“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” Galatians 2:20
These words mean the breaking of my independence with my own hand and surrendering to the supremacy of the Lord Jesus. No one can do this for me; I must do it myself. God may bring me up to the point three hundred and sixty-five times a year, but He cannot put me through it. It means breaking the husk of my individual independence of God, and the emancipating of my personality into oneness with Himself, not for my own ideas, but for absolute loyalty to Jesus. There is no possibility of dispute when once I am there. Very few of us know anything about loyalty for Christ--“For My sake.” It is that which makes the iron saint.
Has that break come? All the rest is pious fraud. The one point to decide is--Will I give up, will I surrender to Jesus Christ, and make no conditions whatever as to how the break comes? I must be broken from my self-realization, and immediately that point it reached. The reality of the supernatural identification takes place at once, and the witness of the Spirit of God is unmistakable--“I have been crucified with Christ.”
The passion of Christianity is that I deliberately sign away my own rights and become a bond-slave of Jesus Christ. Until I do that, I do not begin to be a saint.
One student a year who hears God’s call would be sufficient for God to have called this College into existence. This College as an organization is not worth anything, it is not academic; it is for nothing else but for God to help Himself to lives. Is He going to help Himself to us, or are we taken up with our conception of what we are going to be?
My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers
God spoke to my heart this morning using this passage by Oswald Chambers to alert me to some things that need to change in my life. It’s amazing how this wicked flesh hides so innocently. It goes undetected until a situation causes “self” it to rear its ugly head from dark and secret corners of the mind and soul. I convince myself that I am right with God. Meanwhile, the deadly poisons of sin bubble up inside and fester like wounds, slowly working their way to the surface. Our human flesh is the worst enemy we have. Unfortunately we are stuck with it until the day that death frees us from these prisons of sinful humanity and we soar to the portals of Heaven to receive a new body--one that will never feel the struggle of two enemy spirits in constant conflict with one another.
One phrase hit me with full force. “I must be broken from my self-realization.” As long as I am focusing on myself, I am not right with God. Self-realization means I am fully conscious of everything involving ME...whether I am being treated fairly, whether I am getting what I think I deserve, whether people like me as I think they should…and the list goes on. As long as “self” is ruling, I foolishly believe that I am the center of all that goes on. Life revolves around one individual--ME. Thus, God is pushed out of His rightful place in my life. Then I begin to feel the horrible effects of pride--bitterness and anger and eventually dissatisfaction with the very person I am. In desperation I cry out, “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Indeed, who can deliver the sin-laden soul? Jesus can! But first I must be broken from my self-realization. I must realize that Jesus Christ deserves the throne, and I am to hide in a closet, unobserved and disregarded by others. Pride permanently seals the light and love that God desires to radiate through my being, and instead displays the ugly qualities of my wicked human flesh. In seeking to exalt myself, just the opposite occurs. However, by yielding to Christ, the goals of my pride--to be known and loved by others--are accomplished in humility. When I can look past “me” and allow God to crush “self,” I have just begun to be where God wants me. I have come to the point of readiness to be crucified with Christ.
Well, those are some thoughts I had this morning. God, crush this wicked thing called Self!!!
Has that break come? All the rest is pious fraud. The one point to decide is--Will I give up, will I surrender to Jesus Christ, and make no conditions whatever as to how the break comes? I must be broken from my self-realization, and immediately that point it reached. The reality of the supernatural identification takes place at once, and the witness of the Spirit of God is unmistakable--“I have been crucified with Christ.”
The passion of Christianity is that I deliberately sign away my own rights and become a bond-slave of Jesus Christ. Until I do that, I do not begin to be a saint.
One student a year who hears God’s call would be sufficient for God to have called this College into existence. This College as an organization is not worth anything, it is not academic; it is for nothing else but for God to help Himself to lives. Is He going to help Himself to us, or are we taken up with our conception of what we are going to be?
My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers
God spoke to my heart this morning using this passage by Oswald Chambers to alert me to some things that need to change in my life. It’s amazing how this wicked flesh hides so innocently. It goes undetected until a situation causes “self” it to rear its ugly head from dark and secret corners of the mind and soul. I convince myself that I am right with God. Meanwhile, the deadly poisons of sin bubble up inside and fester like wounds, slowly working their way to the surface. Our human flesh is the worst enemy we have. Unfortunately we are stuck with it until the day that death frees us from these prisons of sinful humanity and we soar to the portals of Heaven to receive a new body--one that will never feel the struggle of two enemy spirits in constant conflict with one another.
One phrase hit me with full force. “I must be broken from my self-realization.” As long as I am focusing on myself, I am not right with God. Self-realization means I am fully conscious of everything involving ME...whether I am being treated fairly, whether I am getting what I think I deserve, whether people like me as I think they should…and the list goes on. As long as “self” is ruling, I foolishly believe that I am the center of all that goes on. Life revolves around one individual--ME. Thus, God is pushed out of His rightful place in my life. Then I begin to feel the horrible effects of pride--bitterness and anger and eventually dissatisfaction with the very person I am. In desperation I cry out, “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Indeed, who can deliver the sin-laden soul? Jesus can! But first I must be broken from my self-realization. I must realize that Jesus Christ deserves the throne, and I am to hide in a closet, unobserved and disregarded by others. Pride permanently seals the light and love that God desires to radiate through my being, and instead displays the ugly qualities of my wicked human flesh. In seeking to exalt myself, just the opposite occurs. However, by yielding to Christ, the goals of my pride--to be known and loved by others--are accomplished in humility. When I can look past “me” and allow God to crush “self,” I have just begun to be where God wants me. I have come to the point of readiness to be crucified with Christ.
Well, those are some thoughts I had this morning. God, crush this wicked thing called Self!!!
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