Chapter 57—Keep Looking Down! – Part 2

I OPENED the last comment saying that I use several mnemonic devices to help me remember things, one I made use of years ago about the current teaching under consideration.  As I said, it may seem a little silly, but it put the current lesson front-and-center in my daily thoughts and helped engrain this thought into my very being. There are many occasions when I still call upon this phrase to remind myself of my treasured place in Christ and all that flows out of it.  You see, I had a little 1968 Green VW Bug that I purchased new in the 1967, the year I started my career with Edison.  It was affectionally named “Mr. Green;” and one of my grandsons is still driving it today.

I DROVE Mr. Green everyday back and forth from work, putting nearly 450,000 miles on that car in the process.  I recall upon finishing the “Foundations for Spiritual Growth” book (Principle of Position) that I went and made a little orange “dymo label” (Remember those?  Do they still make them?) that said “Keep Looking Down.”  I then affixed the orange embossed label to the dashboard of Mr. Green next to the speedometer so that every time I got in my car for another journey that little three word message sent a reminder right to my mind’s eye.

FOR years that little Keep Looking Down orange label delivered a constant reminder of this valuable instruction.  Many a time an occasional passenger would look over at it quizzically wondering what it meant, often resulting in a conversation that was not always that easy to explain.  Seated there in my little VW (my condition), I was at the same time seated with, or in Christ  – my Position in Him – with Christ above (Col 3:3), calling to mind this vital foundational principle for spiritual growth and stability in Christ.

Okay, enough….  Here we are examining in this chapter tilted Keep Looking Down, with various subheadings, the many motivators to our Christian walk: the love motive, hate motive, faith motive, death motive, and life motive, ultimately showing the necessity that “In Him we are to abide above, and keep looking down.”   Last time we looked at the love motive aspect, now let’s move on to the next two described. These next two need to be taken together.

In the inexorable blessings of Christ,
Joe
Neh. 8:10, Isa 30:15, Jas 1:2
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Chapter 57—Keep Looking Down! – Part 2

Hate Motive 
Once the awakened one is brought to see self for the enemy that it is, he finds himself hating the old nature. “He that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal” (John 12:25). Now he appreciates the Spirit’s application of the Cross for what it brings—freedom from the dominion of the old life. Instead of avoidance of the Cross, he rejoices in its work of holding the Adamic nature in the place of death, inoperative. “God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Gal. 6:14).

When the Christian begins to take God’s side against himself, he is ready to contemplate the Lord Jesus from God’s standpoint, and not from that of self. Then the Holy Spirit is free to carry out the second part of His ministry in the hungry heart, that of conforming him to Christ’s image. “But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the of the Lord, are changed into the same glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:18).

Faith Motive
“Even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” It is the Spirit who enables the believer to reject continually the old life (“reckon also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin”), and shows him more and more fully his life in Christ (“reckon ye also yourselves to be … alive unto God in Christ Jesus” [Rom. 6:11, ASV]). He begins to abide where he has long ago been positioned, in Christ risen. “Set your minds and keep them set on what is above … where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God” (Col. 3:2, 1, Amp.).

The Holy Spirit’s ministry ever proceeds in balance. On the one hand, He transmits the crucifying death of the Cross to the self-life. The works, doings, practices of the flesh are more and more held inoperative; such things as “immorality, impurity, indecency, idolatry … enmity, strife, jealousy, anger [ill temper], selfishness, divisions [dissensions] … envy … and the like” (Gal. 5:19–21, Amp.).

On the other hand, in conjunction with the death process of the old man, the Spirit develops the life process (growth) of the new man. As we abide above in the Lord Jesus, looking upon His glory in the Word and fellowshiping with Him, the Holy Spirit increasingly produces His fruit: the life of the Lord Jesus in and through us. “The fruit of the (Holy) Spirit [the work which His presence within accomplishes]—is love, joy (gladness), peace, patience (an even temper, forbearance), kindness, goodness … self-control (self-restraint, continence)” (Gal. 5:22, 23, Amp.)

Death Motive  …. To be continued