Again the believer is so acutely conscious of a "self" which he hates and loathes, that he is never free from the dark shadow of self-condemnation, self-accusation or self-despair, which no appropriation of identification with Christ in death, destroys; or else there is a self-confidence which continually draws the man forward into situations from which he has to retire abashed and disappointed. A spurious personality encompasses the true inner man, which few are aware of as possible, but which is a sadly real thing among multitudes of the children of God.
On the part of the soul beset with these constant presentations to his mind of his own personality, he only thinks he has a "vivid imagination," or still more that some of these things are visions of God, and that he is favoured of God, especially where the vision is of "great plans for God," or wide visions of what God is going to do! Always with the believer as the Centre, and special instrument of this service!
Many of the "plans" for "movements" which have gone even as far as print, in connection with Revival, have been of such a character; plans given by "revelation," and which have resulted in gaining but the few caught by them, and no others. Of such a character has been the aftermath of Revival, where men have left their regular calling, and followed a will-of-the-wisp revelation of "launching out on God," world-wide plans conceived, and dissipated in a few months. Such deceived believers become ultra-devotional, with an excess of zeal that blinds them to all things but the supernatural realm, and robs them of power to wisely meet the claims of other aspects of life. All this comes from an evil spirit's access to the mind, and imagination, through the deception of counterfeiting the presence of God.
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