"Called Unto Holiness" by Ruth Paxson, part 4

Called Unto Holiness by Ruth Paxson

Fullness of Christ, part 2

Why do I not have the fullness of the Spirit? There are two objective causes in the realm of truth. One is ignorance. In Christ we possess the fullness of the Godhead, and in the Spirit we have the One who makes this fullness our personal possession. But, because of ignorance of the Word of God, we lack this knowledge. Consequently we lack the experience of fullness. The other cause is unbelief. We know the truth but only intellectually and doctrinally. It has not become heart experience. Or we know it but we are afraid to act up our knowledge and to appropriate this blessing by faith. Heb. 3:19

   Then there are two subjective causes in the realm of experience. One is unconfused sin. The Holy spirit is holy and the place He indwells must be made and kept holy. This infilling demands cleansing from all known sin. It is impossible to be filled with the Holy spirit while knowingly, deliberately, retaining sin in the life… 2 Chron. 29:5, 16, 17… 1 Cor. 3:16, 17;

2 Cor 7:11; 1 John 1:9; Prov. 28:13 It is utterly foolish and futile for any one of us to pray for the fullness of the Holy Spirit if we hold even so much as a tiny spark of known resentment, or hurt, or unlove, or any un-Christ-like feeling toward another… Are you willing to have all uncleanness, both of the flesh and of the spirit, carried out of your life?

   The cleansing is not the infilling but it rids us of what prevents the fullness and makes us ready for it.

   The second subjective cause for the lack of fullness is an unyielded life, which means an uncrucified and uncontrolled self. Infilling demands the yielding of ourselves in toto to the Lordship of Christ.  It permits of no reservations; it allows no locked doors. We must part with everything of which Christ is not the source and we must place everything under Christ’s control. There must be the utter dethronement of self and the voluntary enthronement of Christ… 2 Chron. 29:31…

   After the filthiness was carried out the offerings were brought in… Rom. 12:1; 2 Cor. 5:15 Yielding to Christ means opening every part of the life to Christ, that He may fill it with Himself…

   Yielding is not infilling, but it prepares for it. Emptying makes ready for infilling. Only the yielded life can be filled with the Holy Spirit…

   How may the fullness be obtained?.. John 4:14, 7:37

   ‘Any man’-there are no favorites with God.

   ‘Thirst’-an intense desire for holiness for Christ’s sake that must be satisfied. It is an insatiable longing for God Himself. Ps. 42:1, 2…

   ‘Come’-‘Come unto Me’-the only One who can bestow this gift: the Giver of this living water in all its fullness.

   ‘Drink’-this is an act. Thirst is desire-I want water. To drink is an act-I take water. Just here is where many earnest, seeking souls fall short of this glorious experience. They thirst but they do not drink…

‘Be not drunk with wine

But be filled with the Spirit.’

   How does one get drunk? By drinking. How does he stay drunk? By continuing to drink. How is one filled with the Holy Spirit? Our Lord says by drinking of that living water. How does one stay filled? By continuing to drink day by day. Is that not simple for each one of us..?

   May we bow in silence to face a few questions in the presence of the Lord, and answer by a definite ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’

•  Have you ever been filled with the Holy Spirit?
•  Are you filled with the Spirit now?
•  Will you be filled today?
• Do you purpose to live the Spirit-filled life from now on?

   If you thirst and will drink just now, will you offer to God this simple prayer: ‘Lord, I thirst; Lord, I come and drink; Lord, I take the gift Thou offerest, the fullness of the Holy Spirit, and thank Thee for it.’”

"Called Unto Holiness" by Ruth Paxson, part 3

Called Unto Holiness by Ruth Paxson

Fullness of Christ

Ruth Paxson spoke during the Keswick Convention in 1936. The addresses are printed as delivered at the three meetings for ladies only and at the closing fellowship gathering. This is the third meeting titled FULLNESS OF CHRIST from the book

  

   “The church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.” Eph. 1:22, 23

   “Think of it! ‘The church, the fullness of Christ’! The Christian, the fullness of Christ! Is that your conception of what it is for you to be a Christian. You, living in your home; you, walking up and down the streets of your town or city, the fullness of Christ! That is what the Word says. ‘The fullness of him who filleth all in all.’ Here we are told how it is possible. He fills us with His own fullness. John 14:16, 17; Acts 2:4

   Has such fullness been provided for me? Oneness in Christ made it ours. Col. 2:9, 10 ‘And ye are made full in him.’ Our position in Christ makes us potential partakers of the fullness of Christ. We ‘are made full’ it says, not we will be. The moment we become a part of the body of Christ, the fountain of fullness in Him is opened to us. The fullness has been provided for every Christian.

