After surrender to Christ, what is next?

HIMSELF

Once it was the blessing, Now it is the Lord;

Once it was the feeling, Now it is His Word.

Once His gift I wanted, Now the Giver own;

Once I sought for healing, Now Himself alone.

Once 'twas painful trying, Now 'tis perfect trust;

Once a half salvation, Now the uttermost!

Once 'twas ceaseless holding, Now He holds me fast;

Once 'twas constant drifting, Now my anchor's cast.

Once 'twas busy planning, Now 'tis trustful prayer;

Once 'twas anxious caring, Now He has the care;

Once 'twas what I wanted, Now what Jesus says;

Once 'twas constant asking, Now 'tis ceaseless praise.

Once it was my working, His it hence shall be;

Once I tried to use Him, Now He uses me;

Once the power I wanted, Now the Mighty One;

Once for self I labored, Now for Him alone.

Once I hoped in Jesus, Now I know He's mine;

Once my lamps were dying, Now they brightly shine;

Once for death I waited, Now Him coming hail;

And my hopes are anchored Safe within the vail.

Albert B. Simpson

 After Surrender - Then What?

"I have finished the work which You have given Me to do"     John 17:4

  True surrender is not simply surrender of our external life but surrender of our will - and once that is done, surrender is complete. The greatest crisis we ever face is the surrender of our will. Yet God never forces a person's will into surrender, and He never begs. He patiently waits until that person willingly yields to Him. And once that battle has been fought, it never needs to be fought again.

  Surrender for Deliverance. "Come to Me…and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28). It is only after we have begun to experience what salvation really means that we surrender our will to Jesus for rest. Whatever is causing us a sense of uncertainty is actually a call to our will - "Come to Me." And it is a voluntary coming.

  Surrender for Devotion. "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself..." (Matthew 16:24). The surrender here is of myself to Jesus, with His rest at the heart of my being. He says, "If you want to be My disciple, you must give up your right to yourself to Me." And once this is done, the remainder of your life will exhibit nothing but the evidence of this surrender, and you never need to be concerned again with what the future may hold for you. Whatever your circumstances may be, Jesus is totally sufficient (see 2 Corinthians 12:9 and Philippians 4:19).

  Surrender for Death. "…another will gird you…" (John 21:18; also see verse 19). Have you learned what it means to be girded for death? Beware of some surrender that you make to God in an ecstatic moment in your life, because you are apt to take it back again. True surrender is a matter of being "united together (with Jesus) in the likeness of His death" (Romans 6:5) until nothing ever appeals to you that did not appeal to Him.

  And after you surrender - then what? Your entire life should be characterized by an eagerness to maintain unbroken fellowship and oneness with God.

"My Utmost for His Highest" September 13

Additional resources

“Servanthood The Way to Greatness” 3 audio MI 156   1996 Dr. Charles Stanley

“Living Above Your Circumstances” Psalm 121 audio 10/6/96 Gearl Spicer

http://www.ficm.org

“Unconditional Surrender” audio MCO31 Dr. Charles Stanley

"Absolute Surrender" Andrew Murray

"My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers

Blackmon, Selma, editor. The Exchanged Life Ministry News.

What is"surrendering" your life to God mean?

THE CONFUSED BUTTERFLY

By Judy L. Poe

I thought I was an ugly worm,

For I was taught this was the case;

And I always felt defeated,

But just assumed this was my place.

I used to watch the butterfly,

As she soared among the trees;

Her brilliant colors flashing bright,

As she floated about with ease.

But a worm, alas, was I it seemed,

That crawled upon the ground;

And there appeared no hope for me,

Till new life in Heaven I found.

But in the meantime, here on earth,

I was told to do the best I could;

And not to do the things I shouldn't,

And try to do the things I should.

So for many years I worked real hard,

To be the best worm I could be;

I worked and planned and served and studied,

To "help" God work His plan for me.

But my load became too heavy,

And failure darkened every door;

I said, "God, I just can't do it",

He said, "That's what I've waited for."

An then, through the Holy Spirit,

And His precious truths confirmed;

He said, "My child, you are a butterfly,

Stop acting like a worm.

When you trusted Christ as Savior,

You were changed and made brand new;

And those years you've acted like a worm,

Christ has longed to live through you."

So my "place" I found at last was grace,

And I thanked God for what I'd learned;

For when I surrendered all to Him,

I knew, at last, the worm had turned.

