I’LL never forget observing a Jr. High teacher at Covenant Christian Academy addressing the students, introducing the month’s Character Trait definition for “Endurance.” As he was explaining each word in the definition, the difficulty and challenge each presented, he stopped and said, “You know children, in each one of us, living inside there resides a Me Monster that just eats away and destroys inside and out the good we would do.” He went on and explained the evil nature of self and so on. As I listened, I thought to myself, what a simple but profound truth that communicates the deep theological battle of putting off the old man and putting on the new man after Christ (Eph. 4:20-24), and the battle of Romans 7.
THE next day in chapel I took that idea of the “Me Monster” and explained to the students that we need a “Self Slayer” to take God’s side against ourselves and our sinful ways. When I asked who would be that “self slayer” they got it, quick to answer – “Jesus!” Pick a scripture to fit the illustration. How about Gal. 2:20:
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
THE banner that Paul raised above his life is the banner that defeats the Me Monster, “Not I, but Christ!”
WITH that, let us conclude our reading in Chapter 48, “The Self-Life and Reckoning.”
In the inexorable riches of Christ,
Joe
Neh. 8:10, Isa 30:15, Jas 1:2; Prov. 21:30
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Chapter 48 — The Self-Life and Reckoning- Part 3
Our hatred of self is actually developed and strengthened during our miserable years of slavery to it. We never realize the necessity and value of Romans Seven failure while we are in its throes. It is normal and healthy to begin the Christian life victoriously, but in those infant days we know little or nothing about self, and little enough of the Lord Jesus. To rectify this deficiency, the Holy Spirit reveals the carnality of self—that we may ultimately grow into the maturity of Christ.
Through this practical revelation of the sinfulness of self we gain the knowledge of the holiness of Christ, and our need for counting upon Him as our life. Until we thoroughly hate and distrust self, we are not fully able to love and trust the Lord Jesus. Conversely, the more we grow to love Him, the more clearly do we see self for what it is. All through our earthly life, the Holy Spirit will be allowing us to get into situations where we will discover ever deeper manifestations of the old source. For this reason He develops within us the proper “mind”—the mind to suffer in the flesh, rather than yield to the flesh.
This is the heart-attitude we, as believers, need today. Many of us willingly reckon upon the crucifixion of the old man, only to draw back from the cross when we feel the bite of the nails. It takes a real hatred of the old life, coupled with a deep hunger for the new, to be able to glory in the cross that crucifies.
But when we stand firm in the Lord Jesus, armed with a mind to suffer rather than sin, then it is we are yielded and willing to be “alway delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh” (2 Cor. 4:11). We realize that the practical crucifixion of the cross is freeing us from the life hated by both God and us, and all that matters is that the life of the Lord Jesus may be seen in and through us. “So then death worketh in us, but life in you” (2 Cor. 4:12). “Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator” (1 Pet. 4:19).
