Category Archives: Walking in the Way

Abdicating My Throne

23 Monday Aug 2021

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I have spent this last week probing deeper into thoughts I expressed in last week’s post specifically the difference in how I felt when I was keeping my Self as the focus of my thoughts compared to when I turned my focus to Jesus.  The difference can be expressed by contraction and expansion which got me thinking about the presence of black holes in a universe that is expanding.1  

Bear with me.

With my Self as the focus of my thoughts, I could feel my thoughts spinning tighter and tighter around this core of Self.  The more I reflected on what I had done during the week, what I had said, what had been said-or potentially said-about ME, the smaller my thoughts became.  I was quickly slipping into thoughts of poor me, people just don’t understand how difficult it is to live with pain and a brain injury, it isn’t fair for anyone to have such expectations of me, and then my mind wanted to dredge up every hurtful thing ever said or done to me so Self could brood over it.  I am amazed at how my Self focuses on being a victim.  I have had both good and bad things happen to me at every place I’ve found myself in over the years and yet Self focuses on the pain rather than the joys.  I do not know why that is and, perhaps, is a subject I will tackle at a later time.  While thinking about everything I’ve just written, I was reminded of black holes.

What is a black hole?  According to NASA’s website, “A black hole is a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light cannot get out.2” This is exactly how I felt.  The longer I had Self as my focal point, the more my thoughts were squeezed until there was no room for anything but Self.  More than that, I felt it only right that because I had suffered in the past and continued to suffer, such suffering should be realized and recognized by anyone that came into my orbit.  Black holes have what is called an Event Horizon.  It is a boundary that marks the limit of a black hole and where the escape velocity is equal to the speed of light. What this means is nothing that enters a black hole can get out or even be observed from outside the event horizon.3  Except, scientists have observed stars that have blundered too close to a black hole and the gravitational force rips the star to shreds.4 

Hurting people hurt people.  I have heard this quoted so many times in so many different places and who can deny the truth of it?  How many times has a fellow human being blundered into my orbit, had no idea that I slept badly and have a blinding headache or am smarting from a cruel word spoken to me, and been ripped to shreds?  How many times has it happened to me because my fellow human beings also have a Self at their core?  While conducting this study, I came across binary black holes5 and was fascinated.  Not only because they exist but because what happens when two black holes cross paths is an apt description of interactions between human beings.  I’d like to write more about the gravitational waves of binary black holes but will have to leave that for another time.  For the sake of this post, let me say that I have had to forgive and have had to ask for forgiveness.

What then?  Are we doomed to damage others and be damaged in our turn?  If left to ourselves, no doubt we would be.  We are not left to ourselves!  We see Jesus who, “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:6-8, RSV). 

I wanted to close last week’s post with Philippians 2:5 which in some versions is translated “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus”.  The RSV says, “Have this mind” while the Phillips says, “Let Christ Jesus be your example as to what your attitude should be.”  The New English Bible says, “Let your bearing towards one another arise out of your life in Christ Jesus” and the Amplified has, “Let this same attitude and purpose and [humble] mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus–Let Him be your example in humility–“.  When I went to the Interlinear Greek, I found that the passage is literally “This think ye among you which also[was] in Christ Jesus”.  I realized this passage was too massive to be used in closing and that I would have to do some study.

I looked up “mind” in the Strong’s Concordance and found there are 17 different Greek words all translated “mind” in various scriptures.  This is why it is so important to study, not just read or memorize the scripture.  Not all of these words mean the same thing yet our minds do not immediately grasp the differences because we read the same English word in every passage.  Even the Greek word in the passage I am looking at this week, phroneo (G5426) is translated by different words in the King James Version: think, regard, mind, and savour to list those used most often.  My point is, what we read in any of our English translations ought to be a jumping off point because there is so much more than first meets the eye.  Okay, enough on the importance of study…for now.

