- Feb 16, 2007
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I don't think I've ever actually started a thread on Christianforums, though I have posted many responses. This, then, will be a first for me. Why am I starting a thread? Well, I think what I will share may be of significant spiritual benefit to those who will read it. You see, I have observed within the church over the forty some years I've been a part of it a long, slow slide away from deeper spiritual truth. Sermons by and large these days are aimed at "seekers" rather than believers and the result is shallow, juvenile, spiritual truth - the kind of stuff a seeker might have some hope of comprehending, that won't ruffle their feathers and put them off their "seeking." God has been packaged and "made relevant" and slid in the back door of people's minds amidst the flash and bang of services trying to compete with the World.
I see a lot of what is prevalent in the spiritual understanding of people in the contemporary Christian church reflected here on this site and it deeply troubles me. So many of those I see posting on this site seem profoundly ignorant of the deeper truths of the Christian life that fifty years ago were commonly known among those claiming faith in Christ. I wish to do some small thing to resist this terrible declination away from the "strong meat" of God's Word among modern followers of Christ.
I'm going to post excerpts from a book entitled "The Green Letters" by Miles J. Stanford. My first exposure as a teen to the contents of this book left me bewildered but certain that what this man was sharing was incredibly important to understand. As I have repeatedly returned to the book over the years, I have seen in my own experience of God how true the things I will post from Stanford's book really are. May you be blessed as I have been by what you will read here.
Chapter 3 - Acceptance.
"There are two questions that every believer must settle as soon as possible. The one is, Does God fully accept me? and, if so, on what basis does He do so? This is crucial. What devastation often permeates the life of one, young or old, rich or poor, saved or unsaved, who is not sure of being accepted, even on the human level.
Yet so many believers, whether "strugglers" or "vegetators," move through life without this precious fact to rest and build on: "Having predestined us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he has made us accepted in the beloved." (Eph. 1:5, 6)
Every believer is accepted by the Father, in Christ. "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." (Rom. 5:1) The peace is God's toward us, through His beloved Son -- on this our peace is to be based. God is able to be at peace with us through our Lord Jesus Christ, "having made peace through the blood of his cross" (Col. 1:20). And we must never forget that His peace is founded solely on the work of the cross, totally apart from anything whatsoever in or from us, since "God commends His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8)
...A century ago J.B. Stoney wrote: "The blessed God never alters nor diverges from the acceptance in which He has received us because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Alas! we diverge from the state in which God can ever be toward us as recorded in Romans 5:1-11. Many suppose that because they are conscious of sins, that hence they must renew their acceptance with God.
The truth is that God has not altered. His eye rests on the work accomplished by Christ for the believer...When sins are introduced there is a fear that God has changed. He has not changed, but you have. You are not walking in the Spirit but in the flesh...God has affected the reconciliation: He always remains true to it. Alas! we diverge from it; and the tendency is to suppose that the blessed God has altered toward us..."
God's basis must be our basis for acceptance. There is none other. We are "accepted in the Beloved." Our Father is fully satisfied with His beloved Son on our behalf...Souls reason from what they are in themselves as to whether or not God can accept them. He cannot accept you thus; you are looking for righteousness in yourself as a ground of acceptance with Him. You cannot get peace while reasoning in that way....Thank God, He has accepted us in His Son, and upon this fact we must rest our faith...There being no cause in the creature why grace should be shown, the creature must be brought off from trying to give cause to God for His care. He has been accepted in Christ who is his standing! He is not on probation.
To believe, and to consent to be loved while unworthy is the great secret.
To refuse to make "resolutions" and "vows"; for that is to trust in the flesh.
To expect to be blessed, though realizing more and more lack of worth.
To hope to be better (hence acceptable) is to fail to see yourself in Christ only.
To be disappointed in yourself is to have believed in yourself (rather than in the power of Christ)."
Selah.
I see a lot of what is prevalent in the spiritual understanding of people in the contemporary Christian church reflected here on this site and it deeply troubles me. So many of those I see posting on this site seem profoundly ignorant of the deeper truths of the Christian life that fifty years ago were commonly known among those claiming faith in Christ. I wish to do some small thing to resist this terrible declination away from the "strong meat" of God's Word among modern followers of Christ.
I'm going to post excerpts from a book entitled "The Green Letters" by Miles J. Stanford. My first exposure as a teen to the contents of this book left me bewildered but certain that what this man was sharing was incredibly important to understand. As I have repeatedly returned to the book over the years, I have seen in my own experience of God how true the things I will post from Stanford's book really are. May you be blessed as I have been by what you will read here.
Chapter 3 - Acceptance.
"There are two questions that every believer must settle as soon as possible. The one is, Does God fully accept me? and, if so, on what basis does He do so? This is crucial. What devastation often permeates the life of one, young or old, rich or poor, saved or unsaved, who is not sure of being accepted, even on the human level.
Yet so many believers, whether "strugglers" or "vegetators," move through life without this precious fact to rest and build on: "Having predestined us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he has made us accepted in the beloved." (Eph. 1:5, 6)
Every believer is accepted by the Father, in Christ. "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." (Rom. 5:1) The peace is God's toward us, through His beloved Son -- on this our peace is to be based. God is able to be at peace with us through our Lord Jesus Christ, "having made peace through the blood of his cross" (Col. 1:20). And we must never forget that His peace is founded solely on the work of the cross, totally apart from anything whatsoever in or from us, since "God commends His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8)
...A century ago J.B. Stoney wrote: "The blessed God never alters nor diverges from the acceptance in which He has received us because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Alas! we diverge from the state in which God can ever be toward us as recorded in Romans 5:1-11. Many suppose that because they are conscious of sins, that hence they must renew their acceptance with God.
The truth is that God has not altered. His eye rests on the work accomplished by Christ for the believer...When sins are introduced there is a fear that God has changed. He has not changed, but you have. You are not walking in the Spirit but in the flesh...God has affected the reconciliation: He always remains true to it. Alas! we diverge from it; and the tendency is to suppose that the blessed God has altered toward us..."
God's basis must be our basis for acceptance. There is none other. We are "accepted in the Beloved." Our Father is fully satisfied with His beloved Son on our behalf...Souls reason from what they are in themselves as to whether or not God can accept them. He cannot accept you thus; you are looking for righteousness in yourself as a ground of acceptance with Him. You cannot get peace while reasoning in that way....Thank God, He has accepted us in His Son, and upon this fact we must rest our faith...There being no cause in the creature why grace should be shown, the creature must be brought off from trying to give cause to God for His care. He has been accepted in Christ who is his standing! He is not on probation.
To believe, and to consent to be loved while unworthy is the great secret.
To refuse to make "resolutions" and "vows"; for that is to trust in the flesh.
To expect to be blessed, though realizing more and more lack of worth.
To hope to be better (hence acceptable) is to fail to see yourself in Christ only.
To be disappointed in yourself is to have believed in yourself (rather than in the power of Christ)."
Selah.
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