by T. Austin-Sparks (February 9, 1964)

There is a thing that happens when we are born again. The Holy Spirit Who is the Spirit of God comes into our new spirit. We do not hear God speaking out from heaven to us. But we know that God speaks in our hearts. We know that the Holy Spirit in our spirit tells us when we are wrong, and gives us the joy of the Lord when we are right. That is the order of this new dispensation. Does it sound very difficult to you young people? Really it is very simple. I think this is one of the first lessons that ever I learned in the Christian life. I used to do certain things before I was born again. I did not see harm in it at all. Indeed, I would argue with this soul of mine, “What is wrong about that?” I will not tell you what those things were. They are just things that all the people of this world do, and the places to which they go.

Well, I used to do those things before I was born again. Then I had a very real experience with the Lord. No one said to me, “Now you are a Christian, you may not do those things.” But one day I just did one of those old things, and do you know-all the joy went out of my heart. I had been able to do that for years and not be troubled about it. Now when I did it, I lost all my joy. Everything seemed to have gone wrong, and I had to go home and go into my room and got down on my knees, and ask the Lord what had happened. Why do I feel so miserable, what does this mean? And the Lord simply said, “You are bringing over the old life into the new. And I cannot have this mixture. You are now a new creation in Christ, and the old things are passed away.”

Now I say that was one of the first lessons I learned in the Christian life. This was very real then. I was born again, the Holy Spirit had come in, and He was just teaching me what the Lord was pleased with, and what the Lord was not pleased with. You can all understand that, I am sure. That is how it ought to be at the beginning of the Christian life. But it ought to be like that all the way through the Christian life. You, my dear friends, along with myself, who have known the Lord for a long time, who have worked for the Lord time, we must remember that these laws of the beginning remain unto the end.

We may not bring into our Christian character the old life. We may not be two things, a Christian and something else.