The word “mind” in Philippians 2:5, phroneo, means “to exercise the mind, to entertain of have a sentiment of opinion, to be mentally disposed more or less earnestly in a certain direction…regard, savour, think.”  This meaning is made clear by the rest of the passage.  I recommend reading the entire epistle of Philippians for complete context however, for the sake of space, I will quote Chapter 2 verses 3 & 4: “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind (G5012) let each esteem others better than himself.  Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.” And then verse 5: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus”.

These verses are the expectation of our behavior towards others.  If it is an expectation, it must be possible to live this way. How? Because of verses 6-8 which I’ve already quoted.  And then, because Jesus did empty Himself, humble Himself, and was obedient unto death, “Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (verses 9-11). 

Being a Self isn’t bad.  I am created in the image of God who says of Himself “I AM.”  So too am I capable of saying “I am.”  The problem is when that Self seeks to usurp the rule over and be the center of my life.  That place belongs to Jesus.  It is His by right of His having created me but he doesn’t come to me as The Creator God and force Self to give way.  He comes as Saviour.  He comes as Redeemer.  He comes as Love.  He opens my eyes to see He has born my afflictions, my sufferings, and all my sorrows (Isaiah 53:4) and they are no longer my burdens to carry. It is His goodness that leads me to metanoia (Romans 2:4).  I see Jesus in all His beauty and I choose to not only make Him the center but to turn over the rule of my life.

How could I do otherwise?  I have experienced the mess of Self-rule and been mired in the pain and death it creates.  I have tasted the fruit of the Spirit and the life contained therein.  I abdicate.  I choose life.  I choose His life knowing that, ‘of the increase of His government and peace, there will be no end” (Isaiah 9:7).

Even so, come Lord Jesus.

Unless noted otherwise, all scriptures are quoted from The New King James Version of The Holy Bible, Thomas Nelson Inc., Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References:

  1. What Might Be Speeding Up the Universe’s Expansion? | Quanta Magazine
  2. What Is a Black Hole? | NASA
  3. event horizon | Definition & Explanation | Britannica
  4. Black holes caught in the act of swallowing stars | Science | AAAS (sciencemag.org)
  5. NASA Visualization Probes Light-bending Dance of Binary Black Holes | NASA

Other References:

The Comparative Study Bible, The Zondervan Corporation, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1984

The Interlinear Greek-English New Testament, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Reprinted 1970

The New Testament in Four Versions, Christianity Today, Inc., Washington D.C., 1965

Strong, James LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of The Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990

Being of Two Minds

16 Monday Aug 2021

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I haven’t finished reading Hannah Whitall Smith’s The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life.  It’s not a book I can race through and be done.  There are sentences that arrest me and I have to think on them for a time before I am ready to continue on.  One such is a quote Hannah Whitall Smith included from another book.  She doesn’t give the name of the author nor the book she got it from but writes; “Years ago I came across this sentence in an old book: ‘Never indulge, at the close of an action, in any self-reflective acts of any kind, whether of self-congratulation or of self-despair.  Forget the things that are behind, the moment they are past, leaving them with God’.” 

She goes on to say; “This has been of unspeakable value to me.  When the temptation comes, as it mostly does to every worker after the performance of any service, to indulge in these reflections, either of one sort or the other, I turn from them at once and positively refuse to think about my work at all, leaving it with the Lord to overrule the mistakes, and to bless it as He chooses.”

This paragraph in particular struck me because I found I was indulging in reflections at the end of last week.  Hannah Whitall Smith says these reflections are of two sorts: “either the soul congratulates itself upon its success, and is lifted up; or it is distressed over its failure, and is utterly cast down.”  I tend toward the latter and such were my reflections.  I rehashed every word I’d said, pictured the faces of those I’d spoken to, and tried to decide how my words had been received, whether I’d said things I oughtn’t, and whether or not I’d been a worthy living epistle.  If such thoughts weren’t exhausting enough, I began to think about things other had said, sidelong glances I was sure I’d caught, became convinced I was being talked about behind my back, and was certain what was being said wasn’t positive.  Not that I’d heard anything myself, but I had a feeling…

Looking back, I am struck by how all this felt.  The more I dwelt on what were no doubt my own shortcomings and the little betrayals from so called friends, the smaller my world got.  I felt everything constricting around ME and my body reacted.  Muscles got taut, a band tightened around my head, and my mind was trapped on a hamster wheel of “what if they said this” and “you shouldn’t have said that” and ultimately, “why do you even bother at all?”

