WE are concluding our look at Chapter 41 – “Three Steps in Reckoning,” in this section of The Realization of Spiritual Growth. To review:
The first step is to Know and Reckon –
We are not to rely upon experiences for growth and maturity no matter how wonderful and stimulating they seem to be. …[as] we learn more of the truth upon which we are reckoning, our knowledge becomes a set heart-attitude.
THE second step is to Abide and Rest –
Not only is the written Word to be counted upon, but the Living Word is to be rested upon.
THE third step is to Depend and Walk –
Our reckoning becomes effective as we count upon the Word, abide in the Lord, and walk in the Spirit.
IN summary: We know and count upon identification for our liberation; we abide and rest in Him for our growth and peace; and we seek to depend upon and walk in the Spirit for our empowering and fruitfulness.
IT is here that I might bring in a fourth step, one that Miles will address. But here I think another verse that could be effectively added to the foregoing (Gal. 5:16; Rom. 8:2) is one that deals with the problem of self and a necessary fourth step:
But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness. Eph. 4:20-24
OF course, there is a three-step process going on here as well. This putting off of the old man and putting on of Christ by the Spirit is the effective means of dealing with vaunted self in our path to conformity to Christ (Rom. 8:29; I Pet. 4:11). This is what our author is about to illustrate for us as he closes this chapter.
ONE final thought before we proceed to our consideration below. When we speak of these steps, they are precisely that – steps, plural and repetitive, repeated over and over in a “walking motion” forward. As Paul said, he kept “pressing forward” towards the upward call of Christ (Phil. 3:12ff), one step at a time, one step at a time, confident that He who began a good work in him, would complete it. Phil. 1:6
In the inexorable riches of Christ,
Joe
Neh. 8:10, Isa 30:15, Jas 1:2; Prov. 21:30
*********
Chapter 41—Three Steps in Reckoning – Part 3, conclusion
The Father’s purpose in justifying us in Christ and identifying us with Him is that we might be “conformed to the image of his Son”—“that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ” (Rom. 8:29; I Pet. 4:11).
The following example from the experience of Jacob illustrates God’s method of centering our hearts in Himself. In this instance, He accomplished the spiritual by means of the physical.
The wily, self-centered Jacob had taken the correct steps, and he was “in the land.” But he still had to be turned from Jacob, to God. He needed to be rendered helpless in himself, to become wholly dependent upon God. The long night of the Father’s dealings (“He touched the hollow of his thigh and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint”) was coupled with Jacob’s trusting and tenacious wrestling’s with God (“I will not let Thee go, except Thou bless me”). Through the merciful chastening of God, Jacob finally came to see his need. “And He blessed him there … and he halted upon his thigh.” God blessed Jacob by crippling him in himself, thereby enabling him to limp the remainder of his life in blessed dependence upon God; he was God-centered. He was brought all the way from Jacob, the supplanter, to Israel, a prince with God. “Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed” (Gen. 32:24–29).
It is through this same principle of strength out of weakness that we are developed in the “not I, but Christ” life. “For my strength is made perfect in [your] weakness” (2 Cor. 12:7, 9).
