“CHRIST JESUS – MY GIVER, GUIDE, AND GUARDIAN!”
By: J.Farrell Fisher, September 16-17, 2017
Very, very interesting when reading 2 Corinthians 10:3-6 Paul said: “For though we (in the flesh physically, and, yes, spiritually) walk in the flesh (our physical bodies), we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts ITSELF against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.”
Is ‘your obedience’ to Christ Jesus absolutely essential in overcoming disobedience in your walk as a disciple? Of course it is, but many scold themselves rather than daily taking the sentence of death to the old man that the resurrection life of Christ may be manifested in their mortal flesh.
Many “professing Christians” are thankful for their “justification” by God Himself “as if they’d never sinned”, but “sanctification”, or set apart for the glory of God in Christ alone, becomes a major hurdle that some never appropriate in and through Christ Jesus! Christ Jesus dealt with our “sin natures” in and through His “blood redemption” at Calvary’s Cross, but the battle between ‘flesh’ and spirit, between the old man and the new man, between the natural of the past and the Spirit-life of the present, faces an on-going struggle, battle, and warfare that has to be “fought” in and through Biblical Faith alone, not one’s “best effort”, but resting in Christ’s victory over sin, death, and the world of fallen mankind around Him!
In his book “My Utmost For His Highest”, (p.185-186), Oswald chambers wrote: “Deliverance from sin is not deliverance from human nature. There are things in human nature, such as prejudices, which the saint has to destroy by neglect; and other things which have to be destroyed by violence, i.e., by the Divine strength imparted by God’s Spirit…It is only when God has altered our disposition and we have entered into the experience of sanctification that the fight begins. The warfare is not against sin; we can never fight against sin: Jesus Christ deals with sin in Redemption. The conflict is along the line of turning our natural life into a spiritual life, and this is never done easily, nor does God intend it to be done easily. It is done only by a series of moral choices. God does not make us holy in the sense of character; He makes us holy in the sense of innocence, and we have to turn that innocence into holy character by a series of moral choices. These choices are continually in antagonism to the entrenchments of our natural life, the things which erect themselves as ramparts against the knowledge of God. We can either go back and make ourselves of no account in the kingdom of God, or we can determinedly demolish these things and let Jesus bring another son to glory.”
Again, what did Paul tell us in 2 Corinthians 10:4-5? “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge, bringing every thought captive to the obedience of Christ…”!!
The obedience of Christ? Captive to the obedience of Christ? Bringing every thought captive to the obedience of Christ? Is it possible in a modern world that some ‘disciples’ have been ill-trained in some church communities that ‘obedience is an option in the age of grace’, even if Jesus said in Luke 6:46, “But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord’, and do not do the things which I say?” Are you not aware that Christ Jesus calls us to a life of submission and obedience to, yes, King Jesus and to God as our Father and the Holy Spirit as our “Guide”?
“Christ Jesus is what?” “Christ Jesus – My Giver, Guide, and Guardian!” It’s as if some ‘believers’ (and I use that word hesitantly!) have never read the foundation-truth of Galatians 1:20-21a! Paul said: “I (we) have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives IN ME; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not set aside (or frustrate) the grace of God.”
Some fail to see that true discipleship IS “living by THE faith (that is in) in the Son of God!” Our faith or His faith? And that’s the problem: Many live or try to live by their ‘faith’, in themselves, and not the true faith in Christ’s work in and through the Cross and the empty tomb!
Our hearts “burn within us” when we live in and through His Resurrection Presence! The Holy Word teaches us three things which MUST BE the true foundation of our saving faith! It Says, FIRST:
“CHRIST JESUS IS MY GIVER!” Vitally important passage in Matthew 11:25-30 when Jesus said: “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent (IN THEIR OWN EYES) and have revealed them to babes. (That’s the “new-born” in Christ!). Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. (Do we today survey, examine, decide what’s best for us in what ‘we see’ or from “God’s sight, His eyes, His purpose for us in and through Christ?).
