The Secrets of a Spiritually Prosperous Life

V. Raymond Edman in his excellent book, They Found the Secret, explored the lives of men and women who discovered the essentials of a growing mature intimate love relationship with their Savior. In the last chapter of his book he summarized the basics of the mature believer’s life of faith. As I studied the emphasis Jesus made in His teaching in the beatitudes in Matthew chapter five I realized a number of years ago that Jesus emphasized these same essentials that Edman discovered in the lives of great Christians. That really shouldn’t catch us by surprise. Christ is the author of God’s kind of life in the believer. It is the normal Christian life.

Vance Havner once said, “We are so subnormal that if we came up to normal, the world would think we were abnormal.” And so it does.

In order to have God’s kind of life we must become acutely aware of our spiritual need.

THERE MUST BE AN AWARENESS OF OUR SPIRITUAL NEED.

Has the Holy Spirit made me aware of my spiritual poverty?

Psalm 63:1-2, vividly reminds us of this truth.

“Oh God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly;
My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You,
In a dry and weary land where there is no water.
Thus I have seen You in the sanctuary,
To see Your power and Your glory.

Do you have this spiritual hunger to be more like Jesus Christ? Do you thirst for a more intimate fellowship with Christ? Hungering and thirsting leads us to true happiness.

THERE MUST BE AGONY OF THE SOUL BECAUSE OF THE AWARENESS OF OUR NEED.

Have you mourned over your spiritual poverty?

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4). Jesus used a strong word meaning to mourn as if one is mourning for the dead. The conviction of spiritual need becomes so powerful in the soul that the individual mourns over his condition. It is to feel the pain, sting, and hurt of the realization that I am not as good as I thought I was. There is a sense of spiritual poverty and the agony of it.

 “Crucifixion,” V. Raymond Edman reminds us, “is a most painful process, and the soul that longs for fullness of life in Christ finds that the doorway to it is death to self.” There is no other way but the way of the cross. Have I grieved and mourned over my spiritual condition? Do I see myself as a dead man? Do I mourn spiritually over my spiritual need as one who mourns over the death of a loved one? “Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:24). Previously Paul had stated, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me” (2:20).

Not only must we become aware of our spiritual need, and grieve over it, we must abandon ourselves to Jesus Christ. There is awareness of our need, agony over it and abandonment to Christ as our only hope. 

THERE MUST BE ABANDONMENT TO THE SAVIOR.

Has the Holy Spirit brought you to the place where you are sick of self? Our narcissistic filled society puts the emphasis on I, me and mine. We must come to the end of our selfishness. Our fleshy, sinful nature wants to worship self rather than the Lord Jesus Christ.

Romans 6:13, “do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.”

One of the verses I first memorized after I committed my life to Christ was Romans 12:1-2. “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Such a spiritual transformation comes through an intense hunger and thirst for God. Do I hunger and thirst for God’s righteousness? Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Matthew 5:6). It is to have such an intense hunger and thirst that you want the whole thing. You want the last bit of bread and the last drop of water because you are so thirsty. Do you want the righteousness of God in like manner?

In Matthew 6:33, Jesus said, “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Do Christ and His righteousness have the highest priority in my life? Do I want at all personal costs to be in a right relationship with God?

There must be a wholehearted unreserved abandonment to Jesus Christ. Am I willing to get serious with God and the Christian life? The normal Christian life is one in which the Holy Spirit is appropriated by faith to reveal Christ at work in us. 

What is the spiritual need the Holy Spirit keeps pointing to in my life? Am I willing to agonize and grieve over the awareness of that need? Have I abandoned myself to Jesus Christ as the only hope for spiritual vitality? Am I willing to appropriate the presence of the Holy Spirit moment by moment? 

THERE MUST BE THE APPROPRIATION BY FAITH OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

It is not legalism.

Our fellowship with the Spirit of God is by faith, and not by works. “This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith?” (Galatians 3:2) One of the great lessons we learn in Paul’s letter to the church at Galatia is that the Spirit does not respond to methods, programs and man’s gimmicks. He is a person and He must be treated as a person.

It is a daily blessing.

