You are right now...
There is a day, a season, usually prefaced by many agonizing days, when at last our straining self, stretched and taut like an elastic, gives way. We were crucified with Christ all along, but now faith enters into this intelligently as fact. If we were crucified with Him, we also rose with Him, and now at last we can see that that means the New One within is living His life within us. He always was since redemption, but he had to spend those months and often years working us out of ourselves by walking in us into all sorts of frustrating situations, which we handled wrongly every time by our self-reactions to them; and I reckon the Indwelling Christ has many a laugh as He sees us bumbling and stumbling along, and knows the good though painful lessons we are learning by stubbing our toes on this and then that; but knowing also that we shall see, because He has already started looking out on things His way through our eyes, and will go on until we learn the difference between us looking through our own eyes and He looking through them. taken from God Unlimited by Norman Grubb Christianity is not a call to live by principles or to live for Jesus. To build our lives around biblical principles sounds admirable, but it is a subtle form of legalism. Of course, there is an instruction in the New Testament about how we are to live. But these instructions are not religious laws for us to follow. They are descriptions of the many ways that Christ can live His life through us as we depend on Him. New Testament Christianity is not grounded in what we do, but in what He has already done. The Bible teaches that the One who has begun the work in us will be the One to complete it. Paul said, "Faithful is He who calls you, AND HE WILL BRING IT TO PASS" (1 Thessalonians 5:24, emphasis added). The Bible is clear: Jesus will do it, not us.
There is indeed a blessing to be enjoyed as we obey the Lord, but blessings are not experienced by simply doing what God says. Simply doing what God says has never brought joy to anybody's life. The source of joy is Jesus, not mere compliance to the Bible's commands. Many people struggle with the question, "Why am I not fulfilled when I'm doing all the things that I believe God wants me to do?" It's because God's purpose is not that we should focus on doing the right things. Rather, he wants us to focus on Him. Obedience occurs as we trust Jesus within us to fulfill the desires of His Father through us. As Jesus does that, we will fulfill the commands of the Scripture. On the other hand, when we simply do what the Bible instructs, that is not godly obedience. It is nothing more than compliance. Taken from Grace Rules by Steve McVey. One of the great lessons we learn in our union life search is that God means everything! It keeps me from being judgmental of people. I can say, “Well, God means that. That’s God’s purpose”...whether it is a negative purpose or a positive purpose. It is a wonderful thing when we begin to say, “God meant that.” It may be that if he is an unsaved person, God meant it so that the arrows of conviction of sin and corruption would sink more deeply in. For instance, something might cause a man to become frightened, yet we can see that it was exactly what that man needed and that God has some higher and greater purposes through that experience.
I’m desperately relaxed now and can’t help it, held by a view not seen by outer chaos. I am fixed on the inner eye. I could leave it and become frenetic, get into the mad fear and rush, but the ease of freedom for things not to is what compels me with the eye of beauty and truth.“Risen Christ, I did not know you offered such ease. I had heard but measured with my own thinking, a lie. Now, when You inhale, there is peace; when You exhale, peace goes out. My body moves like the breathless maiden’s hand across linen, her heart looking in a mirror without time.
Look to yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ, and you will find Him, and with Him, everything else thrown in.