All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I WILL GIVE YOU REST. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
Do you remember Paul’s anointed word in Galatians 5:1? “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.” Are you truly aware of, yes, the yoke of bondage and the yoke of liberty? A yoke of bondage is a yoke of personal imprisonment to your old sin nature! The yoke of liberty is Christ’s yoke of freedom from the law of sin and death – He CONQUERED BOTH SIN AND DEATH, and HE LIVES AS OUR VICTOR, the One who is more than conqueror over your old life of sin and transgression against the law and the death it always produces! We who are “in Christ” are not living by our “best effort” of imitating Christ – we ARE “more than conquerors through Him who loved us and gave Himself for us” – we live, we obey, we overcome, we live victoriously because He “paid it all, all to Him we owe, sin had left a crimson stain, but He washed it white as snow!”
Christ Jesus opened the closed door to God’s Presence and unveiled One living and dying for the will of God, and Galatians 6:24 tells us, “And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” But there can be, and too often is, in the lives of ‘professing believers’ a counterfeit of outward allegiance apart from the Christ-like desire of being one with God and His attitude of: “Lord, what would You have Me to do?” What did Paul later say in Galatians 6:14? “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”
Christ Jesus our eternal, blessed “Giver”? Matthew 10:1, “Jesus gave us power over unclean, demonic spirits!” In Matthew 25:14-30, Jesus spoke about the gifts of the talents and how some honored Him while there were those who dishonored Him! OH, and He “broke the bread and gave them the juice to drink!” He gave some their ‘sight’ who had been blind! (Let that sink in!). How about John 1:12-13? John said, “But as many as received Him (gave Him His rightful place in their hearts as Savior and Lord!) to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name; who were born (regenerated), not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, BUT BORN OF GOD!” Have YOU truly been “born again”?
“CHRIST JESUS IS ALSO YOUR GUIDE!” Genesis 24:27 says: “As for me, being on the way, the Lord led me…”. Again, what did Jesus say to the Father? “Lord, what would You have me to do?” Our Savior, the Lord Jesus, lived His earthly existence in complete and total obedience to the Father! And, it’s not our option whether we will or we won’t – if YOU won’t, you don’t know Christ Jesus as Lord, Savior, and Master over your life!
Hear Oswald chambers again! (“My Utmost…p.237-238): “Most of us live on the borders of consciousness – consciously serving, consciously devoted to God. All this is immature, it is not the real life yet. The mature stage is the life of a child which is never conscious; we become so abandoned to God that the consciousness of being used never enters in. When we are consciously being used as broken bread and poured-out wine, there is another stage to be reached where all consciousness of ourselves and of what God is doing through us is eliminated. A saint (one “set apart” to the glory of God only) is never consciously a saint; a saint is consciously dependent on God.”
Are you familiar with Psalm 25? Examine Verses 12-15 where David said: “Who is the man who fears the Lord? Him shall God teach in the way God chooses. He himself shall live in prosperity, and his descendants shall inherit the earth. The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him, and He will show them His covenant. My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for He shall pluck my feet out of the net.” To be without true, redemptive faith in God is to live trapped in the “net” of the world, the flesh or old sin nature, and to be under Satan’s domination!
But Christ Jesus takes us out of the “trap” and guides into the spiritual plains of eternal blessings and heavenly fulfillment!
William Williams and Thomas Hastings, in the old Broadman Hymnal of 1940, (published by The Broadman Press, Nashville, Tenn.), the blessed and scripturally founded hymn entitled, “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah”. It says: “Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah, Pilgrim thro’ this barren land; I am weak, but You are mighty, Hold me with Your powerful hand; Bread of Heaven, Feed me till I want no more; Bread of Heaven, feed me till I want no more.
Open now Your crystal fountain Whence the healing waters flow; Let the fiery, cloudy pillar Lead me all my journey thro’; Strong Deliverer, Be Thou still my Strength and Shield; Strong Deliverer, Be Thou still my strength and shield.
