In these last days it is most important for each of us who are the Lord's to stay close to Him in our daily walk so that we will not be deceived and stray off the Way.
Not only is the world constantly clamoring for our attention, and our flesh resisting us every step of the way, but there are competing doctrines and scriptural interpretations causing divisions among us almost daily. In truth, this is nothing new - it was happening even in the beginning days of the church - and though the enemy may be the instrument used for judgement upon the church, still we must always keep in mind that it is God Who is wielding that instrument for His purposes and our good.
1 Cor. 11:19 - For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.
Throughout the Bible we can see God separating, filtering, choosing one over another: Able was approved, Cain was rejected. "Jacob I loved, Esau I hated." Even in the NT, not all who are given an invitation are approved at the door: "Many are called, few are chosen". "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord' shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven".
2 Cor. 10:18 - For not he that commends himself is approved, but whom the Lord commends.
So how can we assure our being "approved" by the Lord? How can we be certain we are not clinging to what we should let go, and not letting go of what we should hold tightly?
Quite honestly, finding the answer to this is the whole purpose of this entire thread.
There is only One Who is always and forever approved by God and that is His Son, His Annointed One: Jesus the Messiah. We ourselves are only approved when we are found in Him, and for this reason we must work diligently to cling tightly to Him. If we are truly following Him along His Way - the Way in which He is leading each one of us - then we will stay with Him whether we understand or not and whether others in our life understand or not. We will stay with Him regardless of where He takes us, what we feel or think or want. All of that will be as nothing to us in order that we may be found in Him.
Truly, we can only maintain this dedication, and only cling so tightly to Him through "...that perfect bond of unity, which is love"; and that love is proven and made perfect through our obedience to Him.
Nothing and no one else can save us: not correct doctrine, not good works, not great faith. True, sincere Love for Jesus alone - as shown by our obedient submission to Him - will bind us to Him and Him to us. Whether to the mountain top or to the valley, we must say with Ruth "wherever You go, I will go; and wherever You lodge, I will lodge".
If we would ensure that we aways have God's approval, that very attitude of complete devotion to Him must be ours. It is not a decision made lightly for it always leads us to the Cross - to our own death in Him in some way or another.
The Way to the Resurrection is always and only by Way of the Cross, and only what has been Resurrected in Christ meets with the Father's approval and therefore has His Life.
Matthew 7:14 - "For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it."
My prayer today is that each one of you put aside all that hinders you, all that gets in your way and all that holds you back from squeezing into that narrow door to His Life, His Rest, and His approval.
LeastOne
Last edited by leastone; 10th November 2003 at 03:46 PM.
This is for those of you - and this includes myself - who wonder why I write what I write...
I had another post nearly completed today when the Lord stopped me and clearly said, "That isn't the message I want you to send." And He led me to write and post the last message. I just walked outside (I'm at work) and I asked Him why, because there are so many subjects that I would like to write about, so many things that seem important to me to share.
What He replied is that the last one is the most important one; that it is the crucial foundation upon which to build, and it is the most important lesson He has given me to know: developing that lasting love for Him through obedience to Him. And since this entire exercise is for me as much as for anyone else - teaching me obedience regardless of what I or anyone else thinks about it - then no matter what else I might write, if I fail in that obedience then I have failed. Period.
And I am writing this only because He has given me permission to explain here.
My prayer as always is that each of you be richly blessed with all God's blessings in Christ.
Matthew 7:14 - "For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it."
LeastOne
Another brilliant Post, LeastOne, thank you.
*throws hand up* I have questions.
Why do I find the gate getting narrower the more I grow? And then, I come to a point where I'm not in line with the gate, and don't have the courage to do what it takes to get in line... I feel darned if I do and darned if I don't.
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"Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you."
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I believe John 15:2 applies: "...every branch that bears fruit, he purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit". The way the Lord has taught me is that as we come into His Light, we become more aware of what is not Light within us, and so see our need to ask Him to put that on the Cross...over and over, until there is nothing left in us but His Light.
An interesting study is to look up in a Concordance and a good dictionary the words translated "strait" and "narrow" in this passage. The meanings give the sense of "confining circumstances" that put pressure on us - tribulations - causing the necessity to strip everything off in order to squeeze through...like a loaded down camel squeezing through the gate made only for people: the "eye of a needle" in another parable.
Perhaps this is the reason for our need to be willing to put everything and everybody as secondary in order to be found in Him; something we can only do when we love Jesus above all else.
Keep pressing...because the only real failure is completely giving up. And that I know you are not willing to do.