SURRENDERING RIGHTS

    A lot of misunderstanding surrounds the concept of Total Commitment. If one desires the best that God offers then Total Commitment is required. The more one gives and surrenders in Total Commitment the more one will understand and know of God.

    Understanding Christ's Life in you (The Exchanged Life) is understanding and experiencing what Christ can do in you and through you. It is what He can do in you and through you that He desires, not what you can do, accomplish or achieve.

    Another name for Total Commitment is Total Surrender or a personal Gethsemane expressed this way, "I want what You want more than anything else in life. Work on my case, and I will accept whatever You do." Many times we can give Him permission to do anything He wants to do in us, to us, with us and through us, but then complain because He doesn't do what we want Him to do and then we become angry.

    Total Commitment involves the surrender and release of that which I believe to be rightfully mine. But I really do not have that right. These are not rights. These are things I have been made to believe are mine, and that God owes me this. God does not owe me anything. He gave me His own Son. There is a large difference between what God chooses to give and what He owes.

We tend to cling to or hang on to each of the following as rights in an effort to meet our own felt needs:

MIND, EMOTION, WILL: I want to function from my soul. My mind and emotions are programmed with a world system philosophy and this get in the way of my relationship with God. The enemy wants me to function from my feelings and thoughts with no guidelines or limitations.

HEALTHY BODY:  People will like me better if I have an attractive body. I could have done a better job on me than God did. But God does not demonstrate His power in creating attractive bodies. He is more interested in re-creating Himself within us. Jesus "had no form or comeliness in His looks." There was nothing outstanding in His looks.

FUTURE PLANS:  My Heavenly Father does not owe me anything. He is working to form desires within my heart. Scripture says my first desire should be to know Him in His fullness.

GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION:  My attitude should be a willingness to live where He directs. I desire the best, and the best is to be where He wants me to be at any time (state, city, street, block, house on the block).

MARRIAGE: The tendency is to demand of God a spouse. If I believe God owes me a mate and I do not have one, I can become bitter and angry toward God. I will want to know when He is going to finish the job of completing me with a mate. My identity is not wrapped up in whether I am married or not. My identity in God is who I am individually. But I tend to see my identity in another form because this is the way society sees it.

RECREATION: I have no right to choose an activity that would not be honoring to God. My tendency is to function as if this is MY LIFE! But Scripture says that I have been bought with a price. I am not my own.

SUCCESS:  I feel that I belong on top, because I am His child and God desires that I prosper. But the Lord Jesus stressed the spiritual, not the physical. I want to take all those things and put them in a physical realm saying that this is what God wants for me. But I cannot measure in a physical way that which God desires for my life. By all earthly standards Christ's ministry was a flop! But it accomplished all that God intended. The prospering that God wants for me is that I mature and grow spiritually not that I measure up to some earthly standard that says that I acquired all this because I am His.

CLING TO THE PAST: I like to remember what he, she or they did to me. It gives me reason to complain. But this becomes a cop-out for my present attitude. I want to be angry and I want others to know all about what happened to me.

HABITS: I buy into a belief system which says that I am only human and that no one is perfect and that a man has to have one vice. But the Scripture says that I am indwelt by the Spirit of the Living God, therefore I am not just human. The Spirit of God lives in Me. That makes me more than just human.

POSSESSIONS: Everything I perceive to be a possession will ultimately begin to possess me. It is easy to say, "Heavenly Father, I give you my car," but what if He tells me to give it away tomorrow? I am a steward. God has given me possessions as a trust. I am to take care of God's trust they are not really mine. But I will cling to anything I think I own, and if someone violates MY STUFF, I will react in anger. "How dare they do this to my house, to me, to my car, etc.!!!?"

TIME: I do need to get away from things occasionally, however my attitude should never be one of demanding MY time. The Lord Jesus took ten specific breaks from His ministry in three years.

REPUTATION: I want people to think well of me. But what did people think and say about the Lord Jesus? What kind of reputation did He have?

DEFY AUTHORITY: This covers every area of life - parent/child, law, boss, head, God.

ACCEPTANCE: inside of me I tend to say, “Don't I have a right to get my acceptance needs met in others?” I have spent much of my life trying to milk acceptance from others. "Oh! PLEASE accept me!" But I am not to look to the world or to others for my acceptance. There is a big difference between WANTING other's acceptance and NEEDING it. I am accepted by God totally and completely in the Lord Jesus. If I spend my time trying to get my acceptance needs met in others, I will not look to God as my need-meeter.

