Of His fullness we have all received, and grace for
grace. (John 1:16)
It is a grand thing and a
source of tremendous strength to come to the same position as that of Christ as
Man, where we know that boundless heavenly resources are available. I think we
only come there progressively, and not all at once. We only come there by the
way of discipline - discipline which takes the form of bringing us to an utter
dependence, but which is yet not an emptying and a breaking down as an end in
itself, but one which is accompanied by that grace of God - that graciousness of
God - which, when we are empty, makes His fullness to abound.
There is a positive as well as
a negative side. God is no believer in negatives as being the ultimate goal; but
when He breaks and when He empties, He does something on the positive side which
ever causes us to marvel, and we have to say every time: "Well, that was the
Lord, not ourselves." We come progressively by that way of discipline to know
that there are heavenly resources which far outstrip all human possibilities,
and these resources are operative. This is what constitutes spirituality - this
is what makes a life or service spiritual: it is the drawing upon heavenly
resources, living the life as out from heaven. That is spirituality. That
constitutes a spiritual life and a spiritual walk. The resources are not drawn
from self or from the world; they are all drawn from above. The government is
not that here of men or of the world, but that which is from above. Everything
is so utterly from above - and so utterly not from man - that the life or work
becomes spiritual as a consequence.