Leastone, I have been praying and searching for some time that I could truly understand God's love for me, and I can't seem to get my head around it. Your post helped a lot because I'm beginning to think I should just accept it whether I can understand or not and look for all the signs of His love in my life. I have been a Christian since age 8 (I'm 49 now), but I haven't always lived a close life. I guess that's one of the reasons I can't understand why He loves me. I've strayed so many, many times. At any rate, your post about why God loves us and what He sees in us was a great help to me. Thanks a bunch!
Every single one of us who desires to truly know the Lord and be found in Him suffers what appears to be failure - over and over and over:
1 Cor 4:8-11 - "We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we who live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh."
But never let the enemy trick you into believing you are a failure for trying!
As Paul goes on to say:
1 Cor 4:16 - "For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory..."
So long as you are sincerely seeking to enter into that narrow door, with each attempt you are making progress - andthat is not failure!Christ Jesus is our Promised Land! And just as the Israelites did not conquer the entire land with one battle, so we do not gain Christ with only one attempt. They had to march around, one step at a time, to lay claim to their land - and so do we.
Keep flinging yourself at that door, working to squeeze through that gate...remember Jesus said "Strive to enter..."
LeastOne
p.s. Something the Lord just reminded me of: at different times over the years - often when I finally find my way back to Him after being thrown off course for some reason or another - He will tell me that He loves me! And that He is proud of me! And every time He says that, through my tears, I ask Him, "Why, Lord? Why do you say that?" And every time He answers, "Because you never give up on Me."
So, never give up!
Last edited by leastone; 11th November 2003 at 04:02 PM.
Meekness, humility, submission, obedience. These are attitudes that do not come easily to our flesh. In the world, we demand our rights when we are wronged; at work, we are offended when others treat us without respect; in our relationships, we are disappointed when we are not appreciated. We want to be given credit for what do - recognized and rewarded for our efforts - and our feelings are easily hurt when we do not receive what we believe is rightfully due us.
Often we are only semi-aware of these feelings occuring within us; we get crushed when we go unnoticed or are not appropriately "rewarded" in some way, and so resentment develops; unchecked, this resentment can easily grow into bitterness. It is bad enough if this happens with other people, but surprisingly it is not uncommon with Christians in their dealings with the Lord. Disappointment with God is not often admitted by believers - even to ourselves - yet may be readily noticeable to the more spiritually mature in conversations with us and even in in our personal theology ("Don't get your hopes up!" "God moves in mysterious ways.").
Being a servant is not our natural way of life, primarily because the flesh - which is our natural life - views itself as being lord over its domain, which is us, body and soul. The flesh considers all natural talents as belonging to it, with whatever strength, goodness, beauty, ability, intelligence, etc. as being "natural" to it and therefore, being its own. And it resists any changes to that lordship with every ounce of effort it possesses.
The flesh is part of our inheritance from Adam, and it is from this very inheritance we must turn away in order to receive the far better inheritance we have been given in Christ.
The inheritance we have in Adam - the inheritance of the flesh - is a dead spirit, a darkened mind and a rebellious will. In this inheritance our father is Satan, our home is this natural world, and our destiny is death.
The inheritance we have in Christ - the inheritance of the spirit - is a new spirit. In this inheritance our Father is God, our home is the Kingdom of God and our destiny is Life.
Our spirit is made new because of the planting of the seed of God in it. And within that seed is contained the Life of Christ.
Only potentially at first does that seed of new Life have a new mind ("We have the mind of Christ") and a submissive will ("Not my will but thine be done"). Paul speaks of struggling until "Christ be formed in you." Why? Because just as a human seed must be nourished within the womb until it forms into a human baby, so also does God's seed need to be nourished within our spirits until His Life "is formed" within us. As we feed that new Life on His written Word, that Life continues to grow within us.
The struggle between flesh and spirit in our daily lives is just this very growth process as we learn to "put off the old man" of Adam and "put on the new man" of Christ in us. This struggle is the "working out our own salvation with fear and trembling" of which Paul writes; it is the following after Christ by denying our (old) self, carrying (bearing or applying) our (within ourselves) cross daily; it is putting to death our old ways: of thinking (our fleshly minds) and acting (our fleshly desires). It is this very struggle that exposes the pride and stubborn rebellion of our old fleshly Adamic nature; it is by dying daily - applying the awesome Power of the Cross - that the old man is broken and the new man emerges from within.