WILL OF GOD: At times I tend to believe that God has shown me His will, and I come to believe I know exactly what God wants, but it all falls apart. I have presumed to know precisely what God wants. Often the enemy will give a stone and will try to convince me that it is bread and I conclude, "Look what God has given me!" But God did not give it. It came from the enemy. It is not the real thing. When I find out it is a stone and not bread, I become angry with God, but God did not do it.

HAPPY HOME: I NEED a neat, clean orderly home to be happy. Therefore, kids make your beds, clean your rooms, put your toys away.

PROBLEMS, DIFFICULTIES: I tend to think bad things happen to others. I believe good things mean God is blessing me, and bad things mean He is angry with me. As long as I am in this world I am potentially subject to every tragedy and difficulty that could happen. The difference is how I respond. Sometimes that is the only witness I will have to the world.

TAKING OFFENSE: I cannot offend a humble person. If I am humble I cannot be offended. A humble person can never be told anything about himself that he does not already know. When offenses come I need to keep short accounts by forgiving.

REAPING WHAT I SOW: I will reap what I sow. I want to do what I want to do, but I do not want to reap what I have sown. I may even confess my actions as sin. Many times God has kept me from reaping what I have sown, but He does not have to do so.

BE RIGHT: I must have the last word to verify my position. I need to admit that I do and can make wrong decisions, instead of functioning as if everything I do is right.

BE LOVED: Do I want love? Yes! Do I have a right to be loved? No! However, God does love me.

VISIBLE SECURITY: Land, possessions, money, stocks, bonds. It may be necessary for God to withhold any visible security so I will have to trust Him totally. It is too easy to trust what He has given instead of Him.

USED OF GOD: I want to be used of God, but I do not see Him using me. Why He does not use me is not the real issue, which is why should He use me? Who am I that He should use me? God does not have to use anybody. If I did not praise Him, the rocks would! I may not be ready for His use.

SEE RESULTS: God may lead me to do something and I want to see the results of my labors. The Word says that some plant the seed, some water, but the harvest is the Lord's. But I want to be in on the harvest.

DEMAND FROM GOD: The only right I have is the right to the Lord Jesus and all that He is. This has been given to me. It is not a right I earned. It is not a right I deserve. It is a right that was given to me through the act of salvation, through receiving the Lord Jesus as my Lord. And in that salvation I got Him and all that He is. Therefore, I function in the strength of Christ - - all that He is in me.

"The Calvary Road" by Roy Hession

  

The Calvary Road by Roy Hession

 Do you want life man’s way that leads to conflict and frustration or God’s way that leads to inner peace? Colossians 3:15

   What is my attitude? Am I willing to be honest and truthful with myself? Do I have peace with God in my heart? Do I have love and concern for others? Do I want a better home life? 

   Some random quotes from this everyday, where road and rubber meet, practical Biblical based book:

• Everything that comes between us and another, such as impatience, resentment, or envy, comes between us and God.
• The first effect of sin in us is always to make us hide; with the result that we are pretending, we are wearing a mask, we are not real with either God or man.
• God is the All-revealing One, who shows up every man as he really is.
• It is utterly impossible for us to be walking in any degree of darkness and have fellowship with God…We cannot have true fellowship with our brother either-for we are not real with him, and no one can have fellowship with an unreal person.
• Being broken is both God’s work and ours. He brings His pressure to bear, but we have to make the choice…we are not likely to be broken except at the Cross of Jesus.
• It was into the home that sin first came. It is in the home that revival first needs to come.
• I suggest that the beam in our eye is simply our unloving reaction to the other man’s mote.
• When God is leading us to challenge another, let not fear hold us back. Let us not argue or press our point. Let us just say what God has told us to and leave it there. It is God’s work, not ours, to cause the other to see it.
• When we are challenged, let us not defend ourselves and explain ourselves. Let us take it in silence, thanking the other; and then go to God about it and ask Him.
• Blood cannot be applied to the sins of our proud hearts until we have been broken in repentance as to what has already happened and as to what we already are. This will mean allowing the light of God to go through every part of our hearts and into every one of our relationships.
• Humility, lamblikeness, the surrender of our wills to God, are what He looks for supremely from man. It was to manifest all this that God ever created the first man. It was his refusal to walk this path that constituted his first sin (and it has been the heart of sin ever since). It was to bring this disposition back to earth that Jesus came.
• Every sin we ever commit is the result of the hard unbroken self taking up some attitude of pride, and we shall not find peace through the Blood until we are willing to see the source of each sin and reverse the wrong attitude that caused it by a specific repentance, which will always be humbling.
• There then is our choice-to protest our innocence and go down to our house, unblessed, dry of soul, and out of touch with God. Or to justify God and to enter into peace, fellowship, and victory through the Blood of Jesus.

