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What to expect in the Christian life? Expect to sufffer. Not to sufffer will be the exception and not the rule. The sun shining through before the return of the storm, of course. Problems are usually generated by people ourselves or others. Then there is the weakness and fraility of our bodies. Sin is unbelievalbe! It hurts and destroys. It is the closest thing to perpetual motion! One bad turn seems to call for another and so a true chain reaction is set in motion. Visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children. Then there is the multiplication factor. Driven by selfishness. Fe on by selishness. Inspiried by selfishness. The Gospel of Jesus is just the opposite..." and taking a towel He girded Himself..." " I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you."
We are selfish and also suprisingly enough we suffer from selfishness. IT has us angry, frustrated and depressed. Selfishness is the true cancer that we all have. Only in the Spirit of Christ can reverse-turn back- this tendancy. It is safe to say that while we are in this world we will be victims of selfishness. After all " He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrow and aquainted with grief." The only thing is that He was innocent. We are guilty!
I had never realized the meaning of "against thee only have I sinned." (David) or "how can I do this sin against God?" (Joseph) There is a systematic attempt to justify sin these days. Sin is excused as being caused by our parents or someone else in our lives. In fact, it is more and more being called 'dysfunction'. We speak about rape and the like even saying a person deserved it by the way that they acted or the way they dressed. We are all sinners. Sinning against each other. From one point of view we are all deserve to be sinned against by others because in principle we are guilty of sinning against everybody else. Therefore sin only becomes sin in the truest sense of the word in relationship, not to fellow sinners, but to a Holy God. Were there not a holy God then sinners would simply be doing what comes natural. One bad turn calling for another. Therefore sin is sin not because of our relationship to each other (he that is without sin let him cast the first stone) but because of our relationship to God who is our Holy Creator and to who every person is at once accountable and condemned. In order to isolate sin and understand its meaning we must have a clear understanding against whom sin is committed and that is against a Holy God.
Why should man have to die for only one sin? For the simple reason that sin by its very nature repeats. For God to have simply forgiven the first sin would be to have seen it return again and again. Even it as it has for the unrepentant, each time more aggressive and more hideous until at last it attacks god Himself, which it did.
Therefore God has condemned the sinner to die. For there is no other way to deal with sin which by its very nature is at war with God. God's holiness must and will destroy sin.
But God is merciful. His death on the cross in Jesus Christ condemns sin in the flesh and in a wonderful and mysterious way puts out the fire of sin in the life of those who believe. His death is also an eternal testimony as to the true nature of sin.
I do believe that God's death on the cross is a great mystery. Having borne in his own body our guilt and thus by His death having reconciled those who were far off is greater than the mystery of DNA. In fact it is a greater mystery than the mystery of life itself. For it is the mystery of the very person of God who alone is worthy of worship and who be praised for ever and ever.
Who are we to be able to tackle the enormous problems that surround us?
Unless the Lord be with us we are all without hope in this evil world. How shall we pray? If God is to be glorified then man mut be abased. Yet God must manifest His power not just in the affairs of nations but in our very lives. I talked to a woman who feels that she has a demon. There apparently was a violent prayer service for her. Is it the will of God that we exorcise the demons with a "ritual"? Does God require a ceremony to set us free from oppression? Who am I to say but I think not. These are the superstitious inventions of men that would seem to glorify the process rather than God! What does the Lord require of Us? O God, hear us. Don't fault us on a technicality. Don't say that we are insincere. We are only your children. Hear our childish prayers, Father!
We must maintain a focus that as we see "sins" in other peoples lives we will react by searching our own hearts. In other words, let the deepening darkness of the earth bring forth from us a deepening repentance. We must resist the tendency to condemn sinners. This takes away our compassion and thus our ability to really pray for them. Our prayers for them are sometimes prayers that God will remove the inconvenience from our lives that they are causing us. Sometimes I think we derive a kind of satisfaction in the hardship that others go through. A kind of "I told you so" attitude that justifies our criticism of them. Yet having said this what shall be our attitude? I believe the key ingredient is compassion that comes from God to us through His Spirit and as an answer to our prayer.
