The Secret of Spiritual Consistency

W hen a person is newly born
again, he seems inconsistent
due to his unrelated emotions
and the state of the external
things or circumstances in his life.
The apostle Paul had a strong and
steady underlying consistency in his
life. Consequently, he could let his
external life change without internal
distress because he was rooted and
grounded in God. Most of us are not
consistent spiritually because we are
more concerned about being
consistent externally. In the external
expression of things, Paul lived in the
basement, while his critics lived on
the upper level. And these two levels
do not begin to touch each other. But
Paul’s consistency was down deep in
the fundamentals. The great basis of
his consistency was the agony of God
in the redemption of the world,
namely, the Cross of Christ.
State your beliefs to yourself again. Get back to
the foundation of the Cross of Christ, doing away
with any belief not based on it. In secular
history the Cross is an infinitesimally small
thing, but from the biblical perspective it is of
more importance than all the empires of the
world. If we get away from dwelling on the
tragedy of God on the Cross in our preaching,
our preaching produces nothing. It will not
transmit the energy of God to man; it may be
interesting, but it will have no power. However,
when we preach the Cross, the energy of God is
released. “…it pleased God through the
foolishness of the message preached to save
those who believe.…we preach Christ
crucified…” (1 Corinthians 1:21, 23 ).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The truth is we have nothing to fear and nothing to
overcome because He is all in all and we are more
than conquerors through Him. The recognition of this
truth is not flattering to the worker’s sense of
heroics, but it is amazingly glorifying to the work of
Christ. Approved Unto God, 4