That which is born of the flesh is flesh. (John 3:6)
It is possible for a man to be marked by an
analytical mind, so that he wants to argue out everything, reason out everything
and subject everything to the microscope of his own brain, his own reason, and
just see the whole thing right through in that way – not accept it until he can
understand it like that. And so he becomes very analytical, very investigating
in his mind over the thing, and until he can have the very best answer to all
his questions from every side, he is not going to accept it. That man will make
very slow progress. The same will apply to one who thinks that by getting a
mighty wave of religious emotion he is going to enter into the things of God.
That is one of the great snares of the devil today. Religious emotion is no
criterion; it is no ground of true spirituality.
Our knowledge of the Lord, the very remotest
bit of it and the very first ray of it, depends upon our spirit being awakened
and illumined by the Holy Spirit. Progress in the things of God is simply the
growth of our inner man and not the acknowledgment of our intellectual capacity
to grasp truth. We may have an increasing capacity, by reason of association and
familiarity with truth, for grasping ideas and grasping truth and teaching. And
that capacity may expand and expand until there is very little that is available
to be grasped, and yet with such there may be the very smallest measure of real
spirituality.... The child of God is one whose spirit has been renewed and who
has, at the center of their being, a union and a communion with God which is not
the possession of any man by nature, and which cannot come in any other realm
but in the renewed spirit.