"The best that I can hope is that this has just opened a window, and that as you look through it you are seeing one thing - how superior is Jesus Christ to all else!"
- T. Austin-Sparks
February 17
We are His household. (Hebrews 3:6 ISV)
With all that the Lord needs and desires to do in the recovery of His first thought, His original idea for His people, not the least is the recovery of the spiritual family. Any fresh movement of God which relates to His original thought will most certainly reintroduce the spiritual family, and all that that means. That may mean the breakdown of a lot; it may mean that a good deal of misconception will have to be set aside; it may be that a whole traditional system will have to be discarded.
There is a tremendous value connected with the spiritual family life and with the training in the family. There is no training better than the training in the family. You cannot find an adequate substitute in the institution. Really, the Lord’s responsible and useful men and women are not trained in the institution; they are trained in the family. It is because of the lack of that family background of training that so often those who go out into the Lord’s work break down in the matter of relationships. The tragedy of so much of the work of God is the tragedy of broken relationships between workers who are put together in an organized way, and they have never gone through the discipline of family life to know how to live triumphantly with difficult people. There is an immense value in the training of the spiritual family and that necessitates very close relationships. We have heard Christian people (church-going people) say that they do not want to come into too close an association with their fellow Christians and church members; they would rather not know too much. That is defeat, and that means the loss of a very great deal for the Lord. The Lord’s way is to bring His people together in the closest relationship and not to eliminate the most difficult ones. He has a very peculiar family, made up of all sorts, and some of the sorts are very funny sorts; and that all provides the basis of a wonderful training.
Daily Open Windows messages have been selected from the works of T. Austin-Sparks. In some cases they appear in abridged form. The introductory verse and its associated Bible version have been selected by the website editor and did not always appear within the original message. In keeping with T. Austin-Sparks' wishes that what was freely received should be freely given and not sold for profit, and that his messages be reproduced word for word, we ask if you choose to share these messages with others, to please respect his wishes and offer them freely - free of any changes, free of any charge (except necessary distribution costs) and with this statement included.