C. S. Lewis What a simple every moment of the day exercise. My take from Major Ian Thomas's teachings.
God to a man is as unconditionally necessary as oil is to an oil lamp.Without oil in the lamp, we have an oil lamp, but it won’t function as a lamp. Likewise, if you detach a human from God, you will still have a human form, but it won’t function as a human. The only thing needed for an oil lamp to function as an oil lamp is to put oil in it. Then too, the only thing left for a human to act like a human is to put God within it. Oil in the lamp doesn't ask the lamp to try harder. Likewise, God, back in a human, isn’t so that humans might try harder. Oil is only in the lamp so the oil can be oil, functionally. And God put back into a human is so God can be God, functionally. In other words, the spiritual new birth is designed to let God so function through a human that everybody recognizes that God is home. Now God is in business, God Himself in the human, being. Turn on the TV, pick up a newspaper, or read a magazine and immediately you will be bombarded with the world’s thinking. Remember that Satan is the god of this world, and he is using all that the world offers to influence you to compare, to succeed, to win, to be strong, to be self-sufficient, and most importantly, to be independent. Satan uses our culture to entice you to want bigger, better, and always more. This infernal message, designed to sow discontentment, is the primary one you will receive from the world. Why? All that the world can serve up to you, as it says in 1 John 2:16, is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful PRIDE of life.
In addition, world events, politicians, etc. can invoke fearful, angry, and anxious thoughts. I know Christians that can’t get past their anger about what the government is doing or not doing. They let politicians and governmental action (or inaction) steal their peace and rest in Christ. They just “wallow” in their “stinking” thinking. I believe we would be surprised to know how deeply our culture influences our thought life and how much it can trigger fleshly thoughts of lust, envy, anger, anxiety, etc. 19 Therefore, those also who suffer according to the will of God shall entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right. 1 Peter 4:19 (NASB95)
When we come to our end we discover His beginning. You cannot force the end of your self will. You are not meant to be without a will nor self-willed. The problem, if any, resides in the self. Discovering who you were and how that worked helps you to know who you are in Christ and how that works. When I was a child of God's enemy I thought enemy thoughts. That enemy thinks he is independent of God's rule, able to decide to do good or to avoid evil on his own. I was duped, I thought it was me thinking and wrestling with those thoughts. Then I realized Christ had died for all my stupid thoughts and sinful behavior. It was over and done with by Him and in Him. If my mind stays attached to sin defining me, I stay suffering Christ's death to sin. But when I realize my new self is in Christ Himself, being Himself in and through me, I also get to simply be a willful me again. The only difference is that this new 'me' is a slave to Righteousness. So much so that I not only want to do what Father is doing but know who is doing it even though it feels like I am doing it independently of God. So then, as I once did life thinking I was independent of Satan's spirit of error, yet a slave to his will, I now know that I can be just as duped into thinking that I am not a slave to God, but able to do God at will. But now I know that is a lie and I am a slave to God's will. The liberated life is His life liberating me to be me. This is His Being faithful. In our Covid-19 world, everyone is hoping they can last out until a vaccine comes along and frees us from fears of death concerning the Sars-COVID virus. The majority of the world is ready for a vaccine. But first, it had to realize it was vulnerable to the COVID law of death.
Years ago I had a friend who tried to quit smoking. Some $30k later, after a few treatments and many workshops, he was still smoking. He was hopeless concerning finding a cure until he almost died of diverticulitis. Then again, shortly afterward, he almost died from the drug given to fix the problem. Wisely he asked his Doctor, "What causes diverticulitis?" His doctor simply said, "smoking." In an instant, my friend was cured of smoking. Up till that moment, dying because of smoking was only a distant and possibly painless way to die. But knit together with two painful events and life-threatening comas, dying by smoking became immediate. In a sense, knowledge along with experience became his vaccine for smoking. Okay then where is the encouragement? Well, first, we were slaves to the law of death but unfortunately, our suffering was so common we could not put it together. Living by the flesh desires felt good, like as with a cigarette, but we are informed it isdeath. Well, everyone dies and almost always later, right? So, to up the volume and place, flesh life in the light of the immediate death we are living, God sent His Son to die, right out in the public's eye. In fact, He said, "Here is your vaccine, even if you don't think your suffering death. You will know that you have been vaccinated." One-shot, a little pain and in private. How much can it hurt to trust Christ did what He said He did and put death to death by His separating you from your soul flesh life? Right now you can accept the binding of that same soul into His law of Spirit Life? 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. Romans 8:2 (NASB95) Please feel free to forward these emails to you friends who you think may benefit or enjoy them. |