“CONFIDENCE IN THE CRUCIFIED “SELF” OR ASSURANCE IN RESURRECTION LIFE?”
April 13, 2017, J.FARRELL FISHER
It was Polonius in Hamlet who said: “To thine own self be true.” But, is that an attempt at “pumping flesh” by inflating one’s ‘self-esteem’? Is that focusing on “self” rather than centered, cemented, or covered in “the shed blood of the Lamb of God”? Have you ever heard a parent say to a child: “Your place in OUR Family is for YOU to become something!” Really? And someone attempting to become something is blinded to the Christ who took our ‘old man’, ‘old sin-nature’, ‘old SELF’ to the Cross, with the God-inspired, Holy Word telling us in Romans 6:6, “knowing this, that our old man (that’s the ‘old sin-nature’ -YOURS and MINE) WAS CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should NO LONGER be slaves of sin.”
Dare I say it, and be crucified ‘again’ by a compromising ‘religious establishment’ that says, “You can’t do anything but sin until you get to Heaven”? Believe I will! Being “true to yourself and your old sin nature is to be blinded and void of ‘Amazing Grace’”! Confidence in the ‘best efforts’ of human flesh Is “fleshly , eternal darkness”, void of the dawning and bright days of “Christ in you the hope of glory”, (Colossians 1:27)!
There’s not a man, a family, a nation that does not need Christ Jesus as “the light of their world”, because the man, the family, the nation, without Christ as Lord and Savior remains in the “darkness” of the world of unbelief, patted on their backs by Satan himself who IS the lord and master of one’s darkness! No wonder the Holy Word declares, affirms, and continually announces Christ Jesus as their Prophet, Priest, and King, because, only in and through Him is ‘darkness’ removed, only in His ruling heart, mind, and soul, or Resurrection Presence, is the reality of bondage and slavery to the world, the flesh, and the devil removed, and only by His Kingly Presence in the human heart, mind, and soul is there acceptance by God the Father who sent His Son to be our Savior!
I was shocked recently when I read a statement by one of the U.S.A.’s early founders, Benjamin Franklin, who once said: “God helps those who help themselves.” ‘Confidence in one’s best effort of “crucifying myself” is a ‘lie’ out of the very pit of Hell itself!’ No! “I am (by God’s judgment, justice, and decree!) crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me.” In the old writing, “New Atlantis,” Sir Francis Bacon once said: “The reverence of a man’s SELF is, next to religion, the chiefest bridle of all vices.” [The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotes,” p.396].
You are aware of an ‘allegory’, which the Random House Collegiate Dictionary defines as “a representation of an abstract or spiritual meaning through concrete (Is God’s Word secure, stable and eternal concrete?) or material forms; figurative treatment of one subject under the guise of another; a symbolic narrative (of the Way, the Truth, and the Life?).” So…HOW ABOUT ONE’S REVERENCE OF HIMSELF/HERSELF? “In Christ” WE are not ‘symbolic narratives’ but “chosen vessels”!
In 2 Corinthians 4:5-11 Paul wrote, inspired by the Holy Spirit of Truth, “For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness WHO HAS SHONE IN OUR HEARTS TO GIVE THE LIGHT OF THE GLORY OF GOD IN THE FACE OF CHRIST JESUS.
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed – always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. FOR WE WHO LIVE (IN CHRIST!) ARE ALWAYS DELIVERED TO DEATH FOR JESUS’ SAKE, THAT THE LIFE OF JESUS ALSO MAY BE MANIFESTED IN OUR MORTAL FLESH.” [AND that doesn’t mean someday, or after physical death, or in “the after-life”, but manifested in OUR MORTAL FLESH!].
Yet MANY “lose heart” in their spiritual pilgrimages, because for them it has been a “best-effort attempt” at trying to be Christ-like! Paul went on to say, in 2 Corinthians 4:16, “Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day”, and that’s through the eternal Word, the awesome ministry of the Holy Spirit, and the encouragement, even, at times, confrontation and motivation of true friends in the faith!
The ‘outward man’ IS ‘fallen flesh’ not Spirit-birthed! The ‘outward man’ flourishes because of ‘deceit’, because of pressured influences from a ‘separated from God society’, because of ‘pumped up flesh and excessive, enslaving egos’ from the seeds of Satan, because of ‘self-reverence for dead flesh’! Surrender to the Sovereignty of God severs, puts to death, annihilates selfish ambition and self-allegiance, thus at the “holy altar of death to self”, presenting one’s life to Holy God, His Sovereign Power, and His Amazing Love, Grace, and Mercy in need of being “washed in the Blood of the Lamb”, you ARE an altar or ‘redeemed being and presence’ in which the Resurrected Christ lives, reigns, ministers through you!
It was Alexander MacLaren who once said: “All along the Christian course, there must be set up altars to God on which you sacrifice yourself, or you will never advance a step,” in the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ! (Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations, Fleming H.Revell Company, Westwood, New Jersey,p.397). Altars in the mind, heart and spirit where I, with Paul, “die daily”? (1 Corinthians 15:31b).
In 2 Corinthians 1:8-12 Paul testified – he said: “For we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which came to us in Asia: that we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. [I personally knew pastors in India that I taught and disciple who were ‘martyred’ for the faith!]. Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us, you also helping together in prayer for us, that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf for the gift granted to us through many.”