I thank God that there does come the “wait a minute” moment.  First, I had to take myself in hand regarding being talked about.  I did not know for certain that what I was thinking was even the truth.  My Mom tells a story of how she was once having similar thoughts and her mentor said to her that no one thought about her nearly as much as she thought about herself.  Harsh words, perhaps, but they stayed with Mom and I have found them of great use in my own dealings with other people.  Chances are I am not nearly as important to people as they are to themselves and the odds of them thinking about me enough to be talking about me are slim.  Even if my feeling was correct and I was being talked about, it isn’t any of my business.  Others do not decide my behavior: the leading of the Holy Spirit decides my behavior so, no matter what, I am to love others with the same love that is freely poured out into me, forgive as I am forgiven, and put everything in His hands. 

And so, this was not a pleasant evening for me but it was educational.  I was astonished at the difference in feeling when I am focused on myself as opposed to living in the flow of the Holy Spirit.  The first is, as I’ve shared, constrictive.  If I’d continued to wallow in it, my life would have become stagnant whereas life lived within the flow of the Spirit is expansive.  I noticed a change in my body the moment I turned my focus from myself and onto Jesus.  My posture improved, my chin lifted, and what was promising to be a raging headache disappeared.

Joyce Meyer has a book called The Battlefield of the Mind.  I haven’t read it but the title has always stuck with me.  I have been thinking of how a battle does take place in my mind.  Romans 8 is one of my favorite chapters in the New Testament.  I return to it over and over and always find something new there and ended up looking at last week’s experience in light of Romans 8.  I hardly know where to start quoting and where to finish because it all flows together so beautifully!  For the sake of space, I will quote verses 5-7: “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.  For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.  Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.”

Here is warfare indeed.  I have a carnal mind but I also have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16).  I choose which mind I am going to have at any given time.  Will I set my mind on things of the flesh or will I set my mind on things above, not on things on the earth? Because I have been raised with Christ Himself, I will seek those things which are above where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God.  I will remind myself that I have died and my life is now hid with Christ in God.  (Colossians 3:1-3).  I will not worry about what others are thinking about me or what they may or may not be saying about me.  No, I will cast all my cares upon Him knowing that He cares for me (1 Peter 5:7) and not forgetting that He cares for them as well and desires that they too come to know the love of Christ.

I will choose to live a life of trust because, as Hannah Whitall Smith says, “having committed ourselves in our work to the Lord, we shall be satisfied to leave it to Him, and shall not think about ourselves in the matter at all.”  Lord hasten it!

Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from:

The New King James Version of The Holy Bible, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

All other quotes are from The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life by Hannah Whitall Smith, New Spire Edition published 2012 by Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan, “Service”, Chapter 15, Pages 183-194.

Face Like Flint

09 Monday Aug 2021

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I read Andrew Murray’s 31 day devotional Abide In Christ throughout the month of July.  In it, Mr. Murray quotes from different books and, since Andrew Murry has long been a trusted teacher of mine; I figured I could trust his recommendations and acquired the books for myself.  One of their number is The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life by Hannah Whitall Smith.  What an excellent book!  It opens with a poem that put into words exactly how I’ve been feeling and each chapter has spoken to me in a specific way.  This week, I want to share a few things from Chapter 8 of this delightful book.  Chapter 8 is titled “Difficulties Concerning Guidance”.