When I tread the verge of Jordan, Bid my anxious fears subside; Bear me thro’ the swelling current, Land me safe on Canaan’s side; Songs of praises I will ever giver to You, Songs of praises I will ever give to You.”
Christ Jesus my Giver, Christ Jesus my Guide, and, LAST, “CHRIST JESUS OUR GUARDIAN”! In Isaiah 60:1-3 you see a strong Word of Holy God for the “true remnant of trusting Israel” but even of the “gentiles”, like us today, who trust in God’s faithfulness through His Son and our Savior and Lord! Isaiah wrote:
“Arise, shine; for your light has come! And the glory of the Lord is risen upon you. For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and deep darkness the people; BUT the Lord will arise over you, and His glory will be seen upon you. The Gentiles shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.”
Dare I ask YOU? Believe I will! “Have YOU been ‘raised up’ in the brightness of Resurrection Light, Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope?” In Matthew 4:16-17 Jesus came to the ‘regions of Zebulun and Naphtali, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying’: “The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death LIGHT HAS DAWNED.”
Oh, and then He disappointed those who like the “darkness” because in Verse 17 Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” And through His life, His ministry, His death, His resurrection, THE KINGDOM OF GOD CAME ON EARTH AS IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN IN HEAVEN!!! If you are “in Christ”, you’re not looking for His Kingdom-Rule out there in the “sweet by and by” – YOU, IN CHRIST”, are reigning in the kingdom of your own heart and life to His glory, honor, and praise, extending His kingdom, expressing His love, and proving His power!
Another old hymn says: “THE KINGDOM IS COMING” specifically saying: “From all the dark places Of earth’s heathen races, O see how the thick shadows fly! The voice of salvation Awakes every nation, Come over and help us, they cry.
The sunlight is glancing over armies advancing To conquer the kingdoms of sin; Our Lord shall possess them, His presence shall bless them, His beauty shall enter them in.
With shouting and singing, And jubilant ringing, Their arms of rebellion cast down; At last every nation The Lord of salvation Their King and Redeemer shall crown!
The kingdom is coming, O tell you the story, God’s banner exalted shall be! The earth shall be full of His knowledge and glory, As waters that cover the sea.” And what did Jesus say as He began His earthly ministry? Matthew 6:33, “But seek FIRST the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” ARE YOU BEING “ADDED TO” BY THE CHRIST WHO FILLS ALL IN ALL?
In Luke 21:19 our Lord and Savior said: “By your steadfastness possess your souls,” understanding Christ Jesus IS the door and we enter kingdom living in and through Him, and when He says “possess your souls”, He was so aware of those who seldom accept discipleship responsibility, but many failing to “build” on the foundation He laid and is, ignoring His promises, provision, and power, choosing to ‘live out the faith’ with undisciplined, ‘fleshly’, or unaroused allegiance to the King of kings! They are blinded, clouded, or willfully neglectful of discipleship, yes, responsibility! They ‘joined the church’, got ‘baptized’, and for far too many that is the height of their spiritual assignment!
Oh, but beyond that, there is an ignoring willfully or ignoring spiritually the reality of the Holy Spirit in “guiding us into all truth”! You’ve heard it! “I got saved, baptized, and joined a church – nothing else is necessary.” Really? I believe Jesus said, “Forsake all, and follow Me,” and does that mean, having forsaken all, we’re willfully committed to extend His Kingdom, express His love, and prove His power?
I close with a very old hymn from the early 1900’s entitled “You Christian Heralds!” It says: “You Christian heralds! Go proclaim Salvation through Immanuel’s name; To distant climes the tidings bear, And plant the Rose of Sharon there.
He’ll shield you with a wall of fire, With flaming zeal your hearts inspire, Bid raging winds their fury cease, And hush the tempest into peace.
And when our labors all are o’er, Then shall we meet to part no more – Meet with the blood-bought throng to fall, And crown our Jesus – Lord of all.” AMEN?