DURING an episode in our character training at school, I posed a simple question to the children saying that in the course of the day the first one to give me the right answer, or come the closet to the correct answer, would get a prize. There are a few who took up that challenge. The answer was fairly simple and can be expressed in one or two words, but it was interesting watching them struggle through finding that answer. What is interesting is how elaborate and long some of their solutions were, – coming close, but just a little off the mark.
I CAME home and posed the question to my wife, who answered it correctly in a fraction of a second. Now of course she knows me, and we talked about such things quite often. But the thing with observing the children is how complicated they wanted to make it, when it was quite simple. It is interesting how we want to make things complicated, when they don’t need to be. I’m reminded of this in thinking about today’s consideration. You see – the Christian life really is not that complicated. Difficult yes, complicated – not really. One scripture I frequently reference back to regarding this is Col. 2:6: As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him.
HOW did we receive Him? Answer – by faith. Now of course there is a lot to consider regarding that answer: where did the faith come from, on what or Whom is the faith based upon, etc., etc., etc. One critical element regarding this is our understanding that preceding faith there was the necessary work of the Holy Spirit convicting us of sin and unbelief, and showing us our need – desperate need- in moving us along onto and into Christ. But, as Col 2:6 reminds us, this process remains unchanged post-cross; even after we’ve come to that initial faith for salvation – it does not stop there, the just [continue] to live by faith (Hab. 4:4; Rom. 1:17; Gal. 3:11, Heb. 10:35-39).
IN Principles of Spiritual Growth we will always be dealing with sin and self in our pressing forward in Christ (Rom 8:29 and Phil 3:12-14). It is not that complicated. Difficult and uncomfortable yes, but the process is unchanged as our heavenly Father continues to bring us along into conformity to Christ (My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you, Gal 4:19).
SO, it is that our author goes on to show us today, how this process continues and is repeated in dealing with “Self” as we continue our consideration in this chapter in Principles of Spiritual Growth.
With highest regards in Christ,
Joe
Neh. 8:10; Isa. 30:15; Jas. 1:2
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Chapter 10—Self – Part 3
Many a young Christian, who has not been warned of this necessary voyage of discovery upon which the Holy Spirit will certainly embark him (Rom. 7), has been plunged into almost incurable despair at the sight of the sinfulness which is his by nature. He has in the first place rejoiced greatly in the forgiveness of his sins, and his acceptance by God; but sooner or later he begins to realize that all is not well, and that he has failed and fallen from the high standard which he set himself to reach in the first flush of his conversion.
He begins to know something of the experience which Paul so graphically describes: ‘What I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I’ (Rom. 7:15), and, in consequence, he feels that the bottom has fallen out of his Christian life; and then perhaps the Devil whispers to him that it is just no good his going on, because he will never be able to make the grade. Little does he know how healthy his condition is, and that this shattering discovery is but the prelude to a magnificent series of further discoveries of things which God has expressly designed for his eternal enrichment. All through life God has to show us our own utter sinfulness and need, before He is able to lead us on into realms of grace, in which we shall glimpse His glory.
Self-revelation precedes divine revelation—that is a principle for both spiritual birth and spiritual growth. The believer who is going through struggle and failure is the Christian who is being carefully and lovingly handled by his Lord in a very personal way. He is being taken through the experience (years in extent) of self-revelation and into death, the only basis on which to “know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death” (Phil. 3:10).
God works by paradox. Success comes via failure; life springs out of death and so on. The only element in the believer’s life that crumbles is that which has to go anyway—the new life can never be harmed or affected. This disintegration is something the believer cannot enter into nor engineer on his own—self will never cast out self. He-has to be led into it by the mercy of the Holy Spirit—into failure, abject and total. “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” (II Cor. 4:11). So often the means utilized by the Spirit is an unsaved mate, or even a saved one! Or poor health; yes, and good health too! A thousand and one things are used by Him—in fact, everything (Rom. 8:28, 29), to bring out the worst in us, ultimately enabling us to see that the Christian life has to be “not I, but Christ” (Gal. 2:20). People, circumstances, etc. are never the cause of failure. Self’s reaction to them is the cause and the one problem to be dealt with.
Many of us have probably known what it was to rejoice in the grace of God without having apprehended very much the true character of the flesh. It has often been noticed that where there is the greatest exuberance of joy in young converts, there is often a levity which fails to take into account that the flesh is unchanged. …to be continued
