There are many things that demand our attention today. Home, work, family, world events, the demands and distractions are endless. As believers in the risen Christ, we are striving to understand, we are compelled to seek after those things that are above. We see the faults, the shortcomings, the lack of spiritual substance found in religion, as well as within our own walks. If our hearts are heavy over the darkness in today's world, then we can only 'imagine' how our Heavenly Father feels. There is a progression in our walk with Christ, which I feel compelled to attempt to address.
It is not enough to have come out of the systems of man. It is not enough to have our eyes opened to the error and falsehoods being flaunted as truth. We are not responsible for what the rest of the world chooses to believe... we are not responsible for how anyone else lives their life. We are absolutely responsible for how we conduct ourselves.
If we are growing spiritually, then we are being required to let go of teachings, beliefs, and practices we have acquired in the past. Much of our walk with God is proving to be in fact contrary to what we have been taught, and far from our pre-conceived expectations. The god of this world has been laboring long and hard to perfect all of his forms of deception, perfecting his 'false light' and 'spiritual manifestations' to the point where they will utterly deceive all who are not guided by the Holy Spirit, and dwelling in the Cleft of the Rock. In all of its guises, humanistic Christianity is still a lie from the pit of hell. If we would walk with God, then we must learn to embrace the cross. There is nothing appealing to be found in the cross... it is a symbol of death, pain and suffering. Philippians 3:10 "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death." This is our calling.
It is time to divert our attention from all that is lacking in Christendom. We can no longer afford the luxury of scrutinizing and critiquing the 'ministries' of others. Our primary (one and only) focus must be knowing God personally, hearing His voice in our inner man, and walking in obedience to all that He shows us.
There are stages of growth... through which we all must walk: friend, companion, servant, Bride. We must forsake our own will, our own wants and desires, our own understanding, and be conformed to God in all things. Replacing "our will" with HIS WILL. We must learn to live a surrendered life.
Jesus said, John 15:14 "Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you." Our initial salvation experience is wonderful. Our tired, hungry soul is bathed in the love of our Lord. We have been purchased, by Christ with His blood on Calvary. We have yet to comprehend that it was Jesus who drew us, (not visa-versa,) we did not seek Him out.
Romans 8:29 "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren," and Ephesians 1:4 "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love."
We need to recognize that we have been 'bought with a price' and 'born again by the spirit,' but we have not yet attained unto holiness. It is by LOVE that the 'eyes of our heart' must be illumined to know the hope of our calling. The clearer our vision, the more entire our dependence upon the Holy Spirit for its fulfillment...and the more intense our thirst after God. We can no longer think in terms of what we have to 'give up.' We must become intimately acquainted with the "Person of the LORD," not a distant, vague impression. Only God can draw us out of ourselves and into HIM as our abiding place.
The way of religion is to circumvent God's process. By rejecting the application of the cross in the converts life, and replacing the guidance of the Spirit with the "worlds" concepts. The Holy Spirit of promise is a Person, given by the Father to show the things of Jesus to the purchased one. Only by revelation of God can we learn to rejoice in "Our LORD ... Himself," rather than in His gifts. Our hearts desire can grow beyond "Christian work," leaving it for the day when it will be tested by fire; to walking with HIM; seeing His glory; and being conformed to His image.
We will soon learn that the way of the flesh is to delay and argue with the Lord, thus grieving and hindering our progress, and keeping us from emerging from the region of strife into rest. We see in Psalm 63:8 "My soul followeth hard after Thee," reminding us of Jesus' words, "The Kingdom of heaven is gotten by force," Matthew 11:12 or "those who have a vehement desire seize upon it." It is this intense, vehement pressing on to know the LORD, and the consequent abandonment to the Holy Spirit for His work to be done at any cost, that allows the Spirit to do His work very rapidly.
Initially, it is all about "me." "My" Lord, "my" life, "my" needs, but the "me's" and "mine's" will have to be laid down if we would draw nigh unto God in His Glory. We must experience death before there can be resurrection. We must come to recognize that all of our efforts are but thorns "whose end is to be burned." If our eye wanders from Christ; if we are distracted to worry over the fields of harvest, and the vineyard's pruning, we will suddenly discover that we have lost His abiding presence. We must learn not to allow anything to distract us from following our LORD. The work is HIS, not ours. Without HIM flowing through us, we have nothing to give.
1Peter 3:18 "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit." He died, the just for the unjust, that He might "bring us to God." Through the rent veil of His flesh, HE ... the New and Living Way ... seeks to lead us to abide with Him in His Father. Our relationship with Christ must be "rooted and grounded in love" (Ephesians 3:17), to the end that we might be strong to "apprehend," and be "filled unto all the fullness of God" (Ephesians 3:18-19. We must cooperate with God in all HIS working; we must work out all that He works in, if we are to know HIM and the fullest power of His endless life.
Luke 14:26 "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." Early in our walk, we have glimpses of the cross, and have agreed to follow Him in the pathway of the cross; but have not yet fully apprehended our position as buried with Him by baptism into His death, and therefore separated from all the old life and its claims. We must know that the cross stands between us and the world ... that we have died in our Redeemer ... to be joined to Him in His resurrection life and, in His ascension, to abide within the veil. Too often, we fail to understand the two aspects of crucifixion with Christ, thereby failing to realize abundant life in practical experience.
The objective or finished work of Christ in His death and resurrection is the basis of the subjective work of the Holy Spirit in us. Objectively, the death of Christ was not only a propitiation for sin but was, in the purpose of God, the death of all for whom He died. In our position before God we who are believers are in Him, the Cleft Rock ... planted into His death. The Holy One became a curse for the accursed ones, that the accursed 'Adam-life' might be nailed to the cross with the substitute, the Lamb of God. Subjectively, it is the work of the Spirit of God to apply to us the power of Christ's death and resurrection; to bring us inwardly into correspondence with our "position" in Christ ... crucified, buried, risen, and ascended in the Redeemer. Both the "objective" and "subjective" aspects must be made real to the soul by the power of the Holy Spirit if "life out of death" is to be known in practical reality.
2Corinthians 5:17-18 "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation."
Ephesians 2:21-22 "In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit." We are challenged to become an entirely new creature in Christ: a habitation of God....that is beyond our carnal mind's ability to comprehend. Yet, it is the reality of the operation of the Holy Spirit working in a surrendered vessel. How awesome is our GOD!!!!
Romans 6:16 "Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?"
1Corinthians 7:23 "Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men."
Romans 8:11 "But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you." The reconciliation of all things back to God is what the entire world is about to witness. It must begin in those whom the Spirit of God has called to be HIS Body, to represent the Risen Christ in the midst of this dark and perverse generation. The work is entirely the LORD'S. May the eyes of our understanding be opened. May we know (understand) the hope of our calling.
2Corinthians 3:18 "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." If our eyes are not on Christ Jesus; if our spiritual ears are not sensitive to listen for the voice of the Spirit; we will miss out. But if we will surrender our will to HIS, if we will walk in obedience to all that He asks of us, we will be lights in the darkness. We have the opportunity before us of being active participants in the greatest revelation the world has ever witnessed; the restoration of all things back to God. This feeble attempt barely skims the surface of what we need to learn. In fact, I am confident that we will be continually learning for all eternity...because that is how big our GOD IS! May we joyfully press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
