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One mark of spiritual maturity is noticing yourself finding less significance in the things here and more in the things There. The more we understand that all things which are provided in this life are only to teach us of our eternal relationship with God, the less we will be too mindful of them because the things of Heaven will be that which gradually fills our hearts and minds more than the things here!
Knowing our permanent relationship with God is all that is needed to sustain us to be in unbroken gratitude unto Him, esp. during the trials, which is where His love is greatly manifested in “conforming” us to the image of the Lord Jesus (2 Cor 3:18; 1 Jhn 4:17) in this life! When we trust that He prearranges everything that occurs in this life for our “good” (Rom 8:28 – primarily for the good of growing in our faith—NC), we can be “in perfect peace” (Isa 26:3) and progressively grow in confidence in Him by always “casting all your care on Him, because He cares for you” (1 Pet 5:7).
Mission Accomplished
“And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of My people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey” (Exo 3:7, 8). I find that my Father has a purpose for me—to bring me out of one place and into another. The prodigal’s place is in the Father’s house though, as to himself, he may not have come upstairs yet; and that is the case with most saints. I may not have reached it yet (i.e. know you’re in the purpose of the Father—NC), but I know the desire of my Father’s heart about me.
Saints often make their necessity the measure of God’s action for them. It is true that my necessities are met, but this is never the measure of my Father’s action for me. If we make our necessity the measure, we never get beyond it. We shall not be able to glorify Him if we only take what we need. “Ye have not because ye ask not.” According to your apprehension of the truth is the measure of it that you receive: “Unto everyone that hath, it shall be given, and he shall have abundance” (Mat 13:12).
Though united to the Lord Jesus in heaven, there as your “Life” (Col 3:4), you must yet know what it is to be in the place where He is (in my opinion, to be there now in position is to know the inevitability of being there eventually in presence—NC). What many want is to get the Lord down into their own circumstances (which would defeat our representation of His presence there—NC); but you must find Him in the place where He is. It is true that all the sympathy I need, I meet with from Him in my circumstances here. But the only thing that will satisfy my heart is being in company and fellowship with the One who has won my heart; in order to enjoy a person you must be in the place where that person is, with the Person who dwells there.
Really I am There through grace; I have been quickened together with Christ; that is my possession in life. But, now comes my possession in practice. I am rising up to the place where my Father has positioned me in the risen Lord Jesus, who sits at His own right hand in glory. It is just as much the grace of God to put me into heaven as it is to take me out of hell.
People think that because they have this position in gift (Heaven—NC) that they therefore have it in practice; but many a man has property who does not know how to use it; it is not the fact of having possession of it that ensures your enjoyment of it. “The slothful man roasteth not that which he took in hunting” (Pro 12:27). I say it with grief in my heart, that where I find a great deal of intelligence about the truth brought out in Ephesians 2:6, there is often very little heart about it.
I have sometimes said to people, “Did you ever lose a night’s rest trying to get hold of you heavenly place?” There is nothing to me sadder than the way in which saints will allow that they have not got it (the assurance and peace of it—NC), and yet the little earnestness they show in seeking to get it. Let it be the place that you seek—seek as hid treasure. “Where you treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Luk 12:34).
I do not put your own benefit before you, because that is not the thing; but I do say, nothing here should satisfy your heart, because nothing will satisfy your Father’s heart, but your being able to come before Him and say, “I am come into the place which my Father has given me; the Lord Jesus Christ is the One who has brought me in; I delight in the One who has done it; I lay my basket down before Him, and worship the Lord my God.
- J B Stoney
Excerpt from MJS devotional for May 30:
“Our Father disciplines us that we may be more fully free from the old nature, and find everything in the Lord Jesus. But He begins the lesson with the assurance, ‘I love you perfectly.