The Gospel of John chapter 10 is devoted to Jesus being the Good Shepherd, calling His sheep by name, going before them, the sheep knowing His voice, and being guided by Him.  Verse 5 says, “Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him for they do not know the voice of strangers.”  This verse makes it clear there are multiple voices calling to the sheep.  All but one are the voices of strangers.  How do we sheep hear the One Voice, recognize it, and follow it above the din of all the others?  Fortunately, our religious systems present us with lists of Do’s and Don’ts and that makes it easy to discern the voices of strangers because they are the voices of the World and the voice of the Shepherd is found in these systems.  Right?  What if the voice you are hearing is saying something different than what you are hearing within your particular denomination?  Can you trust that voice and be guided by it?  Is it even possible the Voice of the Good Shepherd would say something different?

Hannah Whitall Smith opens Chapter 8 with, “You have now begun, dear reader, the life of faith.  You have given yourself to the Lord to be His wholly and altogether, and you are now entirely in His hands to be molded and fashioned according to His own divine purpose into a vessel unto His honor.  Your one most earnest desire it to follow Him whithersoever He may lead you, and to be very pliable in His hands; and you are trusting Him to ‘work in you to will and to do of his good pleasure.’ But you find a great difficulty here. You have not learned yet to know the voice of the Good Shepherd, and are therefore in great doubt and perplexity as to what really is His will concerning you.  Perhaps there are certain paths into which God seems to be calling you, of which your friends disapprove.  And these friends, it may be, are older than yourself in the Christian life, and seem to you also to be much farther advanced.  You can scarcely bear to differ from them or to distress them; and you feel also very diffident of yielding to any seeming impressions of duty of which they do not approve.”

This book was written in 1875 and what she wrote then is true today.  It’s been close to eighteen years now since The Holy Spirit opened my eyes to the Gospel, the heart of the Father, and the vast inheritance that is mine in Jesus Christ.  I was overjoyed when I first saw and went to share with my Christian friends who were not, to my surprise, overjoyed as well but rather concerned for me.  They had scriptures to back up their concern.  “Satan transforms himself as an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14), and “many will fall away from the faith” (1 Timothy 4:1).  I did not think I was falling away but rather daring to believe what was written in the New Testament but there was also the possibility my friends were correct and I was not truly hearing the Good Shepherd.  What to do?  How to be sure?

The Holy Spirit brought to mind the fact that it is “by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established” (2 Corinthians 13:1, Deuteronomy 19:15).  I asked Him to confirm his word by at least three witnesses and He did so.  Hannah Whitall Smith says there are four ways in which He reveals His will to us: through the Scriptures, through providential circumstances, through the conviction of our own higher judgment, and through the inward impression of the Holy Spirit on our minds.

She also warns, “For we must never forget that ‘impressions’ can come from other sources as well as from the Holy Spirit.  The strong personalities of those around us are the source of a great many of our impressions.  Impressions also arise often from our wrong physical conditions, which color things far more than we dream.  And finally, impressions come from those spiritual enemies which seem to lie in wait for every traveler who seeks to enter the higher regions of the spiritual life.”

If we can’t trust our own impressions, what then?  Hannah Whitall Smith says her “rule for distinguishing the voice of God would bring to it the test of this harmony” for “in all true guidance these four voices necessarily harmonize for God cannot say in one voice that which He contradicts in another.”

Great care must be taken in this learning to know the voice of the Good Shepherd.  “It is not enough to have a ‘leading’; we must find out the source of that leading before we give ourselves up to follow it.  It is not enough, either, for the leading to be very ‘remarkable’ or the coincidences to be very striking , to stamp it as being surely from God…It is essential, therefore, that our ‘leadings’ should always be tested by the teachings of Scripture…as well as by our own spiritually enlightened judgment.”  

I wholeheartedly agree.  If the voice I am hearing is that of the Holy Spirit within me, it will not ever contradict Scripture.  It is the Logos and the Rhema: they cannot possible contradict each other.  Now, they might contradict how scripture has been interpreted throughout the centuries.  I never forget it is the Holy Spirit who is my teacher and who guides me into all truth.  I find study to be of incredible importance but ultimately it is He who interprets scripture for me and always, always, His voice and Scripture are in harmony.  Taking scripture as a whole is also important.  I have seen the dangers myself and Hannah Whitall Smith warns against taking isolated texts to sanction things to which the principals of Scripture are totally opposed.  “I believe all fanaticism comes in this way,” she says.