It is not a “second blessing” type of experience. It is a daily blessing. It is our response to the Holy Spirit creating in our lives a hunger for Christ to be preeminent. Has the Holy Spirit revealed Christ in you? Has He revealed Christ deep in your inner soul?

The apostle Paul prayed for the church at Ephesus that God “would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man; so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.” Then at that point Paul just breaks out with a great doxology. “Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen” (Ephesians 3:16-21).

Paul couldn’t find words fast enough to communicate what was flashing through his mind. Literally, “But to Him who is able above all things to do exceedingly above . . .” God’s blessings exceed some number or measure, over and above, more than necessary. It is intensified by adding a preposition ek, adding “the idea of exhaustlessness, and huper, “above.” The Greek scholar Kenneth Wuest expanded the translation, “beyond all things, superabundantly, and over and above.”  Marvelous is God’s provision. Paul adds, and these promises are good forever. This grace will never come to an end.

Gerald Hawthorne reminds us, “The Holy Spirit of God must never be thought of as a genie whose presence and power is available for personal enrichment or aggrandizement.” A good example is in the life of Jesus when He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be severely tested. He was tempted to use the power of the Spirit to change stones into bread to satisfy His real hunger. Why did Jesus refuse to do so? “Because He knew that the power that filled Him was power to do the Father’s will, not His own will. It was power to equip Him to triumphantly complete the mission God had given Him to do, even if that involved hunger, not to prove to anyone, especially the devil, that He could perform the spectacular.”

Simon the magician in Acts 8:9-23 was a crude dude who wanted lights, camera, action. Now he would have done just the opposite of Christ. He would have been prime time news tonight. Hawthorne continues,

The Holy Spirit is God present and active in the lives of Jesus’ followers––not to make life rich and comfortable for them, but to equip them to fulfill God’s mission for them in the world. It is mission of helping, serving, healing, restoring, giving, sharing and loving––a mission of binding up the broken, of being just and striving for justice, of proclaiming the Good News that God is King, of taking the Gospel everywhere, preaching the message that God has acted to save the world and transform people in and through the life, death and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ (The Presence and the Power: The Significance of the Holy Spirit in the Life and Ministry of Jesus, pp. 242-243).

Jesus said, “Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 3:5). This “gentleness” of which Jesus speaks is strength. It is the strength of a wild stallion under perfect control of its bridle. It is the absence of pride. It is power under control. Such a person is a God–controlled man.

The Spirit–controlled life is a complete breach with the old ways of life dominated by our sinful nature. It demands faith and commitment to Christ. It is a call to continual reliance on the Holy Spirit for daily living. On the negative side, the crucifixion of the flesh is not something any one of us can do by ourselves. We need help. The Helper comes along our side to give us His strength.

The exchanged life is a life of faith.

V. Raymond Edman writes, “Just as salvation is by faith, so also the exchanged life. Just as we accept the Lord Jesus by faith as Savior, so by simple faith we receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Just as we took the Lord as our sin-bearer, we take the Holy Spirit as our burden-bearer. Just as we take the Savior as our penalty for sins that are past, we take the Holy Spirit for power over indwelling sins that are present. The Savior is our atonement; the Holy Spirit is our advocate. In salvation we receive newness of life, by the Holy Spirit we find life more abundant. In each case the appropriation is by faith, and by faith alone, wholly apart from any feeling on our part.”

The apostle Paul in Romans 8:13 said, “If you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” Paul is reminding us that this is a continual reliance on the person of the Holy Spirit who dwells within our bodies because we are now His temples. Moreover in Galatians 5:16-25 Paul tells us that we are to “walk in the Spirit” (v. 16). If we are to continually walk in the Sprit we must be “led by the Spirit” because He does the leading (v. 18). He leads and we walk with Him hand in hand. That is what it means to “Live in the Spirit” (v. 25). Therefore, He is in control of our lives. That is what it means to “be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18). When someone is “filled” with wine he is under the influence, or control of the alcohol content. When we are “filled” with the Spirit we are under His control. It is a daily, moment-by-moment, relationship with Him. When He is in control we experience Spirit–controlled worship (vv. 19-21), Spirit–controlled home life (vv. 5:22-6:9) and Spirit–controlled warfare and witnessing (vv. 10-20). 

