IN today’s Lessons from the Garden, we’ll reflect on how true freedom is built. We’ll draw from None but the Hungry Heart’s devotional reading 2-4, Freedom’s Foundation —where the early confidence of a new believer meets the real-world battle of self and the world. As the old Pogo cartoon once put it: “We have met the enemy and he is us”.
So, with that brief introduction, here’s another reading from None But the Hungry Heart, titled: Freedom’s Foundation.
In the inexorable riches of Christ,
Joe
Neh. 8:10; Isa 30:15; Job 2:10; Jas. 1:2; Prov. 21:30
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2-4. Freedom’s Foundation
“I have been crucified with Christ, and I myself no longer live” (Gal. 2:20, Wms.).
Upon conversion, the new believer feels that every opposition to a joyous, fruitful Christian life has been overcome once for all. Later, when the world and self begin to insinuate themselves once again, he thinks that determination and self-effort will keep him free. Finally, after a seemingly endless struggle, the defeated believer is brought back to the Cross. Here is the source of liberation from the power of self and the world. “Sinners are not saved until they trust the Savior, and saints are not delivered until they trust the Deliverer. God has made both possible through the Cross of His Son.” -L.S.C.
“The believer can never overcome the ‘old man’ even by the power of the ‘new’ apart from the work of the Cross, and therefore the death of Christ is indispensable, and unless the Cross is made the basis upon which he overcomes the ‘old nature,’ he only drops into another form of morality; in other words, he is seeking by self-effort to overcome sin and self, and the struggle is a hopeless one.” -C.U.
“Just as the Lord Jesus came into this world where this old humanity was and came into it not to ally Himself with it but to take it into death by the Cross, even so He now by the Holy Spirit, in regeneration, comes into us where there is this old fallen life and not to ally Himself with it, but to hold it in the place of death by the same means-His Cross.” -N.D.
“But may it never be mine to boast of anything but the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world!” (Gal. 6:14, Wms.).