As to our spiritually enlightened judgment or “common sense”, what of this?  Aren’t we told to take care not to lean on our own understanding?  Absolutely, and Hannah Whitall Smith admonishes us to “use the interior ‘eyes of our understanding’ in our interior walk with God”.  We can trust Him to take care of even this.  The prayer in Ephesians 1:17-23 is essential to us as Believers.  And, we can trust that He who has begun a good work in us will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6) and that the precious blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ will “cleanse our consciences from dead works to serve the living God” (Hebrews 9:14). 

Suppose then the Scriptures, the conviction of our higher judgment, and the inward impressions of the Holy Spirit on our minds are all in accord.  God has providentially arranged our circumstances so there is no hindrance to our following His voice and doing the work He has given us to do.  Suppose all our friends and perhaps even our families are still convinced the Voice is not the Good Shepherd at all?  Suppose our loved ones sadly shake their heads and solemnly wash their hands of us?  Suppose that as Hannah Whitall Smith writes, “His very love for you may perhaps lead you to run counter to the loving wishes of even your dearest friends.  You must learn, from Luke 14: 26-33, and similar passages, that in order to be a disciple and follower of our Lord, you may perhaps be called upon to forsake inwardly all that you have, even father or mother, or brother or sister, or husband or wife, or it may be your own life also.”

I don’t pretend such a choice is easy but, precious fellow Believer, does the Word of the Living God burn in the very marrow of your bones?  Have you found that treasure that is worth selling everything in order to possess?  Do you understand how so many have faced death with praises to God on their lips? Do you hear His voice and know there is no life worth living unless you follow Him?  Then, set your face as flint, fix your eyes on Jesus, and follow the Lamb, wherever He goes.  In the upper room, just before He faces betrayal, abonnement, and death, Jesus says, “Indeed the hour is coming, yes, has now come, that you will be scattered, each to his own, and will leave Me alone. And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me” (John 16:32). 

It is not possible that we can be alone.  Even if every friend we have and all of our family abandons us, the Father is with us.  Let us go forth in the surety that we are safe in the palm of His hand and that there is nothing that can separate us from the love of Christ.  There is a song I used to sing eons ago in Vacation Bible School: “I have decided to follow Jesus.  No turning back, no turning back.  If you won’t go with me, still I will follow.  No turning back, no turning back.”

So be it.

I wrote a poem about my seeking the Lord. Read it here

Unless noted otherwise, scriptures are quoted from the New King James Version of the Holy Bible, Thomas Nelson, Inc. 1982

All quotes are taken from The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life by Hannah Whitall Smith, New Spire Edition published 2012 by Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan, “Difficulties Concerning Guidance”, Chapter 8, Pages 87-100.

Joy and Grace

02 Monday Aug 2021

Posted by in Fruit of the Spirit, Studies, Walking in the Way

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A few weeks ago, one of the teachers at the church I attend via Zoom said, “We stand and fall by our definitions”.  That struck me and I wrote it down.  I have been thinking how true that statement is.  While conducting my study on The Fruit of the Spirit, I realized my belief in the meaning of a word also meant I brought that preconceived idea to scripture.  Of course I knew what patience was, what peace was, what joy was, etc. because I understood the definitions of all these words.  I had barely begun my study before I realized how incorrect that assumption was: I didn’t really know what these words meant at all.

I have been meaning to look at the meaning of the Grace of God because I came across a statement while studying The Fruit of the Spirit: Joy.  I was looking up joy in The Dictionary of New Testament Theology and read this: “Also to be noted is the etymological connection with charis (grace) which has not always been clearly distinguished in meaning from chara.”1 In a brief review: Joy in the Greek is chara (G5479).  It comes from the root word chairo (G5463) which is a primary verb meaning “to be cheerful”.  I did make a note of the connection but, as I was studying joy and not grace, I didn’t pursue it further.