I was reading of the life of Jesus as a little Boy. He was the only perfectly sinless person who ever lived. He is our substitute by His life, yet He is also an example. We can-if you please-measure the work of the Holy Spirit in our own lives against His standard, by that I mean, as the Spirit renews us we are then teachable. Jesus, though perfect, grew and learned righteousness. So even though the Holy spirit gives us a "new heart" this new heart must learn, growing in grace. Nature is our reference point in this respect. All of nature's growth is dependant on nurture. 1. Nature is about growth. 2.In order to grow-though the growth is from within- it is governed by inner laws, yet in order to grow it must be nurtured from outside itself. And so our spirituality is just as much subject to the principles of growth as is any other component of our being. Jesus is an example to us as how the "finished product" will "behave". His example as we contemplate it, facilitates our spiritual growth in that if we will use His pattern (template) then the conditions will be right for God through the Holy Spirit will work in us both to will and to do His good pleasure.
What is it that causes us to give our hearts to Jesus? Why is it that some do and others don't? To be persuaded against ones will is to be of the same opinion still. It is obvious that we have an independent streak. There is an affinity for evil, a natural antagonism toward the things of God. I guess these are mysteries. Life itself as we look at it closer and closer becomes more and more complex and complicated.
Does this mean that to some extent it is helpful at times to back off and see the obvious. The wider picture. Knowledge is a blessing only if it doesn't seek it's own ends or become a substitute for practice. For in the spiritual life actions speak louder than words. God's attitude toward us in the judgment is a little bit like the people from Missouri the 'show me' state. He that says the loves God and hates his brother is a liar-show me. If you love Me, keep My commandments-show me. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is to visit the widows-show me!
Who is controlling our lives? One of the Fruit of the Spirit is self control. I thought the Spirit was to control us. No. He is to change us. He gives us back the power of choice. He returns to us the dominion. Then of course He is a wonderful counselor. He is the voice behind us saying "This is the way, walk in it." His word becomes for us a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.
Serving Him who made us is the purpose of our existence. Not to serve God, then is to not have a reason for existence! Is all of this rightness by works? Hardly. It is not us working in ourselves, but Him working in us both to will and to do His good pleasure. Am I doing this to be saved? My salvation is His work. For my part I wouldnít want to live forever if my life was no pleasing to Him and to His glory!
I have been reading the messages to the Seven Churches. It is important to have both a macro-view and a micro-view of the Christian life. The macro-view teaches us that we are not alone but are part of a great whole. The macro-view teaches us that the gospel, to be meaningful to us must be applied to the minutest aspects of our own personal lives. We must have spiritual eyes that like our physical eyes have a capacity to see the wide picture and also the close-up view.
Somehow we must pray that God will increase the pressure on us by the Holy Spirit. From a distance, in this country at least, there seems to be a spreading love of the world which unless the Lord raises up to defend Himself could cripple and in the next generation leave nothing but ruins of the church as we now know it. How can these cycles be stopped!
We must raise up among the Remnant a standard. We must hold the beachhead and pray the Lord of the armies will send in reinforcements that we be not over-come by the flesh and the devil.
I mentioned my need for appreciation of others- patience and self control. Funny how I can see the need when I am alone at 6:00 am in the morning, but during the day when confronted with the problem I miss the opportunity. To all my "good intentions" I must now add "vigilance", that is I must recognize the "occasion" as being precisely the one that is drawing down on me and which is the moment to recognize my need and pray for "grace to stand"....... "best laid plans of mice and me!"
If the goodman of the house had known what hour the thief was coming, he would have watched. Thursday morning I will have a meeting with F.W. and B.B. . This will be the time to pray for the grace of Jesus. It is not that we are coming together for evil but for good. The joy of the Christian life is to be a representative of Jesus that in our meeting with others, the words of our mouth and the meditation of our hearts will be acceptable in His sight. It is not the will of God that our spirits be like a bull in a china shop. The wisdom that is from above is both pure then peaceable......
