AN INVENTORY NEVER PASSES THE CROSS Philippians 2:13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. 14 Do all things without murmurings and disputings: 15 That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world (KJV) The scriptures explain the attributes of the Spirit and what the Christian life would look like if the Christian is surrendered to God. Most every Christian has prayed this prayer to God “Lord please place your character into my life for I do not possess it”. It was shortly after that prayer that we became determined to produce this fruit in our lives. Many of us thought that through sheer determination we could direct ourselves into production. But this just wasnt happening. Many in the church body turned to Christian writers and started reading instructional books. Many of these books included “secrets”, “steps”, and “keys”, to live this Christian life. We thought we could learn our way into fruitful living. To our dismay this “learning” and determination did not improve our character much at all. This “learning” and determination went on for many years with little results. “Christian” psychology books (or teaching) only kept us focused on ourselves. Our selfishness remained and we were beat. We wanted to rise above our selfishness but we just couldnt. We had a lot more to learn. But what we needed to learn would come to us directly from the word of God and particularly from the revelation given to the Apostle Paul which is found in His epistles to the churches. Many of us had to go through a disappointing process to get beyond ourselves. We became self absorbed when what we really needed to learn is that our selfishness was put to an end and stopped FOR US at the cross. We needed to learn the truth that we are “in Christ” and God has made provision for all our character defects and shortcomings. The crucifixion and resurrection of Christ gives us life. Much of “Christian psychology” (not all) failed to teach us this to the degree that it needed to be taught. The cross may have been mentioned as a footnote but then psychology only put our focus back on ourselves. With the focus back onto ourselves we found ourselves in failure and disillusionment. The more we tried the more we failed. So in desperation we turned to the word of God. Then like the Apostle Paul we received through revelation the message of the finished work of Christ.I believe this is the path that most committed Christians have taken. When we were completely broken our spiritual eyes began to open up. It was then that we chose to surrender to Gods direction. His direction for us is always His cross for us. But turning our self and situation over to God was an unnatural act for us. To move forward into spiritual obedience always required us to lean back into the power of the crucifixion of Christ. This is the “best kept” secret and only real discipline of Christianity. The natural mind doesn’t understand the dynamics. There are many ways to walk in error and you have to be forever diligent to check your motives as to whether they are centered on your baptism in Christ. If you dont check your actions against the cross of Christ you will find yourself in error. Satan’s objective is to destroy us by diverting us from our faith. Sometimes being redundant with the enemy is all that is needed to get rid of him! We claim the name of Jesus Christ and the power of His blood sternly until Satan lets go. He will let go if we persist. Simultaneously we reckon ourselves to be dead with Christ on the cross. Nevertheless we live!
Posted on: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 22:58:37 +0000
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