Each person must be careful how he builds. (1 Corinthians 3:10 GW)
In other words, that which is
of supreme importance is not Christian doctrine, mentally appraised and
apprehended, but a living and clear spiritual apprehension of Christ. That is
the work. What are you building? Are you, through a living, clear, inward,
experimental relationship with the Lord Jesus, building a structure which comes
out of that inward spiritual knowledge? Is it by that you are growing? Or are
you growing by things said and mentally judged, appraised, dissected, accepted, and
assented to? What is the nature of the building? The work in which we are
engaged, to which this phrase “each man’s work” applies, is the building of
Christ livingly into the very substance of our being, into the very fabric of
our lives. It is not a question of getting to know a great deal about
Christianity. Let us note that. The heart of the whole matter is the difference
between the philosophy of Christianity, of Christian doctrine and the spiritual
knowledge of Christ.
The Lord would teach us – and
this is the lesson that my heart is bent upon learning, and that I would urge
upon you to make your quest also – that the ground of assurance is not in our
having decided for Christ, nor that we persist in the Christian life, nor that
we feel strong, nor that we have certain ability as Christians and are able to
do this or that. It is not the measure of our activity in the work of the Lord,
nor any one of these things which constitutes our Christian life. These are
simply the outworkings. The thing which constitutes us is that Christ is the
foundation, and that we are inseparably linked with Him by faith. Everything
else can be suspended as a secondary consideration until that is settled. It is
as though God, if we may put it this way to try to simplify the truth, had given
us His Son and had said to us: "In Him you have everything, and the first thing
is not what you are, what you can do, or anything to do with you; it is what
He is!" If only in the face of all you may see of a multitude of
contradictions in your own life in weaknesses, and imperfections, and lack of
attainment, you will persistently believe in Him as having it in Himself to
bring you through to the end, you will go through in spite of all. We begin to
take stock of ourselves, measure ourselves up, and say: "I am not this, and I am
not that, and I am not something else; or else, I am this, and I am that, and
all this goes against me." Nothing of all this is to the point at all. The
totality of every divine requirement in us is in Christ.