All for Love - Part IX

When Paul describes the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5 he is not describing what he would have the Galatians imitate, which would simply produce artificial fruit with no substance or value. Rather, Paul is describing what a believer manifests when the door to Christ’s life is open. If you are naturally manifesting love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and so on, you are enjoying life in the Spirit. However, if these are not present, you can be sure that the door has been closed. If you would experience abundant life, it must be embraced moment by moment!

Once a person has taken lessons for flying an airplane, he will always look at the gauges in which his life depends. They warn him if he’s about to crash and keep him safe. Consider the baggage and residue of the mind as your gauges, and when they warn you that the door is closed, open it immediately so as not to miss one moment of Jesus’ precious life in you.

Victory comes only through death with Christ 2000 years ago.

It is the foolishness of God that will be our power and salvation. We must be careful, then, not to strip this message of its foolishness, and in so doing deprive it of power. Ask the Holy Spirit to open the eyes of your heart that he would make the foolishness of the cross not understandable teaching, but revelation, for with revelation comes faith and power to experience what is taught.

Bondage to sin came by birth; deliverance from sin comes by death. Finally I said, “Lord, if I live in defeat all my life and never see freedom from inferiority and failure, I will still believe that my old self has been crucified. I have received Christ’s life, and all that is true of him is now true of me!“ Not long after that, experience followed faith.

The history of Christ becomes and then is our experience and our spiritual heritage.

“God has put me in Christ, and therefore all that is true of him is true of me. I will abide in him.” Nee

Remember that Christian growth is merely accepting what you have always had from the first day you gave your life to Christ. Your death in him has already taken place, so how long will you let this rotting old self remain in your house? He is, you know, beginning to smell, and no matter how you dress him up, you can no longer hide the obvious and fool your loved ones-he is dead!

Before we can experience the fullness of Jesus' life, we must participate in the fullness of his death. We must be firmly rooted in the death of Christ before we will begin to experience his life. Why, when by faith we have appropriated our death with Christ in co-crucifixion, are there still times when we find ourselves living in defeat once again? If this is the case we may also be tempted to think, “this teaching doesn’t work.” But that is not impossible, simply because it is not something that we do, but rather something that God has done. It must work; it does work. It is the Holy Spirit who said, “reckon yourselves dead to sin.” God says it, not man. We are crucified with Christ whether or not we ever experience it, because God says we are! “That may be, but I still find my self once again living in defeat.” Again, it is because you saw the cross as a one time event, as a method, as a cure-all and not as the moment by moment participation that God intends it to be to keep us near to Him.

God intends my victorious powerful resurrection life in Christ be dependent upon a moment by moment participation that is rooted in the death of Christ.

Victorious Spirit filled living is moment by moment as I abide in Jesus’ life.

If I’m not experiencing marriage, where do I need to go? To my wife, of course; and why will she receive me? Is it because we married ourselves? Isn’t it rather on the basis of something we allowed another to do to us, which is to marry us? If I am not experiencing the freedom that the cross is to bring from the baggage and residue of the mind left over from the old self, where do I need to go? Back to the cross! Why can I go there? Because I crucified myself? No, but because God put me in Christ and I was crucified. The Christian is never to attempt self crucifixion; it cannot be done. We are only to act on what has already been done. Therefore, my crucifixion with Christ is an accomplished fact.  But if I close the door to his life, a moment by moment application of the cross to my old baggage and residue-which makes the experience of the victory the reality-will cease. Again, God has structured my life to be lived in moment by moment fellowship with himself.

The world, sin and Satan cry to the believer, “Save yourself. Don’t take the cross!“ To the degree we save our self life, to that degree we spread death to those around us. But to the measure that we take up the cross, deny ourselves, and allow the cross to be applied, to that extent we will spread life to those around us.

Yes, I saved myself, but there were three little children and a wonderful wife to which death spread, because I selfishly refused the cross. Be willing to suffer loss for the sake of your Lord and loved ones. The work of God through the Holy Spirit may be unseen to all but me, and God will produce the fruit that glorifies him and blesses others. Life will spread to three children and a wonderful wife through the Spirit.

Finally, after much struggle, I submitted to my Lord and decided to make the journey… Nothing spectacular happened to her, but I was not the same. The only way that I can describe it is it was like a branch breaking deep within me. I was losing myself life! The cross had applied a deathblow, and I’ve never felt more alive in my life. The lesson was not orchestrated for her, but for me! I had died that she might live. I am quite confident that I will never know until I get to heaven how much life was gained that day for my family in that little kitchen, but I can say that since that day, loving my wife has been easy. For now I do not love her because of what she does for me or to me, but because of who she is. She is free from having to perform for my love, for Jesus has earned it for her. How many Christian marriages suffer from shallow self protectionism? How many suffer for refusing to die and from keeping lists of every loss suffered at the hands of the other, watching for every word that might offend, for an encroachment on precious self, or from unmet expectations?

Unfortunately, there are those who traffic in being men-pleasers, who sometimes become the worldly and so called Christian counselors who feed false hopes for a price. Many are destroyed by them, for they only give the counsel that people want to hear.

It is a deception to believe that the self-life can be satisfied.

If you decide to retain 25 percent of your old baggage, idols, residue, and lying emotions, then that is 25 percent of the Lord that you will never know. And if you decide to keep five percent of the old self, then you will be missing five percent of the Lord that you could have had. The cross of Christ is the great subtracter, and all who come in contact with it will lose many things. But all loss will be filled with an abundant measure of his presence. To the degree that we allow the cross to apply death, to that same degree the Holy Spirit will apply life.