Sometimes all my theory falls apart in practice! It seems to have to do with "initiative". When I am taking the initiative things go pretty well, but when others are asking me to do something, taking me by surprise or I am not controlling the situation, I often find myself both selfish and rebellious! This is incredible and makes me sick!
I will take an initiative in prayer, but have not learned to use it consistently as a defense in the situations just mentioned. Oh well, isn't this par for the course? The purpose of the Christian life in the Spirit is to smoke out this kind of behavior! I sure hope other people are not like me. I rather suspect that this has something to do with a person's temperament and personality. I don't say this as an excuse, only to say where we are coming from. I believe that the Holy Spirit is given for the perfecting of God's people and that these "reflexes" can be brought into subjection and virtually become non-operative. Yet how wonderful it would be to be through with it all! I think we all possess a spirit that constitutes the sin which does so easily beset us and that this spirit will not "go out" without much prayer and fasting.
It is interesting to see that God is gracious. Those who He loves He chastens. We are locked in a conflict with evil and the conflict is on the inside as well as the outside. This week-end I had great struggles with myself. We went to Miami for a Community Service Rally at the Spanish Hialeah Church. I'm thankful that it was a success. This week-end was a struggle for me spiritually.
There is a part of me that doesn't want to give up. I must be more diligent. We are tempted when we are drawn aside of our own selfish desires and enticed. Someone was saying that when they got angry they couldn't pray. I can see that that is true. We must squeeze sin from both ends. Prayer drives out anger yet once anger begins it banishes prayer.
Even as I preach my own life will confirm that : 1. We lead ourselves into temptation-this is the worst kind because it is driven by our own selfish desires. 2. By this time we do not pray for help because simply we don't want to. Our will has now broken its pact with our conscience and we are already guilty-whether we act on our temptation or not.
That which is not of faith is sin and we are guilty by thinking in our heart. I don't know where all of this is going to lead. I do know that the status quo is untenable and that we can't serve two masters. I prefer to put the weight of this problem on the Lord. He can heal leprosy. I believe He can give us a new heart.
Today the Evangelistic Council finished. My brother returned home. Several things are important from today. Perhaps if it be admitted we tend to recognize in others what are in fact our own weaknesses.
( It takes one to know one!) If this is true then as we react to what we consider to be offensive in the actions of others, we would do well to rather focus on ourselves. Perhaps even other people bother us when we see, as in a mirror,ourselves in them
We look at them hoping to see how good we look (comparing ourselves among ourselves) then as we see ourselves in them we don't like what we see and instead of applying the matter to our own lives we take our our frustration with ourselves on them. Thus we become critical and self justifying. There is a saying in Spanish, "El pastelero a sus pastels" which means basically to mind your own business, therefore compassion, mercy, forgiveness and patience and the like are qualities that function only when "self" is not doing its self defense or self offense thing.
To know that we are forgiven and know that we are accepted by God: when we ourselves are aware of God's mercy compassion, patience and forgiveness to us then and only then will we take our eyes off of others and quite comparing ourselves among ourselves. Then and only then will we break free of criticism and begin to exercise the Divine qualities toward others in our own lives.
Surely there is something awful. Something terrible and frightening that the rebellion of sin against God has brought upon the scene. A fearful expectation of judgment. O the mercy of God. Satan himself was a beneficiary at one time of the mercy of God- but now he is condemned. The whole matter of salvation and all that is signified by Jesus and the cross can have no meaning or I should say takes on infinite significance only when one begins to conceive of the holiness of God. Our frivolous blasphemy (irreverence) would be instantly retributed as in the case of Uzziah were it not for the death of Jesus the Son of God who in His own Person has absorbed the result of sinís encounter with the holiness of the Deity. To even begin to contemplate these things every mouth is stopped and every tongue must confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father. O wonder of wonders! O mystery of mysteries! The more we are able to comprehend this the greater becomes our knowledge of the character of God and as a result the thrill of our very existence is increasingly enhanced. We are seeing, yea and will behold forever the things that angels have longed to comprehend.
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