have it abundantly." It is that abundance of life that makes us overflow with love.
I have never desired anything more than I have desired to know how to develop the recreated human spirit. I believe I have some suggestions that will teach us how to use wisdom, how to appropriate it in Christ, and how to make it our own, teach us how to walk in love so that our conduct will be Jesus-like.
THE HIDDEN MAN, BY E.W KENYON
I think that I have found the answer to the problem of how the recreated human spirit cam he developed. The thirteenth chapter of I Corinthians has the answer to it. The last clause of the 12th chapter of 1 Cor. is also striking in this connection. He says, "But I show you a more excellent way," and then he proceeds to tell us the new kind of love way. This is the Iove that Jesus brought to the world. He compares it with linguistic ability, "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal."
How greatly we have appreciated linguistic abilities, and vet, with one stroke he has shown us how empty it all is without love. Next, he tells us, "If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing." Here he is showing us how empty sense knowledge achievements and gifts are without Agapa. The next verse takes us still further into the picture, "And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing."
These pictures are of natural man in his highest development in comparison with Agapa. How humble and lowly is this choicest of all gifts. "It suffers long and is kind." It wears the garments of apparent weakness. "It envieth not, it is never proud, it never behaves itself unseemly " (in quarreling and nagging and the divorce court) "love seeketh not its own." The biggest struggle of natural mean is to get something, and he is not so careful how he gets it, or from whom he gets it. "It is not provoked," it does not lose its temper easily.
"It does not take account of evil, it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth." Notice the seventh verse, "Beareth all things, believeth all things." "Beareth all things," might be translated, "covereth all things." It does not repeat the unseemly things that are said in scandal, but covers them up. Love acts contrary to every law of the senses. "Believeth all things," that is, all things of the Father. The Word is acted upon with simplicity and unconscious faith. "Hopeth all things," you see, believing is now, and hope is future. If we believe all things of the Word, we face the future with quiet rest. "Endureth all things." What endurance was manifested in the Master! How He endured the scoffing and slandering of those who crucified Him!
But the last sentence thrills one, "Love never faileth." We cannot depend upon our senses for they may fail us. Our eyes may be injured, and our sense of sight is gone. Our sense of hearing or feeling may be destroyed. Agapa is not like that, for it springs from the recreated spirit, the "hidden man of the heart." It is that "hidden man," that unseen man, that has the Divine life. In Galatians we have the contrast of Agapa and the senses. The fruits of the senses are recorded in Gal. 5:16, and the fruits of the recreated spirit are recorded in the twenty-second and twenty-third verses.
The senses have always been a traitor to the spirit. They are ever seeking their own. They are hungry, and vet they are never satisfied. They are always seeking and never finding that for which they seek. Solomon said a wise thing in Ecclesiastes when he said, "The eyes are never satisfied nor the ears filled with hearing." Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life." He was God's love way. He is the only way of life, and the only way to the Father. He is love's way. He lived it in His earth walk, and He imparted to us His nature so that we might live this love life.
In Eph. 5:1 we are told that as children of love we are to walk the love life way and bear the fruits of love. Now we can understand how we are to develop our spirits; it is done by walking in love, and meditating in love. We have come to know that the recreated human spirit is the fountain out of which love and faith, peace and joy, and all of the other beautiful products that belong to the love life, spring. Faith is not a product of the reasoning faculties, it is a product of the spirit. Now we can understand this fact, that to develop this recreated spirit, it is necessary that we practice love and walk by faith. We must feed on the "Bread of Heaven." "For man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."
Jesus put it in a new way, "Except one eat my body and drink my blood." The body was the Word made flesh. We' must feed upon the living Word. Blood is life, so we are to drink deeply of the life that He wrought. He said, "I am come that ye might have life and have it abundantly." It is that abundance of life that makes us overflow with love.
I have never desired anything more than I have desired to know how to develop the recreated human spirit. I believe I have some suggestions that will teach us how to use wisdom, how to appropriate it in Christ, and how to make it our own, teach us how to walk in love so that our conduct will be Jesus-like.
THE HIDDEN MAN, BY E.W KENYON
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