Suffering reminds you that you are not the ultimate power in the universe, and there are forces beyond your control and comprehension … such knowledge keeps one humble. – SD
WHEN I was principal at Covenant Christian Academy, once in a while, sitting around the lunch tables, some of my students would ask any number of questions. Some recurring was my favorite movie mixed in with favorite music, food, place to vacation and … well you get the picture. Favorite movie is always a hard one to answer because there are so many that topped the list, … and no, they are not all Star Wars! Many have Robert Duvall in the cast; Tender Mercies immediately comes to mind. But thinking on our topic of spiritual growth and perseverance one movie came to mind as I pondered this section, and just one line out of that movie.
IT is interesting to me how an author of a story or movie narrative will have one central point wanting to convey, and the lengths he or she will go to in making that point. There may be many points and lessons to be learned along the way, but there is usually that one central impression the storyteller wants to leave behind. When it comes to a movie related to our topic, the one that invariably comes to mind is Rudy. It is a story of a young man who desperately desires to play college football for Notre Dame and lacks nothing when is come to enthusiasm and skill except for one thing, his size. He’s just too small. But his size doesn’t deter him. Although the journey is fraught with frustration and disappointment, and there are many poignant lessons in the process, there is a moment of “soul crisis” when Rudy tells his confidante/priest he is ready to quit. It is here, at the crux of the story that the priest tells Rudy that for all his aged years of study and experience there are only two things that he has come to fully understand and know with full assurance: “There is a God, and I’m not Him.” So simple, yet so true!
I HAVE been reading the Psalms over and over again in my daily devotions, and for all the poetic and beautiful words contained therein, the words of that priest pretty much says it all – God is on His throne, controls all things, even the minutiae of my seemly insignificant life; truly, Events belong to God, duties belong to me. -anon
RECALLING the book of Ecclesiastes, after all that Solomon had to say about his search for meaning and the vanities of life, it all came down to the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man’s all. Ecc. 12:13.
SO again, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. Our first priority is a call to faith in these matters of life and death as He works in us both to will and do His good pleasure (Phil. 2:12-13). As such we can and do have confidence that what he has began he will complete, even and especially in those most painful of moments (Phil. 1:6). So, looking again at where we last left off in our study:
How is this Spirit-wrought “not I, but Christ” life experienced? When one is reckoning within the scope of identification with Christ, the Holy Spirit inevitably transmits the finished work of both death and life to the Christian. The self-life is going to feel the cut of the Cross, while the growing life of the crucified and risen Lord Jesus within will be manifested in sacrifice for others.
With this, let us proceed to the next point our author wants to make, The Spirit of The Lamb.
In the inexorable riches of Christ,
Joe
Neh. 8:10, Isa 30:15, Jas 1:2; Prov. 21:30
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Chapter 63—The Spirit’s Goal – Part 4
The Spirit of the Lamb
There is no list of conditions to be met, no yielding called for in order to be Spirit-filled. The Lamb-like life that the Spirit ministers and manifests is by nature yielded. It fills and overflows the one who believes and grows. Putting one’s “all on the altar” is simply self-sacrifice, hence unacceptable. God’s altar is the Cross. It is here He crucified self. Reckoning upon that finished work brings forth the sacrificial life of the Lamb, obedient and pliant in the Father’s hands. “Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God” (Heb. 10:9). “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who … made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant … he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:5, 7, 8).
Christ-centered servants, filled with the Spirit, are not conscious of power, but of weakness. God’s Spirit-led servants are base and despised, “that no flesh should glory in His presence” (1 Cor. 1:29). Paul’s bodily presence was weak, and he testified, “My speech and my preaching were not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power; that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (I Cor. 2:4, 5).
The Spirit’s Goal
Paul, filled with the Spirit, was God’s front-line warrior, church planter, writer, and sufferer. John, likewise filled with the Spirit, was Jesus’ heart-companion; quiet, deep, devotional. Paul was taken to glory, but was not allowed to share what he saw there. John was also taken to glory, and wrote what he saw in “The Revelation of Jesus Christ” (Rev. 1:1). It matters not whether the Spirit makes of us a flaming Paul, or a faithful John; He is going to make us like the Lord Jesus Christ, “from glory to glory.” ….to be continued
