LIFE

This week I have been reading The Battle for Life by T. Austin-Sparks. As he surveys the Bible, he shows humanity is in a battle for life. God is on our side; He passionately and earnestly desires us to have a living relationship with Him. God wants us to have a vital spiritual connection with Him “in fullness, in power, in expression, in impact, in testimony.” Austin-Sparks concludes that life is sacred to God, and He is intensely jealous over it.

He writes, “It is not merely the soul-life of man, the bodily life of man, the life of man as here on the earth which is in view, it is another life, called eternal life.” When Jesus said, “I am come that they might have life, and might have it abundantly,” he was sharing a grander and greater vision of life in light of eternity. Commenting on the book of Revelation, Austin-Sparks states, “what is more precious to God than anything else is the spiritual life.”

He describes the battle for life as being “waged in a twofold direction; firstly, as to whether man shall become possessed of that life or not, and secondly, as to whether that life, once possessed, shall be allowed its full opportunity of final expression in man, or shall not rather be smothered and thwarted, baffled and hindered.” Austin-Sparks explains, “Sin and death always go together, just as righteousness and life go together.”

I have read only the first two chapters, but the author is exposing me to a renewed view of what it really means to have LIFE.