If every day you begin it by purposefully, mentally, willfully constructing your altar, and every day you yield to the sovereignty of God, and every day you prepare for your ‘witness’, your ‘ministry’, your ‘testimony’, are you then literally ready, if the opposition comes, to, yes, kill you for the Faith? I’ve altered Charles Caleb Colton’s words minimally to build conviction and biblical wisdom in every disciple’s life and ministry. Colton said, “Heroism, magnanimity, and ‘self-denial’, in all instances in which they do not spring from biblical principles (for the glory of God only), are but splendid altars on which we sacrifice one kind of self-love to another kind of self-love (religious but not redemptive, one’s best but not blessed by the Indwelling Christ), ‘reverencing one’s flesh’ but void of the omnipotent power of Holy God through the Resurrected Christ and fullness of His Holy Spirit!”
Only the man crucified with Christ, and knows it, who repents of his sin and sin nature convicted by the Holy Spirit, and willfully confesses his/her need of the Savior – only is that man “born again” becoming the recipient of “new life in Christ,” clad with “new garments,”, given a “new song” in his heart and mind to sing to God and to others, entering a “new and blessed blood covenant on His terms”, “blessed with a new heart and new spirit,” “fed new fruits, bread, and meat of the Word of God,” granted by His grace a “new and living testimony,” moved in to the “new and everlasting Kingdom of God now, not when ‘out there’ you finally get to Heaven’s gates and grounds someday,” and all in all a “new creation in and of Christ’s Holy Presence.”
Here’s how Paul was inspired to write about the above truths in Romans 6:1-14! He said: “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we WHO DIED TO SIN live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many as were baptized into Christ Jesus WERE baptized into His death? [That’s “crucified with Christ!”]. Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, [not our water baptism but our identity with Him and His chosen, willful, purposeful, loving sacrifice in our place!], that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so WE ALSO should walk in newness of life.
For if we have been UNITED TOGETHER in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, KNOWING THIS, that our old man was crucified with Him, THAT THE BODY OF SIN MIGHT BE DONE AWAY WITH, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. FOR he who has died (with Christ?) has been freed from sin. Now IF WE DIED WITH CHRIST, we believe that we shall also live with Him, KNOWING THAT CHRIST, HAVING BEEN RAISED FROM THE DEAD, dies no more.
Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the DEATH THAT HE DIED, He died to sin once for all; but the LIFE THAT HE LIVES, HE LIVES TO GOD. Likewise YOU also, RECKONG YOURSELVES TO BE DEAD INDEED TO SIN, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. [Are you really aware of how strong the old man, the old sin nature, and the demons of darkness are, yes, trying, tempting, testing you, if you’re a ‘flesh-believer’ or a “born-again son and daughter of Father God”?].
And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. FOR SIN shall not have dominion over you, FOR YOU ARE NOT UNDER LAW BUT UNDER GRACE.”
A few words of fresh poetry! Written as this message mushroomed in my mind and heart: “Under marvelous grace God leads us along, from ‘sin-sadness’ He gives us a “new song”;
A song for the soul, a hymn for the heart, a chorus for the mind, as in “new life” we start; praises to God for His amazing grace, darkness to light through His eternal might, His grace but His glory as the “new son” is born, sovereignly birthed to live in His reign, no longer sin-bound to live in disdain, but more than a conqueror through His precious Name!
Grace for the battles, grace for the fears, grace for those trials that soon will come near! Grace is God’s governance, His strength and His might, because every son and daughter will know, at times, darkness in their night.
Though ‘darkness’ may be, at times, you facing the deep, He comes faithfully for you Not to weep! He’s strong and He’s able and He assures us He’s available, so lean not on your own but settle where the Word has been sown – live in the Light, not in the darkness, live in His light, not in your despair, know He is able to separate the wheat from the tares!
An unbelieving soul, with Paradise all around, will blind himself to Heaven, but bear the bad fruit of a devilish hell. A compromising ‘believer’ will celebrate his ‘grit’, even “damned be God’s grace – I like the ‘taste’, my fleshly vision, I like my mind’s human reasoning; who needs God’s grace? I’ve got my pleasure in His place!
There is a world that has sunk into shame, delirious at even the mention of the Lord’s Name! Their hearts are dead, their minds engulfed, their wills enslaved and bound in the chains of ‘self-approval’ – nothing else matters, certainly not God’s pleasure!
There is a world that knows about ‘soul’ but has no desire for life in the Spirit. Their fleshly ambition trumps God’s purpose, and for the call to faith, most of the world declares it worthless. It’s worldly stage is constantly degrading, bound to the nature of ‘God-despising’; but the world of God’s Faith and His world of awesome love takes the hungry soul of man into the ‘Promised Land’ of God’s eternal Song!
Yes, sing to the Lord for the Victory is His, sing to the Lord for glorious is His triumph, sing praises to His name, no longer sin’s shame, but Holy God has exalted His Son’s fame! He’s Lord to God the Father, Lord to His redeemed sons, Lord to His daughters, Lord forevermore!
It’s the song of the “Well-Beloved” whose vineyards are repentant sons of faith, and repentant sons of faith are available lands of His merciful grace. The seed of His Word is planted, His vineyards are watered, the Sun of grace shines brightly upon them, and the fruit of His Spirit is the fruit of the righteous, fruitful in every divine work in heavenly blessing!
Though man makes a mire, God hasn’t retired, but mercifully and faithfully He loves to inspire! Look at the Cross, and know it’s His love, look to the tomb and know it’s His power, Look to Jesus, and know it’s YOUR God-ordained hour!
Under marvelous grace God leads us along, from “sin-sadness” He gives a new song! Sing, My beloved, for mercy and grace is yours. Tell me the hour, the day, the year, the place, of YOUR announcement of His Amazing Grace!” [By JFF! 4-13-2017].
Examine YOUR confidence, YOUR assurance, YOUR outlook of YOUR “self-made man” OR tell me of YOUR “blessed assurance”, your “new creation,” your “eternal song of faith written in your heart by the hand and heart of God exalting Christ as your mediator between Holy God and a needy man!