There is a further stripping, right down to the germ of life, right on down until there is nothing left but Christ, who is our life.
THAT is how our author ended our last consideration. Quite frankly, to the modern mind bent towards a gospel of prosperity, that is not a welcomed thought. But again, one of my favorite expressions central to the Scripture and vital to the Christian life remains: “The way up is down.”
NEAR at hand is a much appreciated read by David Brooks titled The Road to Character. Here’s one of many wonderful quotes I gleaned from it:
“When most people think about the future, they dream up ways they might live happier lives. But notice this phenomenon. When people remember the crucial events that formed them, they don’t usually talk about happiness. It is usually the ordeals that seem most significant. Most people shoot for happiness, but feel formed through suffering.”
I CLOSE my notes and email signature with two precious verses: Neh. 8:10, Isa 30:15. However, I’ve lately added another, James 1:2: “count it all joy when you fall into various trials.” How many of us would make that a life verse, and yet without adversity -the trials of our faith- there will be no true growth in Christ. Which begs the question, just how serious are we at being a true disciple of Christ? After all, God did create mosquitos too.
I HAVE a favorite radio talk show host who daily waxes philosophical. I’ve heard him ask, why did God create mosquitos, seeing no earthly reason for them? But again, there are lessons from the garden – albeit a much wider garden. I recently learned that this pesky little insect does indeed have a least one benefit, protecting wilderness grasses from being over browsed by deer in the Rocky Mountains, especially Elk. It seems in the seasonal cycle the Elk are driven down into the low lands in the bitter winter. As the warm temperatures return in the spring they would remain there in warmth and comfort, and would over browse the habitat and cause the un-browsed highlands to become over grown resulting in ecological damage to both, were it not for the annoying mosquitos that also returns in the spring. It appears that the mosquitos motivate the Elk to return back up to the high country to escape its stinging bite, thus a necessity of nature to the balance of things. Even an irritating insect has significant purpose in God’s creation. (Psa. 19:1)
IN line with James 1:2, Job asks, “Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” (Job 2:10) Indeed, shall we gladly accept good from God and not purposeful adversity also – especially as it is meant for our benefit in Christ? We must, if we truly understand the cross; knowing that all things [do] work together for good (Rom 8:28), especially in dealing with sin and self, the way up [to Christ] is down.
SO, with this rather lengthy opening, let’s close this chapter in Principles of Spiritual Growth, The Process of Discipleship.
With regards in Christ,
Joe
Neh. 8:10, Isa 30:15, Jas 1:2
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Chapter 14—Process of Discipleship – Part 3, conclusion
There is a further stripping, right down to the germ of life, right on down until there is nothing left but Christ, who is our life. Down, down into death. Patience, grain of wheat: “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him” (Job 13:15).
‘Except it fall into the ground and die’ …
Can ‘much fruit’ come alone at such a cost?
Must the seed corn be buried in the earth,
All summer joy and glory seemingly lost?
He buries still His seed corns here and there,
And calls to deeper fellowship with Him
Those who will dare to share the bitter cup,
And yet while sharing, sing the triumph hymn.
‘Except it fall into the ground and die’ …?
But what a harvest in the days to come;
When fields stand thick with golden sheaves of corn
And you are sharing in the Harvest Home.
To you who ‘lose your life,’ and let it ‘die,’
Yet in the losing ‘find’ your life anew,
Christ evermore unveils His lovely face,
And thus His mirrored glory rests on you.
—Selected.
When the believer takes up his cross for discipleship, the process of death begins to set in. The disciple finds himself a seed sown by the Son, planted in a home, office, hospital, church, parsonage or mission station. Whatever or wherever it is, there will be the death from which resurrection life follows. “For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So then death worketh in us, but life in you” (II Cor. 4:11, 12). We need to enter deeply into the truth that Christ the beloved Son of the Father could not enter to the glory of heaven until He had first given Himself over to death. And this great truth, as it opens to us, will help us to understand how in our life, and in our fellowship with Christ, it is impossible for us to share His life until we have first in very deed surrendered ourselves every day to die to sin and self and the law and the world, and so to abide in the unbroken fellowship of discipleship with our crucified and risen Lord.
All the truths we have learned about the cross, of our death with Christ, of our death to sin with Him and of our conformity to death like the kernel of wheat falling into the ground to die, are preparatory to the overcoming life. They are the foundation of and fundamental to it.
