Hence it is that the direction of the Lord of Spirits is essential to the Knowledge of the Love of God. It is only as He sheds this Love abroad in our hearts that our enmity is slain; and that we are compelled to love Him, because He first Loved us (Romans 5:5; 1 John 4:19). As the Lord, the Spirit, directs our hearts into this Love of the Father, we learn that IT IS ETERNAL; and hence knew no beginning; and is everlasting and knows no ending. He tells us that we were “chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world”. and that this was “in Love”, and was “according to the good pleasure of His Will”.
We could never have known this but by the further and later Revelation of the Spirit in Ephesians 1:4,5. For if we direct our own hearts we always and very naturally, direct them to ourselves; and then, of course, we see no reason why God should love us at all: then we become occupied with ourselves, and sink lower and lower in the slough of despond, until we end in despair. That is the end of our own self-direction. But when the Lord the Spirit directs our hearts, He never directs them to ourselves; no, nor to Himself, nor to His own work in us; but into the Love of the Father to us; and the work of the Son for us.
Then it is that we receive His own precious Revelation in Ephesians 1:4,5, and willingly confess that if God did not Love us before we were born, He has certainly seen nothing in us to draw forth that Love since we were born.
As we are thus directed, we are assured again and again that this Love is not manifested towards us because of anything we have ever felt or done (Titus
3:5); not because we first loved Him, but because “He first Loved us” (1 John 4:19).
In the ages of eternity past this Love is revealed in its activity as going forth to us, while yet unborn. And after we're born, His care for us was shown while as yet we cared not for Him; and while our hearts were as yet an enmity with Him.
As the Spirit directs our hearts into this Love, we learn, further, that IT IS SOVEREIGN: that God never goes out of or beyond Himself for a reason why He should Love us. This was so even with Israel (Deuteronomy 7:7,8). How much more must it be so with us? Moreover, this Love being to us, in Christ, there is no reason why it should ever change or be withdrawn. The Father is always well-pleased with the Son; and the Son does always those things which please the Father. If the Father’s Love were shown towards us because of what we are in ourselves, the wonder would be, not why it should not be withdrawn, but why it was ever set on us! But, being toward us, in Christ, we can understand why “neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate from the Love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38,39).
We can understand, also, why the Lord Jesus, “having loved His own, loved them to the end”. To the end of what? Not only to the end of time, but to the end of all their sins and weaknesses, frailties and infirmities, doubts and fears, sorrows and sufferings.
Though we may change a thousand times a day; though our circumstances and feelings and moods may change; though we may err and wander and go astray, yet “He abides faithful”, “He changes not”.
Moreover, the Father’s Love does not change merely because it is weak, but because it is strong. It sweeps every hindrance out of the way. It breaks down every barrier. It bears with the most impatient and rebellious.
Human powers fail to understand it. Divine utterances in human language fail to convey a true and full sense of it to our finite faculties.
We may rejoice in the fact; we may praise God for the Revelation of it; we may give thanks for the communication of it; but we cannot apprehend it.
The Spirit Himself, the Giver, is the Gift of the Father. Without this Gift of the Spirit we should never be directed into the Love of the Father, or the preciousness of the Son. By this Gift we are directed to both the one and the other; and into the enjoyment of every needful blessing besides.
All praise and glory be to the Lord of Spirits for His gracious direction into the Love of God, and His blessed assurance that it is ours for ever and for ever. But the direction of the Lord the Spirit is not only into the Love of God, but into
3. The Patience of Christ
This is the alternative rendering in the A.V. margin; and the rendering in the text of the R.V. Moreover, it is the literal and correct rendering of the Greek.
But this literal rendering of the words does not convey the fullness of their meaning.
The word “patience”, in the Greek, is interesting and instructive. The etymological meaning of the verb is to remain under; hence to endure, or sustain. It occurs seventeen times, and the various ways in which it is rendered will bring out its meaning more fully. It is rendered abide, once; tarry behind, once; endure, 11 times; take patiently, twice; patient, once; suffer, once. Hence the noun ( as in the passage we are considering), which occurs 32 times, is rendered patient continuance, once; enduring, once; patient waiting, once; and patience, 29 times. Even though we render it patience, we cannot eliminate the idea of waiting or endurance. Indeed, so strong is this underlying thought that it is akin to, if not almost equal to, hope. Compare 1 Corinthians 13: 18, “Faith, Love, Patience” (i.e., Hope).