   Is such fullness possible for me? Can the fullness provided be made personal? John 4:14 ‘Water’ in Scripture is the type of the Spirit as Christ Himself interprets it in John 7:38, 39. Christ is never called the water of life, but He gives this water to those who thirst and drink. Christ gives the Holy Spirit to the Christian. He is promising here the gift of the Holy Spirit.

   ‘In him a well’-is the Holy Spirit indwelling which Christ promised the disciples.

   ‘A well of water springing up’-leaping up in an exhaustless, irrepressible way; springing up and overflowing. Is not this fullness?

   ‘Whosoever’-Did you get that word?..

   ‘Shall never thirst.’ Do you believe it?.. Perfect inward heart satisfaction. Do you have it?..

   ‘Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst’ but shall have perfect inward satisfaction and sufficiency. No matter what the circumstances or the environment or the spiritual and temporal need, Christ is enough and equal to it all. Christ only satisfies; Christ only suffices because the indwelling Holy Spirit fills the life and makes Christ a living reality within. Is He doing that for you?..

   ‘If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, from within him shall flow rivers of living water’ John 7:37, 38

   ‘Rivers of living water-not a rivulet, or stream, or even a river, but ‘rivers,’ the Amazon, the Mississippi, the Yangtze, the Thames, all put together into one.

   ‘Shall flow’-not a Dead Sea that received and retains the blessings of Keswick, but the river Jordan that refreshes and renews every life it touches…

   ‘From within him’-an inflow demands an outflow and an overflow. Christ is enough  and to spare…

   ‘He that believeth on me’-not only for some great preacher or Bible teacher, not even alone for some one employed in Christian service, but for him who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you believe?..

  Is such fullness optional? May I choose whether I will be filled with the Holy Spirit or not? ‘Be ye filled with the Spirit’ Eph. 5:18. It is a command…

God does not call you a sinner; you are a saint!!!

Victory Over The Darkness by Neil Anderson

   “God doesn’t call you a sinner; He calls you a saint–a holy one…What you do doesn’t determine who you are; who you are determines what you do.” Page 45 Victory Over The Darkness by Neil Anderson

WOW!!! What a statement!!!

   My actual salvation experience dates back to April 1953. At that time my aunt was attempting to teach me the Apostles Creed. I believed that Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins. I believed that if I accepted Jesus Christ personally as my Savior, when I died I would be in heaven with Him–period end of lessons. The rest of my life I am to try to conform to the image of Christ. As you can read by all the “I’s” above that this has been a long process.

   For many, many years John 8:32 was my prayer, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” I keep asking, “What is the truth?” Finally in 1992, I met someone who told me that truth is not what but who. In John 14:6, “Jesus told them, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life…’” I was introduced to the Neil Anderson books Victory Over The Darkness and Bondage Breaker. The following are a few of the highlights from Victory Over The Darkness.

   “…But ultimately every Christian is responsible for his or her own maturity and freedom in Christ. Nobody can make you grow. That’s you decision and daily responsibility. Nobody can solve your problems. That’s a process you must initiate and follow through with. Thankfully, however, none of us walks through the disciplines of personal maturity and freedom alone. The indwelling Christ is eagerly willing to walk with us each step of the way…

   …Before you can be truly free from your past, you need to know who you are in Christ…

   …The only identity equation that works in God’s kingdom is you plus Christ equals wholeness and meaning.

   …Your Christian walk is the direct result of what you believe about God and yourself…Walking by faith simply means that you function in daily life on the basis of what you believe…Your belief system determines your behavior…

   Anger signals a blocked goal…Feelings of anger should prompt us to reexamine what we believe and the mental goals we have formulated to accomplish those beliefs…

   Anxiety signals an uncertain goal…You are hoping something will happen, but you have no guarantee that it will. You can control some of the factors, but not all of them.

