All for Love - Part VI

Do you see your mate, your job, your sin, failures, your circumstances? What do you see at the end of the chain that binds you? Instead, would you be willing to see Jesus Christ as the author of it, which will allow you to rest, knowing that the outcome will be for your ultimate benefit? Can you put your trust and faith into what God is doing?

We must all take this course on faith, for without it we cannot please God. The exact nature of each believers course will differ, being taylor made by a loving Father, but the results will always be the same. “For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison.” 2 Corinthians 4:17

The greatness of your faith is shown in portion to how long you can wait for the fulfillment of the promise. Again, greatness of faith is not proven in what is received, but in how long a person can wait without wavering to receive.

What would you think of a farmer who planted his wheat and then the following day you found him running up and down his field with the harvester? You would consider the farmer quite mad, of course, because he had not learned to wait for God to do his life sustaining transformation under the ground, out of sight of man. So it is with the promises of God. We must wait, and the greatness of faith is proven in the ability of the believer to rest until harvest, knowing all the while that the work that must be done is a supernatural one that God alone can accomplish.

It is easier to lay down one's physical life then it is to lay down the self life, but great faith is shown in the small, insignificant things of life.

The self centered man is blinded both to his condition and to the destruction that he causes, not only in his own life, but also in its wake. He will begin to experience turmoil in the personality, disturbed emotions, and sickness, followed by discord and division in his relationships with others.

I define sanity as having one’s mind, will, and emotions under the control of the Holy Spirit. Technically, sanity is being in touch with reality, and what can be more real than being in touch with God?

Even the believer who is born again and has Christ’s Spirit within the renewed inner person can erect a wall of unbelief and disallows Christ's rule over the soul; at that moment the believer, too, is quite insane.

If we have not learned to judge the source of our thoughts, it will go without saying that we are not judging our emotions, which are more deceiving and useful to the enemy. One problem is that emotions feel the same whether their source is truth or falsehood.

There are only two types of people who have anything to do with sheep: Butchers and Shepherds! The butchers voice, though it may sound like one’s own, will always be hurtful, harsh, condemning, critical, depressing, confusing, and above all else, driving. If not dealt with, it will persist until the one spoken to believes he is hearing his individual predisposition. On the other hand, the Shepherds voice is gentle, loving, and teaching; it leads, lifts one's spirit even when convicting, and brings life and freedom.

Just as we can judge thoughts and reject them, we also can determine which emotions are following the enemies lead. We were not created to live independently of Jesus; that brings insanity. It is only in humble dependence upon the Creator that mind and emotions enter into soundness and trustworthiness.

Because we are all the things that we described in our worst moment, it becomes evident that no one will accept or love us. This realization creates considerable discomfort, since acceptance and love are our deepest needs.

Therefore, the world has the benefit of knowing you in your success suit while you hop, but your family reaps the consequences of knowing the real you.

If we could destroy the identity of what we are at our worst and replace it with a new one, then daily events would not have power over us; we would have no need to become angry and rebellious, coping with our varied idols.

Imagine that when I arrive home one night, the neighbor kids playing in the yard with my children have been perfect angels. They have not thrown rocks, fought, or used bad language. Yet suppose my children did all of these things. At suppertime, who will be invited in to eat? The neighbor children or my children? Mine, of course! But the neighbor children acted better, why are they not invited in? Because they have the wrong last name and are not my children. One day there will be a great feast in heaven, and those who attend will not do so on the basis of their work, but on the basis of their birth. They must have the appropriate last name, “children of the most high God.“ Our co-crucifixion, burial, and new life in Christ (Christ’s life) afford us that privilege. We must say it again: all that is true about Christ’s life is true of the “new you.“ Do you see the importance of this? Each inner life (Adam-life) has taken it’s own peculiar form because of the events, temptations, and the sins of the past. One has become a slander, one a homosexual, another an alcoholic, another a murderer, another a bitter loner, and the list goes on. But each one has the opportunity of exchanging what he has become for what Christ has always been.

Jesus did not come, however, so we could remain the same and mearly be sinners who don’t see him. He took away the life in us that desires sin and replaced it with a heavenly one-his very life. We possess a new identity; now we are saints not sinners. Satan‘s definition of a hypocrite and God’s are totally different. Satan tells us that when we try to act holy we are hypocrites, because we are really wicked, vile sinners. On the other hand, God tells us we are hypocrites when we sin, because we are really holy saints!

Christian growth is simply accepting what we have always been from the first day we accepted Christ. We are not called to change into something, but rather to expand what we already are. We are what we are by birth, and either we are growing in bondage to Adam's life or growing in the freedom of Christ’s life.

If you were born again, your old Adam-life has been put to death and replaced with Christs very life. Does the New Testament give you commands to change or to reveal what you are? To reveal, of course. You are commanded to be holy because you are holy! Why? Christ’s life in you is holy. In all of Paul’s letters, he spends the first half telling believers who they are before he begins to tell them what to do. If we know who we are, then the doing is natural. Do you work to get God’s acceptance or work because you are accepted? Do you read your Bible and pray to get God near to you or because he is near to you? Are you working to be holy, or working because you are? As you can see, it is the difference between life and death in the Christian experience. Satan has gone to great lengths to blind Christians to the complete work of Christ. Many see him only as the sacrifice for sins; they don’t realize that in receiving his very life and the crucifixion of the old self we can be as free from sin as Christ is. This is true salvation— to be free from the old identity and unholy trinity.