The patient waiting then, of the A.V., is a rendering which cannot be improved.
Next we note that the construction is exactly the same as in the preceding clause. “The Love of God” is God’s Love, which He has to us. So the patient waiting of Christ must be Christ’s patient waiting.
Until the renewed offer of the kingdom (Acts 3:19-21) had been finally rejected (Acts 28:25,26). Christ is seen “standing” (Acts 7:56). But, after the rejection was complete He is stated to have “sat down (Hebrews 10:12,13), “from henceforth expecting till His enemies shall have been placed as a footstool for His feet.” This is “Christ’s patient waiting; and as we are directed by the Lord of Spirits, we shall enter into the full meaning of Christ’s present position SEATED, and at rest, with reference to all His work in the procuring our salvation; and patiently EXPECTING the realization of all connected with our “blessed hope”.
Hence this direction of the Spirit will include our own endurance and our own patient waiting. Christ’s patience will be reflected in us. It will, like God’s Love, be shed abroad in our hearts. Our love is God’s Love thus shed abroad; our patience is Christ’s patience; and it is the Spirit’s work to manifest both in our experience, and to direct our hearts into them. It is a blessed provision for poor impatient believers to be directed into ”the patience of Christ”. And it is done by the Spirit opening out to our hearts such a Scripture as Romans 14:3-5, “For even Christ also pleased not Himself; but, according as it stands written, ‘The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on Me‘”. For, as many things as were before written for our instruction were written in order that through patience, and (through) the comfort which the Scriptures bring, we might have hope. Now the God of (this) patience, and of this comfort, give you to think (or mind) the same thing with one another ACCORDING TO CHRIST JESUS.”
Mark these last words, and the margin of the A.V., “after the example of Jesus Christ”. Ah! there is no example of patient waiting like His, and our hearts need directing to it, because there is so little of it in ourselves. It is not merely the example of His patience when on earth. That was perfect, whether towards His enemies or towards His own disciples, ever so slow to learn. It is not merely His patient waiting for the Father’s Will in doing the Father’s business, though this was wonderful. In Matthew 11., when His ministry, from man’s point of view, seemed to end in failure:- in the doubt of John (verses 1-6), in the accusation of the people (verses 16-19), in the unbelief of the cities wherein most of His mighty works were done (verses 20-24): it is then, and at such a moment, that we read (verses 25,26), “AT THAT TIME Jesus answered (i.e., prayed) and said, ‘Father, I thank You.... Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight‘.” Here was patient waiting for the Father’s time and the Father’s Will.
Ah! What need have we to be directed into such patience as this of Christ’s, when we seem to see no fruit of our labor. But, as we have said, it is not merely such patient waiting as this which is in question here. What must it be now, while seated at the Father’s right hand? What patience must be needed now, while His enemies rejoice in His absence; while the bulk of His people do not believe in His coming at all; and while those who do believe in it know little or nothing of this waiting and expectation of His return, and , by their prayers, imply that He has no compassion or care as to the results of His own work compared with what they have? Their hearts are not directed, either into God’s Love or into Christ’s patience, by the Lord the Spirit. They do not know the God whom they preach, or the God to whom they pray.
The God of the Pulpit is -
An impotent Father,
An disappointed Christ. and
A defeated Holy Spirit!
But the God of the Bible is -
An almighty Father,
A satisfied Christ, and
A victorious Holy Spirit,
able to break the hardest heart and to subdue the stoutest will.
Oh! What need for this direction of the Spirit into a true Knowledge of God, which He has revealed in the Scriptures, and manifests in our experience! What need, we repeat, for us to be directed into fellowship with Christ, so that we may know something of what it means to be seated and at rest as to our works, and our Peace with God; and hence to have our hearts set free, and at liberty to go forth to Him, “from henceforth expecting” the long looked-for day when we shall be “Received up in Glory”.
May the Lord of Spirits direct our hearts ever more and more into this blessed experience, that we may know what is meant by “the patience of Christ”, and apprehend something of what is meant by our own patient waiting for Christ.
Written by E.W. Bullinger.
This is the end of this teaching from here we'll share "The Mystery of Godliness" written by Major W. Ian Thomas. Again the whole purpose of these teachings being shared is to aid those who may not understand the inspiration that Lord of Spirits has imparted to their spirit through the Spirit of Christ.
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