|
Author
|
Topic: Crucified Life
|
phebe_cenchrea
Community Member
Member # 5659
|
posted
Those words are true and reliable--I say this because the circumstances that brought me to this humbling revelation were probably the biggest snafu I've ever gotten myself in. It changed my life and even though I had an innate trust in God before--I came to the point where I could truly say 'I know there is a God--and everything He ever said is true and reliable.'
So what started out looking like absolute dismal failure and life exchanged for just 'existing'--faced with consequences as well as my final realization that it truly is 'vanity and vexation' and I was a fool...
Ended up being the fruition of my most secret desire, always: gaining understanding of both the mystery of God and God, Himself.
There are indeed divine facts:
quote:
If you feel that you have died, you have died; and if you do not feel that you have died, you have nevertheless just as surely died.
There is something more that I discovered, and while I can't say for sure that it is part of the general experience we will all eventually share, there is scriptural support for it, and so that leads me to think it's very important:
Even if we have died--if we don't feel it because we are living and focused on the material realm or from another whatever reason--if we still think that we live, thriving in these human bodies and getting rich, fat, and sassy because we can still stand on two feet--then we're basically going it alone (but not really knowing how or why).
I truly wanted to die when I finally had to be so bluntly honest with myself that my pride just fell off like a worn-out snakeskin--all in one piece. I
have never once seriously considered suicide in all my life--but if I didn't have the conviction that my life is God's, to both give and take, I probably would have tried somehow to bail out of life. Instead I said out loud (and I'm not one to make empty vows to God or even ever speak out loud
when praying) that I was throwing in the towel. I was done living and so I said 'I'm all yours God, until you decide to let me come home. Do with me what you will.'
And, to be perfectly honest, I wasn't nobly submitting to God's will in the manner that our LORD did, in Gethsemane--I was a full-fledged ignorant sinner (as compared to an almost aware sinner) and so my words were nothing more than true hopelessness and self-pity. I never once thought that God would have something for me to do, or even have any more to do with me than before (of course it was me who was standoff-ish but I didn't know that either). I just was crying out to the only One who was always there--in the worst and loneliest moments of my life!
I soon realized that what happened to me was straight out of the bible's words--and it was exactly as Jesus and Paul, and others, had said it was...Peter sums it up pretty good:
quote:
Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God.
(~1 Peter 4:1-2 KJV)
--------------------
Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
(~Luke 12:32)
Posts: 9 | Registered: Apr 2006
| IP: Logged | 
|
|
helpforhomeschoolers
Advanced Member
Member # 15
|
posted
Crucified Life
By Watchman Nee
You believe in the death of the Lord Jesus and you believe in the death of the thieves with Him. Now what about your own death? Your crucifixion is more intimate than theirs. They were crucified at the same time as the Lord but on different crosses, whereas you were crucified on the selfsame cross as He, for you were in Him when He died. How can you know? You can know for the one sufficient reason that God said so. It does not depend on your feelings. If you feel that Christ has died, He has died; and if you do not feel that He has died, He had died. If you feel that you have died, you have died; and if you do not feel that you have died, you have nevertheless just as surely died. These are divine facts. That Christ has died is a fact, that the two thieves have died is a fact, and that you have died is a fact also. Let me tell you, You have died! You are done with! You are ruled out! The self you loathe is on the Cross of Christ. And "he that is dead is freed from sin" (Romans 6:7 Amplified). This is the Gospel for Christians.
Our crucifixion can never be made effective by will or by effort, but only by accepting what the Lord Jesus did on the Cross. Our eyes must be opened to see the finished work of Calvary. Some of you, prior to your salvation, may have tried to save yourselves. You read the Bible, prayed, went to church, gave alms. Then one day your eyes were opened and you saw that a full salvation had already been provided for you on the Cross. You just accepted that and thanked God, and peace and joy flowed into your heart. And now the good news is that sanctification is made possible for you on exactly the same basis as that initial salvation. You are offered deliverance from sin as no less a gift of God's grace than was the forgiveness of sins.
For God's way of deliverance is altogether different from man's way. Man's way is to try to suppress sin by seeking to overcome it; God's way is to remove the sinner. Many Christians mourn over their weakness, thinking that if only they were stronger all would be well. . . If we are preoccupied with the power of sin and with our inability to meet it, then we naturally conclude that to gain the victory over sin we must have more power. . .
But this is altogether a fallacy; it is not Christianity. God's means of delivering us from sin is not by making us stronger and stronger, but by making us weaker and weaker. That is surely rather a peculiar way of victory, you say; but it is the divine way. God sets us free from the dominion of sin, not by strengthening our old man but by crucifying him; not by helping him to do anything, but by removing him from the scene of action.
For years, maybe, you have tried fruitlessly to exercise control over yourself, and perhaps this is still your experience; but when once you see the truth you will recognize that you are indeed powerless to do anything, but that in setting you aside altogether God has done it all. Such discovery brings human striving and self-effort to an end (The Normal Christian Life, pp. 35-37).
Posts: 4684 | From: Southern Black Hills of South Dakota | Registered: Jun 2002
| IP: Logged |
|
|
|
Printer-friendly view of this topic