A. B. Simpson expressed this appropriation of our daily needs as follow: 

The Lord Jesus revealed Himself as a living, all–sufficient Presence, and I learned for the first time that Christ had not saved us from future peril and left us to fight the battle of life as best we could; but He who had justified us was waiting to sanctify us, to enter into our spirit, and substitute His strength, His holiness, His joy, His love, His faith, His power for all our worthlessness, helplessness and nothingness, and make it an actual living fact. “I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20) . . .  Throwing myself at the feet of the glorious Master, I claimed the mighty promise––“I will dwell in them, and walk in them” (2 Corinthians 6:16).

Following this appropriation by faith of the Holy Spirit there is a moment-by-moment abiding by faith in Christ.

THERE MUST BE AN ABIDING BY FAITH IN THE SAVIOR.

This is a mutual abiding.

“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 14:4-5). Lord Jesus, will I see You today? Remind me of Your steadfast presence. “Apart from Me you can do nothing.” That is the hardest lesson for most Christians to learn. And there is no other way to live the Christian life.

Abiding is obedience to His will.

“The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us” (1 John 3:24). If I love Him I will have no problem with my attitude toward keeping His commandments. It is a matter of the heart. Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). When the heart is right we abide in Him and we sense His presence.

Abiding is not striving or struggling.

“Abiding is not striving or struggling, learned Hudson Taylor, but a resting in the Faithful One and implicit obedience to Him. The surrendered life that abides is a life of surrender,” observed Edman. Listen carefully to Hudson Taylor’s testimony:

When my agony of soul was as its height a sentence in a letter was used to remove the scales form my eyes, and the Spirit of God revealed the truth of our oneness with Jesus as I had never known it before . . . “But how do you get faith strengthened? Not by striving after faith, but by resting on the Faithful One.” As I read I saw it all! “If we believe not, He abideth faithful.” I looked to Jesus and saw and when I saw, oh, how the joy flowed!) that He had said, “I will never leave you.” “Ah, there is rest!” I thought. I’ll strive in vain to rest in Him. I’ll strive no more. For has He not promised to abide with me––never to leave me, never to fail me? And, He never will!

Let’s fix our eyes on Jesus.

The Amplified Bible on Hebrews 12:1-3 reads as follows:

Therefore then, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses [who have borne testimony to the Truth], let us strip off and throw aside every encumbrance––unnecessary weight––and that sin which so readily (deftly and cleverly) clings to and entangles us, and let us run with patient endurance and steady and active persistence the appointed course of the race that is set before us, looking away [from all that will distract] to Jesus, Who is the Leader and the Source of our faith [giving the first incentive for our belief] and is also its Finisher, [bringing it to maturity and perfection]. He, for the joy [of obtaining the prize] that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising and ignoring the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God. [Ps. 110:1]. Just think on Him Who endured from sinners such grievous opposition and bitter hostility against Himself––reckon up and consider it all in comparison with your trials––so that you may not grow weary or exhausted, losing heart and relaxing and fainting in your minds.

THE EXCHANGED LIFE IS A LIFE OF ABUNDANCE.

How quick we are to try to put the cart before the horse. You can’t get happiness, joy, abundance without first receiving His righteousness. Happiness is a byproduct. Joy is the outcome of His life in us. Abundance in spiritual life is the result of Christ in us. It is not doing, it is receiving. J. B. Phillips paraphrased Philippians 4:13, “I am ready for anything through the strength of the One who lives within me.” That is “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” I am sufficient because Christ lives in me.

Jesus compared it to a river overflowing.

John 7:37-39, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’ ” But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”

It is full of abundance. John 10:10b, “ . . . I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” The secret is that His sheep hear His voice and obey Him. “When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice” (John 10:4). “Who knows where He will lead and what He will say? Ear is tender to hear His voice, and heart is on what the Altogether Lovely One will do. And that life can be yours and mine!” (Edman).

We become invincible.

Jesus described the change in our lives when we are allowing Him to exchange our inadequacy for His all sufficiency. He said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:9-12).

That is the only way we can ever be salt and light in a spiritually dark and corrupt world.