“God is Spirit”, and as Spirit His principal area of operation is in the realm of the spirit. Though He may at times manifest Himself in the natural world through signs, wonders, and various demonstrations of His power, it is in this realm of the Spirit that He most desires to commune with men. Here He will make Himself more thoroughly known to those who with sincere hearts will travel the highways of faith seeking no less a destination than the very throne room of God. In His wisdom, God has also made man a spirit so that He might commune with His creation for all eternity. Through spiritual disciplines and devotions, God has made a way that man can live to realize this glorious fellowship. However, man is both spirit and flesh, and it is his carnal nature that labors within man to draw him away from the spiritual life God intended and into a sensual existence and carnal contentment. While leading a revival of spirituality in the monastic order during the twelfth century, Bernard of Clairvaux wrote, “Because man’s nature is frail and weak, he is driven by necessity to serve that nature first.”1 The carnal nature of man will always determine man’s destiny unless denied and disciplined by spiritual truth. Because of original sin, man has become subject to this carnal nature as it exercises its influence over him through the many lusts and desires of the natural world (1 Jn. 2:6). Its influence is made complete when it also dominates the daily thoughts and imaginations of man. Once the mind becomes occupied with temporal pleasures, man soon abandons any idea of a spiritual reality and neglects the subtle urgings within his being to reclaim his spiritual roots. As God called to a fallen Adam in the garden (Gen. 3:9), He continues to call to the sons and daughters of Adam today. Deep within the abandoned chambers of the human heart God’s voice echoes patiently and lovingly, wooing man to a life of renewed fellowship in the spirit. Using both the seen and unseen, the natural and the supernatural, God beckons man to the life He created him to live, one deep within the quiet of his being where reality is found in Him alone. There is an “Ancient Path” to this inner secret place, a path traveled by the men and women of faith of previous generations who have themselves discovered a life of intimacy and fellowship with God. The testimonies they have left continue to inspire the modern spiritual pilgrim who himself seeks a life of intimacy with God. These modern pilgrims continue to find that intimacy through the same Christian disciplines and devotions that have produced lives rich with spiritual fruit for centuries. The spiritual life is the life born into and lived upon eternal principals. Since spiritual truth is eternal, the truths of spiritual life do not change from generation to generation. The “Ancient Path” to the Deeper Spiritual Life is an enduring spiritual path that still enables men to walk with God. It continues today to illuminate the way for all who hunger and thirst for a greater assurance and reality of God in their life. To the majority of humanity today, this inner sanctuary of peace and assurance is unknown and unsought. Unwilling to deny the present comforts and ready gratifications that occupy their every day life, society neglects the path to the inner life found in devotions such as prayer, meditation, contemplation, solitude, faith, gratitude, charity, and many other basic spiritual disciplines. The result of this is an absence of peace in the neglected inner man. With little or no inner peace comes little or no outer contentment, so man continues the anxious pursuit for new forms of entertainment and amusement to satisfy his restless and anxious mind. Even in our churches, many have become more concerned with the fruit of their faith rather than the roots of it. Experience has replaced a life of faith instead of being its result, leaving the believer dependent upon external experience rather than internal realities. Without an inner life based upon God’s unchanging promises, the faith of many continue to rise and fall like a rollercoaster according to life’s experiences and circumstances and not according to the constant peace Jesus Himself purchased for us upon the cross. This peace is based solely upon His promises and His already accomplished redeeming work at Calvary. The Deeper Spiritual Life that God has called all men to experience is an invitation into that peace and assurance that humanity today so desperately needs. Like the Pilgrims who crossed the Atlantic to discover a New World with little more than the clothes upon their backs and a bible in their hands, a new frontier awaits those who choose to explore this Deeper Spiritual Life. Only by committing ourselves to the journey can we begin to realize the abundant life available to those who abandon the shores of complacency for the mystical wilderness of the Deeper Spiritual Life.
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