The Imperishable And The Perishable.

The permanent and the transient; that which will abide forever and that which will come to an end, cease to be, and he says quite clearly that the imperishable is Christ and what is of Christ.

Then as coming out of that, he discriminates between the Divine and the human, the gold, silver, precious stones. These are Divine things. 

The wood, hay, stubble, these are the things of man, merely human things.

Are we building by Divine resources, by Divine energies, by Divine realities, or are we building by our own effort, our own resources, our own thoughts and judgments?

You see this discrimination is traced deeply and thoroughly by the apostle with these Corinthians.

He speaks so much about the wisdom of this world, and he warns them of the emptiness, nay the folly, of the wisdom of this world.

He says that is not building material for eternity, it is building with your own natural wisdom, trying to live a Christian life according to your own natural thought, judgment, idea.

Let us dismiss this thing by the grace of God.
 
We have heard of many who have taken this attitude: "Well yes, now I am saved, I believe in the Lord Jesus, but I am not going to do what a lot of Christian people do, I am going to be very balanced, I am going to use my own judgment, I shall go so far but no further."

It is imposing their own thought upon the foundation, and they are going to build up a Christian life which is the expression of their own natural ideas as to what a Christian should be.

In the end that will go up in smoke.

We have got to live by the Holy Spirit's teaching and let our own natural thoughts, judgments and ideas go altogether.

The Holy Spirit is to dictate the kind of life we are to live, and we are to have no pride or prejudice that will block the course of the Holy Spirit and shut the door to Him.

If we are afraid of being extra fanatical our fear will block the door to the Holy Spirit.

We must be with the apostle at least on this: We are fools for Christ's sake..., beside ourselves for the Lord Jesus.

Are you willing to be a fool for Christ's sake?

What is true in the realm of reason must be true in the realm of heart; natural desires, likes, preferences of ours tying the hands of the Holy Spirit, but preparedness to accept what we do not like.

The Lord wants us to have that, to do the distasteful thing if the Lord wants us to do it.

Our hearts must be open to the Lord that He can cause us to love what He loves, desire what He desires, and set aside all those natural likes and dislikes of our own.

The Divine and the human is here divided.

~T. Austin Sparks~