   Depression signals an impossible goal…Some forms of depression can be caused by chemical imbalances…Depression often signals that you are desperately clinging to a goal you have little or no chance of achieving, and that’s not a healthy goal…

   If Satan can destroy your belief in God, you will lose your source of hope. But with God all things are possible. He is the source of all hope. You need to learn to respond to hopeless–appearing situations as David did: ‘Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, the help of my countenance, and my God’ (Ps. 43:5).

   A godly goal is any specific result reflecting God’s purposes for your life that does not depend on people or circumstances beyond your ability or right to control…The only person who can block a godly goal or render it uncertain or impossible is you…

   A godly desire is any specific result that depends on the cooperation of other people or the success of events or favorable circumstances you cannot control. You cannot base your self-worth to your personal success on your desires, no matter how godly they may be, because you cannot control their fulfillment…”

   On page 115 of the study guide, Neil Anderson writes, “Healing emotional wounds from the past will enable you to find victory over the darkness and freedom in God’s light. Dealing with any rejection you’ve experienced is also essential to realizing victory.” There is a word of prayer in which Dr. Anderson writes, “All-knowing and all-loving God, I come before you with David’s words on my lips, ‘Search me, O God’ (Ps. 139:23a). Maybe there is something in my past that, brought to light, into Your healing light, can mean freedom for me. Show me, merciful and gentle God, who I need to forgive and of what I need to forgive them.”

"Tired of Trying to measure Up" by Jeff VanVonderen

    Tired of Trying to Measure Up by Jeff VanVonderen Part One was introduced last week. Part Two has so many great thoughts that I decided to continue instead of cutting too much out.

Part Two is titled Healed by Grace. The title of Chapter Nine reads, “God Says You Don’t Have to Live in Shame.”

Sin and Death: Worse Than We Thought

  “At this point, there are several things we all need to grasp about sin. First of all, in my opinion, you and I do not sin because we want to make life worse for ourselves. Rather, we sin because we believe it will make life better. We indulge in a negative behavior because we believe it will improve our situation. And we perform positive behaviors for the same reason.

   Second, anyone or anything from which you and I try to acquire life, value and meaning-outside of the true God-is a false god. Therefore, those positive behaviors aimed at generating life and acceptability for us are sins. So even though what we do may be right, the reason why we do it is idolatrous.

   Third, because you and I lack life and are helpless, no amount of negative or positive external behavior is capable of producing an internal transformation.” Continuing in this chapter the author writes about the problem, about the solution, about the enemy and about the battle.

   In Ephesians 6:10-12, we read about the spiritual battle. Scripture further describes the nature of our battle: “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh.” (2 Corinthians 10:3,4) We are not in a flesh-and-blood battle.

   In order to fight the right battle, we need to understand how to renew our mind. (see Romans 12:2) The author writes, notice that Paul does not say, “Be transformed by trying hard to be a good Christian.”

   “This instruction is so simple. “Be transformed,” in the Greek, is the same word as metamorphosis in English. It means to change from the inside out. But in the Greek it is passive-that is, transformed is something done to us, not by us. Transformation is not our job. It happens as a result of the renewing of our minds.”

   Next Jeff VanVonderen describes the three distinct roles in which God relates to people. God the Father relates as our Source, we are His created children; God the Son relates with compassion as a teacher and sacrifice. The Son did it all on the Cross. (Luke 4:17-21; Hebrews 10:10); God the Holy Spirit relates with his indwelling the believer. (John 14:16, 18) “I will never fail you nor forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5b)

   The book has many more references and more depth on all of these topics. As we read starting in Chapter Eleven “God’s Solution to Shame: A New Creation”

   “The Christian life is a process of learning to live consistently with who we already are in Christ…The gospel’s Good News is that, on the basis of God’s grace and because of Christ’s performance on the cross, we are brand new creations…A Christian is someone who get his life from God. “And I will put My Spirit within you, and you shall live…” (Ezekiel 27:14)

   “Apart From Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5) Real life comes from continuing to depend upon, draw life from, receive our value and acceptance from the Spirit. It comes from learning that what is natural, whether good or bad, is dead and has no real life to offer…Another reminder, “For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:13) God is right now doing the work in you to change you. It’s an inside job.

Tired of Trying to Measure Up by Jeff VanVonderen