“I bring you into the desert to learn what you are, and what I am; but it is as those I have brought to Myself! He gives us a place with the Lord Jesus, but then shows us what He is and what we are. The discipline of the way teaches this; but if He, in His love, strikes the furrows in the heart, it is that He may sow the seed which shall ripen in glory.” – JND
None But The Hungry Heart
Knowing our permanent relationship with God is all that is needed to sustain us to be in unbroken gratitude unto Him, esp. during the trials, which is where His love is greatly manifested in “conforming” us to the image of the Lord Jesus (2 Cor 3:18; 1 Jhn 4:17) in this life! When we trust that He prearranges everything that occurs in this life for our “good” (Rom 8:28 – primarily for the good of growing in our faith—NC), we can be “in perfect peace” (Isa 26:3) and progressively grow in confidence in Him by always “casting all your care on Him, because He cares for you” (1 Pet 5:7).
Mission Accomplished
“And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of My people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey” (Exo 3:7, 8). I find that my Father has a purpose for me—to bring me out of one place and into another. The prodigal’s place is in the Father’s house though, as to himself, he may not have come upstairs yet; and that is the case with most saints. I may not have reached it yet (i.e. know you’re in the purpose of the Father—NC), but I know the desire of my Father’s heart about me.
Saints often make their necessity the measure of God’s action for them. It is true that my necessities are met, but this is never the measure of my Father’s action for me. If we make our necessity the measure, we never get beyond it. We shall not be able to glorify Him if we only take what we need. “Ye have not because ye ask not.” According to your apprehension of the truth is the measure of it that you receive: “Unto everyone that hath, it shall be given, and he shall have abundance” (Mat 13:12).
Though united to the Lord Jesus in heaven, there as your “Life” (Col 3:4), you must yet know what it is to be in the place where He is (in my opinion, to be there now in position is to know the inevitability of being there eventually in presence—NC). What many want is to get the Lord down into their own circumstances (which would defeat our representation of His presence there—NC); but you must find Him in the place where He is. It is true that all the sympathy I need, I meet with from Him in my circumstances here. But the only thing that will satisfy my heart is being in company and fellowship with the One who has won my heart; in order to enjoy a person you must be in the place where that person is, with the Person who dwells there.
Really I am There through grace; I have been quickened together with Christ; that is my possession in life. But, now comes my possession in practice. I am rising up to the place where my Father has positioned me in the risen Lord Jesus, who sits at His own right hand in glory. It is just as much the grace of God to put me into heaven as it is to take me out of hell.
People think that because they have this position in gift (Heaven—NC) that they therefore have it in practice; but many a man has property who does not know how to use it; it is not the fact of having possession of it that ensures your enjoyment of it. “The slothful man roasteth not that which he took in hunting” (Pro 12:27). I say it with grief in my heart, that where I find a great deal of intelligence about the truth brought out in Ephesians 2:6, there is often very little heart about it.
I have sometimes said to people, “Did you ever lose a night’s rest trying to get hold of you heavenly place?” There is nothing to me sadder than the way in which saints will allow that they have not got it (the assurance and peace of it—NC), and yet the little earnestness they show in seeking to get it. Let it be the place that you seek—seek as hid treasure. “Where you treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Luk 12:34).
I do not put your own benefit before you, because that is not the thing; but I do say, nothing here should satisfy your heart, because nothing will satisfy your Father’s heart, but your being able to come before Him and say, “I am come into the place which my Father has given me; the Lord Jesus Christ is the One who has brought me in; I delight in the One who has done it; I lay my basket down before Him, and worship the Lord my God.
- J B Stoney
Excerpt from MJS devotional for May 30:
“Our Father disciplines us that we may be more fully free from the old nature, and find everything in the Lord Jesus. But He begins the lesson with the assurance, ‘I love you perfectly.
“I bring you into the desert to learn what you are, and what I am; but it is as those I have brought to Myself! He gives us a place with the Lord Jesus, but then shows us what He is and what we are. The discipline of the way teaches this; but if He, in His love, strikes the furrows in the heart, it is that He may sow the seed which shall ripen in glory.” – JND
None But The Hungry Heart
