Dear ones, this brief word that TAS spoke after the Lord's Table in Manila is so rich. The point that has been touching my heart and dealing with my heart the most is the sixth point: "His love is full of spiritual instruction, causing us to lose all interest in becoming somebody important, and replacing worldly ambition with a simple desire to suffer for Him, to lay down our lives for Him. and to die for Him."
In John 13, we see the Lord's extreme humbling of Himself in the practical love He displayed for His disciples by washing their smelly feet. We also see His speaking to them about love. Together these form a complete set of spiritual instruction that would definitely bear fruit one day in His disciples (as seen in v. 7b: "What I do now, you do not understand, but you shall understand afterwards.").
The tremendous work of spriritual instruction that the love of Christ can accomplish in us is beautifully explained by TAS on p. 27. I am SO touched by this! Dear ones, what a freeing from self-importance! What a freeing from ambition! What a beautiful freedom - freedom to willingly take the place of the servant, freedom to willingly suffer and die for Him, freedom to willingly lay down our lives for Him!
Quote:
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"This love is going to instruct us as to what God loves and what God does not love. Up to this point, these disciples loved the world. Their hearts were set upon a kingdom in this world. They wanted the chief places in the Kingdom. They wanted to be important people in Christ's Kingdom. And their idea was that He was going to set up a kingdom in which they would be important. It was the spirit of the world. They loved the world. See what the love of God did in their hearts! It took all love for this world out of their hearts. They went out into the world, and suffered from the world, because of His love in their hearts. They lost all interest in being important people in this world. After all it did not matter whether they were important people in the Church. They had no ambition to be the teachers and the preachers. They had no ambition to be the elders of the Church. The love of Christ had done away with all that kind of thing. They went out to suffer and to die for Him. To lay down their lives for Christ. It was a tremendous thing that His love did in them."
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