A little time passed and then, while watching one of his teachings, I heard Malcolm Smith say that grace and joy shared a root word.  My attention was caught.  I remembered the statement I’d read and how I meant to take a further look at grace.  And then I got busy with other studies and it went onto a back burner.  Then I saw a post on Instagram which brought the statement, “we stand and fall by our definitions” back to the forefront of my mind.  The Post was by Dictionary.com and said, “True or False?  Grace means having moral, not physical, strength”.  I had to read that a few times because I had not ever defined grace as strength: moral or physical.  My answer would thus be “false” but I realized I wasn’t certain.  I had intended to look up the meaning of grace but had gotten sidetracked.  I would be sidetracked no longer.  I got to work.

The church world I’ve been part of has defined grace for me as “unmerited favor” and I’ve never questioned that.  Perhaps I should have done because, as I read through the scriptures listed under Grace in the Strong’s Concordance while substituting “unmerited favor”, I find the scriptures cease to make sense.  I could not come boldly before the throne of “unmerited favor” nor does it make sense that, in doing so, I would find the “unmerited favor” to help in time of need (Hebrews. 4:16).  It does not make sense that His “unmerited favor” would be sufficient (2 Corinthians 12:9) nor does it make sense that, in describing Jesus, Luke’s Gospel would say “the unmerited favor of God was upon Him” (Luke 2:40).  How can Paul say he does not frustrate the “unmerited favor” of God (Galatians 2:21) or tell the Galatians they have fallen from “unmerited favor” (Galatians 5:4)?

As an interesting experiment (because Dictionary.com might know something I do not), I read through the list using “strength”.  That didn’t make much sense either although I did find the idea of strength in some of the scriptures.  In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul does say, “according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of His power” (Ephesians 3:7) and he does tell Timothy to, “be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 2:1).  So then my answer to Dictionary.com’s mini quiz is no longer unequivocally “false” but then neither is my answer “true”.  We stand and fall by our definitions.  That being so, what does grace really mean?

My trusty New World Dictionary gives me quite an extensive definition.  I won’t share the entire entry for the sake of space but I find grace defined as: pleasing quality, favor, thanks, to lift up the voice in praise, an attractive quality, a sense of what is right or proper, thoughtfulness toward others, good will, mercy, clemency, etc.  Under definition number 10 I do find “the unmerited love and favor of God toward man”.2

The Strong’s Concordance doesn’t necessarily disagree with the dictionary but I do not find any definition of unmerited favor, or strength for that matter.  The Strong’s Concordance entry for charis (G5485) is: from 5463; graciousness (as gratifying) of manner or act (abstr. Or concr,; lit., fig., or spiritual; espec. the divine influence upon the heart and its reflection in the life; incl. gratitude), acceptable, benefit, favor, gift, grace (-cious), joy, liberality, pleasure, thank (-s, worthy)”.3 I repeat, there is nothing here to suggest grace means “unmerited favor”.  And, it is interesting to note grace does come from the root word chairo (G5463) which is a primary verb meaning “to be cheerful”.  Grace and Joy are related to each other.  These two words are not interchangeable but, because they are members of the same word family, they have a common feature, pattern, or meaning.4 This is definitely a time to Selah: pause and calmly think of that!

What conclusion do I draw?  I go back to the list of scriptures in the concordance and read them again, this time plugging in Strong’s definition, especially the words “the divine influence upon the heart and its reflection in the life”.  I thrill at Paul’s greeting in his letters.  “Grace be to you and peace from God…” I read through the scriptures and know that I am just beginning to understand the Grace of God.  I read through the scriptures and am reminded of Ezekiel 36 verses 25-27: “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.  I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.” 

John 1:17 says, “For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”  2 Corinthians 1:20 says, “For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.”  This is what I see as the Grace of God.  It is a revelation of His heart.  It is summed up in Jesus Christ.  It is His free gift to me in His Spirit.  It is God keeping the promise He made in Ezekiel.  The Grace of God is Him keeping all His promises. He has His own joy and that too He freely gives to me.

