We cannot too highly value and appreciate heart-hunger for the Word. It is of the Spirit of Truth. We may have been born again without knowing much of the Bible, but we certainly are not going to grow to any extent apart from a careful and persistent study of the Word of God. Yes, the maturing believer is a Spirit-dependent student of the Scriptures, "whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises… of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4). 

"Christian progress is not a question of attaining to some abstract standard, or of pressing through to some far-off goal. It is wholly a question of seeing God’s standard in God’s word. You advance spiritually by finding out what you really are (in Christ), not by trying to become what you hope to be. That goal you will never reach, however earnestly you may strive. 

"It is when you see you are dead unto sin that you die to it (daily); it is when you see you are risen that you arise; it is when you see you are a ‘new creation’ in Him that you (progressively) grow. Seeing the accomplished fact in the Word determines the pathway to the realizing of that fact. The end is reached by seeing, not by desiring or working. The only possibility of spiritual progress lies in our discovering the truth as God sees it; the truth concerning Christ, the truth concerning ourselves in Christ." ¢ ¾ W.N.

Deliverance from the reign of sin, and liberty in the life of Christ, are set forth as a doctrinal unit in Romans Six, Seven, and Eight. This area of truth has but one key — The Cross. This is the great master key to spiritual life and liberty.  

When we begin to comprehend Romans Six, we know that our death in Christ unto sin was completed at Calvary. When we have been in Romans Seven for a time, we come to realize that we have been struggling to produce that which God has already accomplished for us in Christ. When we thereby come to Romans Eight, we know at last that the Holy Spirit will produce in our experience what God completed for us on the Cross and in Christ our Life. 

"In Romans Six we see the foundation of our deliverance — the fact that we died with Christ; and also the conditions of our deliverance — that we reckon ourselves dead unto sin and yield to God as those that are alive from the dead. Romans Eight tells us the means and the method of our deliverance — that it is through the blessed Holy Spirit alone that we are actually delivered in everyday life, from sin’s reign. The moment we cease from all our own efforts and let Him do all the work He will begin delivering us from the power of sin. How long it takes some of us to come to the end of our own efforts can be seen in Romans Seven!" ¢ #9; ¾ W.R.N.