Faith Purifying the Heart From
Dean Afford. Acts 15:8-9 And God, which knows the hearts, bore them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did to us;… I. PRIDE. 1. This is setting up the honour of self above the honour of God. It is self-worship, and refuses to recognise any righteousness but self-righteousness. 2. What is the very prime object of faith! What do I receive into my heart if I realise Christ's work for me? Is it not this, that the mighty God, He who is greater than the greatest, higher than the highest, laid aside all His glory, and came down into the very depth of humiliation for me? If I live Christ, how can I worship self? When faith has once entered, what room is there for pride? Where is the boasted glory of man before the Eternal Word, who became flesh, and by the very hiding of His glory manifested it — through Him humiliation entered into His exaltation? Where is human merit, when once the fulness of the rich stream of God's unmerited grace is shed over the soul? No; the life of faith is the death of pride. 3. But does faith substitute nothing for self thus dethroned? Far from this. With the sense of a man's own worthlessness comes the sense of his Redeemer's worth — comes love to God, the true answer and return of God's love to him. This last, faith apprehends; that other, faith renders. The humility of those who are born of the Spirit is exactly in proportion to their appropriation of the work of Christ. As He increases in a man's esteem, self decreases. And thus humility is the true work of faith. II. COVETOUSNESS — the inordinate valuing of created objects — the esteeming self not by self alone, but by the things wherewith self is surrounded and enriched. 1. We have in man all degrees of this sin, from the ambition which grasps empires to the miserly greed which hoards the farthing. And the secret of the sin is the same throughout all — the creature, not the Creator; my own possessions, not God's gifts; my position my promotion, my increased income — not my stewardship before God; it is in every case a direct consequence of the substitution of self for Him. 2. And in every case faith in Christ is as directly opposed to it. If my inner regards are really fixed on Him who gave all He had, yea, Himself, for me, where is there room in me for covetous desires? Will not he whose life is hid with Christ in God be laying up treasures in heaven rather than on earth — be enriching his home rather than his tent in the wilderness? III. SELF-INDULGENCE — the love of pleasure — the inordinate valuing of our own delights in created objects. How does faith deal with this all but universal tendency? Who is its object? Is it not He who has solemnly told us that none can be His disciple without daily self-denial? Can a man be justified by faith in Him and disregard these His words? Understand me: the Christian who lives by faith in Christ can and does enjoy life in the best and highest sense; but he cannot be a seeker of pleasure — cannot surrender his noble privilege of self-denial for the bondage in which he sees the children of the world fettered. (Dean Afford.) Parallel Verses KJV: And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; WEB: God, who knows the heart, testified about them, giving them the Holy Spirit, just like he did to us.