Is it unmerited?  Of course.  I can’t begin to fathom the heart of God much less begin to think I deserved any of His gifts.  But then, He keeps His promises because of who He is, not because of anything I could ever do or not do.  All I can do is say, “Yes.  Thank you.  I receive it.  Hallelujah!  Amen.”

And Amen.

Unless noted otherwise, scriptures are quoted from the New King James Version of the Holy Bible, Thomas Nelson, Inc. 1982

References

  1. Brown, Colin, The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1986, Joy, Page 356
  2. Guralnik, David B., Webster’s New World Dictionary of The American Language, William Collins+World Publishing Company, Cleveland-New York, 1974
  3. Strong, James, The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990
  4. “Word Family”, What is a Word Family? | Word Families | Examples (twinkl.com)

I Die Daily

19 Monday Jul 2021

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I have been thinking about surrender.  The surrender of our lives, our wills, to God.  It’s a subject I’ve heard Christians using a great deal lately and I used in last week’s post.  I wrote about it as something I did in the past and that’s how I’ve been hearing it used; as if surrender to God is a one-time thing.  I can’t speak for anyone else but I’ve found it’s a choice I make on a daily basis.  In my experience, both the big moment of surrender and then the daily surrenderings are both true.

I have a moment of utter surrender in my life.  It was so momentous that it does separate my life into BEFORE and AFTER.  Various crises and experiences had brought me to a place where I was willing to consider that I was a Christian only because I’d been raised to be one.  Perhaps nothing I believed was true.  I needed to know the Truth, whatever that was.  Everything AFTER that moment has been a glorious adventure of God revealing Himself to me.  It has also been an endurance race of terrible pressures and processing.  There have been times when I’ve drooped on the edge of my bed so raw on the inside that I’ve felt that, if one more thing dropped on me, I would die.  I do not speak in hyperbole: my feelings had a very real effect in and on my body.  My prayers were not great prayers of faith during these times but were rather, “please.  I can’t take anymore.

The pressure would let up for maybe a day.  There would be a moment of refreshing and then it would start all over again.  I didn’t understand what was happening in those early days.  I came to recognize these-shall I call them near death experiences?-were but the portent to a deeper experience of the Life of Jesus Christ being formed in me.  Knowing this does not make these experiences hurt less but it does allow me to experience them in hope.  Jesus has not come into my life and changed my circumstances around so that all is sweetness and light and frolicking in the fields with nary a care or a need and no personal cross in sight.  His coming into my life, into my very self, has often meant circumstances have gotten worse rather than better.  It’s meant destruction of my flesh life but not my real life which is hid in Him.  He has overcome.  He has given His life to me.  He is Lord of my circumstances and will work victory in my life but it requires choosing on my part.  I surrender to Him not once but every moment. 

The reason I was thinking about surrendering as being both a one time and an every moment experience is because I had an opportunity to surrender to the workings of the Life of Christ on the inside of me.  I had a person say one thing about me to my face and then say the opposite thing to anyone who would listen.  I was angry, embarrassed, hurt, and betrayed.  One of my first impulses was to run to someone I knew would listen to ME.  I wanted to pour out the story and have someone tell me how terrible it was, what a big meanie that other person turned out to be, and pour the balm of commiseration on my feelings. 

Right along with this impulse came the command from the Holy Spirit to do no such thing!  I was to be silent!  I was to put this situation and all my resulting feelings in His hands.  Not only that, I was to allow His forgiveness to flow.  My primary desire is to be obedient in all things but I have to admit there are times I feel like I’m choking on said obedience.  It was a fight to obey.  Obedience meant dying to my self-righteousness and living unto Him.  Within a few days, I read something that confirmed my belief that surrendering is not something I did in the past but something I must continue to do every day.  I’ve been going through Andrew Murray’s Abide In Christ devotional and, in the entry for day sixteen, I read:     