As every true Christian can testify this is hard work, done through much tearful prayer, "humbling ourselves under His mighty Hand", "presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice" and finally, "lifting our weary hands" and offering a "sacrifice of praise"! Death is never easy, but the new Life in Christ is worth it all - and far more!
For the brand new Christian, the change within them is so dramatic that, in their initial excitement they want to share that new life with everyone they meet; similar to a newborn baby, everything about their world is brand new to them and they are truly seeing as with new eyes. Just as lighting one candle changes everything for someone who has grown up in the dark - in a world of shadows - so having a little Light within us for the first time makes it appear as if everything is really bright. That little bit of Light seems a great big Light when we first receive it.
A fortunate few receive correct training and teaching from the very beginning of their Christian walk and so continue to grow steadily in the Light as the Light continues to grow steadily within them. Most of us however, are not so fortunate and sooner or later find that our little Light within is not quite as bright as we first thought, and that the darkness is still there within us. In fact, we usually discover that that little Light has made the darkness even darker!
And so begins the struggle between flesh and spirit in our daily Christian life.
One of the most misunderstood difficulties - one that causes so many Christians to lose their way - is the failure to really grasp the difference between feeding the spirit and feeding the unrenewed, fleshly, natural mind. The Bible can be read and studied in a great many ways, but only one way will feed the spirit: it is only when we read Scripture as lead by the One Who inspired those who wrote that Scripture do those words become spiritual food for us. Only when read in, and as guided by, the Holy Spirit do the words get into our own spirits and become food for us. Read any other way and our minds will rob us every single time of spiritual nourishment! And there are far too many who have much Biblical knowledge, but little spiritual Light. But those who truly feed their spirits by the Spirit and Truth of His Word however, find that He opens their eyes to yet more and more of His Word; these are those who continue to grow in Christ. These soon find that as His Word "abides in them" - "dwelling in them richly" - that His Life also dwells in them richly. And where His Life is, there He is and there His Father is as well.
In this struggle between flesh and spirit, in which all true disciples of Christ are engaged, there will eventually come a time when the spirit within will become the dominant self in that person. Enough Light will be there that the Christian will identify more with that Light than with the darkness of the fleshly self, and the fruit of the Spirit - the identifying attributes of that new Life of Christ - will be ever more apparent in their daily lives.
And that is the person whom God will begin to use in powerful ways - as an "instrument of Righteousness" - in the lives of others.
Last edited by leastone; 11th November 2003 at 05:48 PM.
1 Cor. 15:34 - "Awake to righteousness, and sin not..."
Once we lived out in the county where I had to take our trash to the dump; most of the time it wasn't bad, but occasionally they would be bulldozing the fill around and the stench on those days was unbelievable! One hot summer day when I went there they were doing this, and it was particularly ripe - so bad that it was hard not to gag - so I tossed the bags in and left as quickly as I could.
As I was driving out, the Lord said to me, "This is how exactly how sin smells to the Father, which is why He will not have it in His Presence."
For years now, each time I come before the Father and whether I know of any particular sins in my life or not (which I usually do unfortunately), the Lord has had me ask the Holy Spirit to convict me of any sin of which I am unaware. As I do this I sit quietly and allow Him time to bring those to my mind so that I can confess them as well. Often I am really surprised by what He brings up; at first I questioned some of them, because I did not relate and wondered if it was just the enemy deceiving me, or if I was just making it up. But I have learned that there is far more sin in my heart than I ever imagined! And so I just confess it now without balking.
After awhile - as I faithfully confessed whatever I heard within, the Lord began to interrupt at times, saying that He would deliver me of this or that thing. And He lead me to ask the Father to put this or that thing on the Cross and crucify it until it was dead. And so I did what He told me and continue to do so each day.
Sometimes I will not relate at all to the particular thing He says, but as soon as I ask the Father to put that thing to death, it is as if He is doing surgery - physically cutting something out of my heart - for I will immediately cry from some depth within as if my heart is being cut open with a knife! And each time, I can tell afterward that something is different; that there is a new sense of freedom in my spirit, a lifting of some burden that I never even knew was there.
In truth, I make no claims to really understand the workings of the Lord in my own spiritual life, much less in anyone else's. He has me do things at times that make no sense to me; all I do know is that as I faithfully do whatever He asks, He has revealed Himself to me more and more - and that is the what I desire the most: to know Him and be pleasing to Him.
2 Cor. 2:15 - "For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ..."
For myself, I want nothing in me to be a stench to His nostrils.
I've been feeling lukewarm in my attitude towards Christ in the past few weeks, but your posts have got me excited about God again! Thank you so so so so much, and God bless!
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