The Letter Kills, but the Spirit Gives Life
This “new Canaan” is Jesus Christ, He is outside the “camp” of mans religion. The reports are to be mixed with faith, not in those making the reports, but in the One that is Faithful and True. – Jim Putney, The Treasure of New Canaan
Have you seen Jesus Christ as thew new Canaan, as our Promised Land? Whether you have already seen this or not, I think that you will enjoy Jim Putney‘s blog post: The Treasure of the New Canaan at Treasure in Jars of Clay. His words are encouraging and so is his quote from T. Austin-Sparks. Now for my blog post…
Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. – [2Cr 3:5-6 NASB]
First page of the Gospel of Mark, by Sargis Pitsak, a Medieval Armenian scribe and miniaturist (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Today, as I was getting into my car to leave a certain place, I saw a brother reading the Bible on the back of his truck. When I saw him, I was moved to fellowship with him. I went over to him and asked, “What are you reading?”. He replied, “The Bible”. So, I said, “Yeah, but what are you reading in the Bible?”. He answered, “I don’t talk to nobody when I am reading the Bible, so go ahead and get out of here”.
This brother was not only reading the dead letter, but he killed the fellowship that we could have had. We could have shared the Lord together. We could have read the Scriptures together, by the Spirit, to see Christ. But, all he had was the letter, so we didn’t enjoy any Life together. We were not able to partake of the Tree of Life together, because he was busy eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Many are reading the Scriptures in a religious way and the result is death. They are not only killing themselves, but they are killing others. Do not be like this brother, who rejected me for a book.
Don’t reject each other. Instead, love each other and shine your light on each other; let Christ within you be expressed through you.
You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men; being manifested that you are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. – [2Cr 3:2-3 NASB]
Related articles
- Jesus Christ, Life and Light (thekingspresence.wordpress.com)
- Faith Without Works is Dead, So We Have to Do More…Right? (thekingspresence.wordpress.com)
- Us in Christ and Christ in Us (thekingspresence.wordpress.com)
Posted on September 13, 2012, in Exhortation, Thoughts and tagged Bible, God, Jesus Christ, Letter Kills, Tree of Life. Bookmark the permalink. 6 Comments.
“Do not be like this brother, who rejected me for a book.” Uhhhh!!! I’ve had that same thing happen! Just never thought of it that way! Perhaps this is why there is sooooo much bickering and back-biting among Christians. (I was like that once as well…: (
I think that most of us have been like that before, sister. May we all move forward to loving each other, more than we love a book. Thank you for commenting!
Having “lived” by the letter, I can attest that truly the Spirit gives Life, and this Life is in abundance, a continual amazing journey together as we plumb the depths of the riches we share in Christ. Thanks bro for this encouragement!
I’m glad that you have been encouraged through my words, brother. I look forward to continuing deeper with you on this amazing journey
Thanks for relating this Peter, and for the exhortation.
I would in times past get angry or resentful if my times of prayer/Scripture reading were disrupted. I was challenged on this by the Lord who impressed upon me that Jesus, when He retired to a deserted place to pray, although He had made every effort not to be disturbed, if He was disturbed nevertheless, He made a point of having compassion upon those who came to Him. Not once did He say to anyone that came to Him whilst He was praying, “I’m not available.”
Sometimes we can become so “super-spiritual” that we miss the Truth, and that kind of “spirituality” is, as you rightly say, a man-made religion and not the Life who redeems us.
Excellent words, brother. May we always have compassion on those who disturb us.