“And such surrender of all for Christ, is it a single step, the act and experience of a moment, or is it a course of daily renewed and progressive attainment?  It is both.  There may be a moment in the life of a believer when he gets a first sight, or a deeper insight, of this most blessed truth, and when, made willing in the day of God’s power, he does indeed, in an act of the will, gather up the whole of life yet before him into the decision of a moment, and lay himself on the altar a living and acceptable sacrifice.  Such moments have often been the blessed transition from a life of wandering and failure to a life of abiding and power divine.  But even then his daily life becomes, what the life must be of each one who has no such experience, the unceasing prayer for more light on the meaning of entire surrender, the ever-renewed offering up of all he has to God.”1

After I read this, I began meditating on an interesting verse in 1 Corinthians 15.  “I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily” the Apostle Paul says (verse 31).  He says this in the midst of speaking of Christ being raised from the dead, His being raised the promise that we too shall be raised, His reigning until all enemies are destroyed, including death, what our heavenly bodies are like…in the midst of all this comes “I die daily.”  I used to think that a strange thing to say until I consider it in the light of both my experience and other scriptures.

In Matthew 16: 24-28 I find, “Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me’.”  I have often heard people saying “This is my cross to bear” and by that they mean a co-worker, a neighbor, a family member, or a disease or physical limitation.  I look at this verse and I see they are half right.  The co-worker, neighbor, family member, disease, and physical limitation might be the circumstance that contains the cross but the cross is there for us to die on.  And, I notice how many action verbs there are in this passage.  This denying myself, this taking up of my cross, this following Him is not a one-time moment of surrender.  It is a choice I make every day and I find I have plenty of opportunities each and every day in which to make it.

I die daily.  The Apostle Paul has to be speaking of the little deaths I have no doubt he had to die every day. I read his letters and read of those who followed around behind him disparaging him, his intellect, twisting his message, and imposing legalism on the precious believers. And yet, I don’t get any sense of frustration here.  I read it more as “I die daily!” It is a thing of great joy. 

I understand that joy because I surrender nothing to God but what He does not give me Himself.  Any vindication I would feel at defending myself, any pleasure I would get at retaliation, any feelings of superiority that would come from shredding someone else’s character…all of it belongs to that realm of the flesh-life.  I’m reminded of Proverbs 14:12: “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.”  I see this reflected in the words of Jesus as I continue to read in Matthew 16:  “For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” 

 I always read this scripture and thought it referred to the actual laying down of my life: physical death. My Mom reminded me of a passage in The Song of Solomon: “Catch the foxes for us, yes, the little foxes!  They are ruining the vineyards when our vineyards are in bloom!” (SOS 2:152).  Expositions and commentaries have told me this passage is referring to little sins like jealousy, pride, etc.  I don’t disagree and yet I do think this passage can be applied to the hurts and wrongs that come throughout our daily lives.  Jesus is the vine and I am the branch abiding in Him.  Refusal to surrender to Him when someone wrongs me either behind my back or directly to my face, quenches the Spirit.  Left undealt with, they become the little foxes that destroy the vineyard in bloom.  I see here a picture of a life that cannot bear fruit.

The message during this Sunday’s Church Service was on Psalm 1 and I was struck by verse 3: “He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season.”  In season.  It doesn’t happen all at once which is something that makes me deeply grateful as I don’t always feel victorious.  I still have a way to go in surrendering because my first impulses do not align with who I am in Christ.  Neither does forgiveness happen instantaneously.  But then, His expectation is that I bear fruit in season.  He remembers I am but dust (Psalm 103:14).  I reckon myself dead to sin and alive to Christ (Romans 6:11) and I am confident that He who began a good work in me will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6).

Even so, Come Lord Jesus.   

Unless notes otherwise, scriptures are quoted from the New King James Version of the Holy Bible, Thomas Nelson, Inc. 1982

References

  1. Murray, Andrew, Abide in Christ, Barbour and Company, Inc., Uhrichsville, OH, 1985, Page 97
  2. Stern, David H., The Complete Jewish Study Bible, Hendrickson Publishers Marketing, LLC, Peabody, Massachusetts, 2016