"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
April 7
I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ. (Galatians 1:12)
The certainty and the assurance that was right at the root of his Christian life and service came because of this one thing: he'd seen everything in Jesus. Everything... in Jesus. What liberation that brought to him! What emancipation! We have often said here that there was no power in this world that could have turned that rabid, fanatical Jew, Saul of Tarsus, into a Christian and a lover of Jesus of Nazareth. No power in this world that could have done that, but just seeing Jesus Himself in this way and that did it, that did it! He was emancipated, he was free! No wonder of all his writings the fiercest, the fieriest is his letter to the Galatians, the letter of our liberty in Christ and it begins with this "God revealed His Son in me and that set me free from all other things."
No use telling people that this and that, and the other thing are a limitation and that they should seek enlargement by getting out of it. That is an unfruitful, unprofitable, indeed that's a dangerous line to take with anybody. But again, if only we can bring Christ... with all His divine significance and meaning and comprehensiveness to them and the Holy Spirit can reveal Him in their hearts... oh, that will do it! That will do it; they will never again be content with anything that limits them to the grave clothes of religion. It delivered Paul from Judaism as nothing else would have done. The way of an escape, the way of enlargement, the way of endurance is to see Jesus. It is not by learning, that is, it is not by the schools. Paul had all of the schools, he did, of religion. He didn't get it through the schools and we'll never get it through the schools; along that line of the technical instruction of things Christian or religious. This is not a merely mental or academic or intellectual thing at all. It is a work of the Holy Spirit.
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.