Monday, January 02, 2006
Have we really died?
I did something I often do here....I went out to eat alone, bringing a book along with me. I was struck by the following quote in "The Transformation of the Inner Man" by John and Paula Sandford. "I was to see in those seven years of suffering that the Holy Spirit does not intend to improve us or make us better and better! He intends to bring us to fullness of death and make us new.....If, on this side of mankind's ultimate perfection, the Holy Spirit were to so transform any area of a man's flesh that he could always rely on that dimension of his character, that man would inevitably cease to lean on Jesus and begin to trust in his own flesh. His perfection would thus have to be total, or he could not escape the corruption of pride." I have a friend, who will go unnamed, whose answer to the question, "How are you doing?" is often, getting better and better. I often wondered why that answer disturbed me. This same friend would say, "I gotta keep getting better!" I always cringed when he would say this; and Sandford's words above now help me understand more clearly, my continual cringing around this friend. We cannot get better.....we need to die. Only in dying is Jesus manifested in us. Our strivings to become better and better are fruitless attempts at trying to have a part in our own holiness. The only part we can play is dying, because it is God who transforms death into His life! www.ceokids.org
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2 comments:
this reminded me of yesterday's Spurgeon morning reading which was an awesome reminder of how Christians who are well meaning often make the mistake of trying to talk about one person of God doing X, Y or Z when in reality it is God that does everything, Spurgeon well points out like the writer Arden points out that it is God that does the work, and in hte work of Sanctifation it is all three persons of the Trinity who do the work of the trinity, it is the will of God as accomplished in us through Him: Father, Son and Holy Spirit
Morning Reading: Jan 3rd
"Sanctified by God the Father."—Jude 1
"Sanctified in Christ Jesus."—1 Corinthians 1:2
"Through sanctification of the Spirit."—1 Peter 1:2
Mark the union of the Three Divine Persons in all their gracious acts. How unwisely do those believers talk who make preferences in the Persons of the Trinity; who think of Jesus as if He were the embodiment of everything lovely and gracious, while the Father they regard as severely just, but destitute of kindness. Equally wrong are those who magnify the decree of the Father, and the atonement of the Son, so as to depreciate the work of the Spirit. In deeds of grace none of the Persons of the Trinity act apart from the rest. They are as united in their deeds as in their essence. In their love towards the chosen they are one, and in the actions which flow from that great central source they are still undivided. Specially notice this in the matter of sanctification. While we may without mistake speak of sanctification as the work of the Spirit, yet we must take heed that we do not view it as if the Father and the Son had no part therein. It is correct to speak of sanctification as the work of the Father, of the Son, and of the Spirit. Still doth Jehovah say, "Let us make man in our own image after our likeness," and thus we are "his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." See the value which God sets upon real holiness, since the Three Persons in the Trinity are represented as co-working to produce a Church without "spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing." And you, believer, as the follower of Christ, must also set a high value on holiness—upon purity of life and godliness of conversation. Value the blood of Christ as the foundation of your hope, but never speak disparagingly of the work of the Spirit which is your meetness for the inheritance of the saints in light. This day let us so live as to manifest the work of the Triune God in us.
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