"When I Saw Him" by Roy Hession, part 2

Roy Hession wrote in his book, When I Saw Him, about the experiences of Isaiah, Saul, the Disciples, and Joshua and then writes, “What Is Your Vision?”

   When the Disciples saw Him, they had a vision of the blood. Seeing Him risen from the dead and seeing His hands and His side, the sad were made glad. Jesus risen from the dead and He was brought again from the dead through the blood of the everlasting covenant.

   “There are three aspects to what may be called the victorious life.

   First, and most basic, there is His victory over me. Victorious life is not me conquering sin, but Him conquering me and breaking me each time that sin comes in, and taking me to the Cross.

   Then there is His victory for me, in setting me free from the hangover of guilt and self-accusation. This is not celebrating the attainment by the saint of some higher ground of sanctification, but the victory over guilt, self-recrimination, and sadness-which the most sinful of us may have when we see the blood of Jesus again.

   The third aspect of the victorious life is His victory in me; that is, Jesus Christ living His life again in me. It is illustrated by the Lord’s parable of the Vine and the branches. We naturally begin by making the mistake of trying to be the vine ourself, by doing our best to produce those fruits which we imagine a Christian ought to produce. We fail utterly, because ‘in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing.’ Rom. 7:18 But Christ is the Vine, not us, and we but His branches. When, weary of our attempts to be a good vine, we take our place as branches and begin to abide (or dwell) in Him, He promises to abide (or dwell) in us. And what can be more victorious than Jesus dwelling in us? That which is produced is now not characteristic of the branch but of the Vine, who dwells in the branch by the sap, that is, but the Holy Spirit.

   This aspect of the victorious life, however, is based on the first two aspects. Only as we are willing for Him to be breaking us and bringing us to the cross, and only as we are finding peace as sinners through His blood, does He give to us through His life within what we confess we otherwise lack so completely.”

   When Joshua saw Him as Captain. Joshua 5:12-6:3 “A falling on his face before the Captain of the host and an attitude of positive faith in Jehovah were the two effects of this vision on Joshua.”

   “’And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship.’ This was the most crucial moment in the whole campaign in which Israel was engaged, when their leader prostrated himself before the Captain of the hosts of the Lord. Before the walls of Jericho could fall, Joshua had to fall. In doing so, he vacated his own place and surrendered completely to the captaincy of the Captain of the hosts of the Lord, confessing the sin and folly of trying to be captain himself.”

   God lets us know that our victories are His… They are not from our self-will, self-effort, or self-glory… “When Jesus is allowed to be Captain in a situation, the victory is never in doubt, not for a moment. When we see Jesus as Captain of the hosts of the Lord, ours it is to fall on our faces before Him and worship-that is to confess the self-will, self-effort, and self-glory that have dominated us and deeply surrender to Him as the Captain, and be willing for Him to make the decisions, give the orders, and be the doer of the work. This is ever the turning point in our lives and in the enterprises we are engaged upon. We cannot be too low at His feet if He is to cause the walls of our Jericho to fall. He will have no difficulty with those walls if He can get us to fall first.”

      “What is it that we have that others may not have? Our discovery is simply that we are bigger sinners than we thought we were and that Jesus is a bigger Saviour than we thought He was-no cause for pride in that, surely. Let us not fear, then, to see the need and blindness of those around us, for we shall not otherwise get the Lord’s vision for them. Our vision for them is, first, that they might know that they don’t know, that they might begin to realize there is something lacking; then, that they might see the hidden things about themselves that God would have them see; and then, that they may know Jesus coming to them to cleanse them from their sin and take over, as symbolized in the live coal.

   Do not fear, then, to look around you with complete realism I the light of what you have seen in yourself. Your fellowship group, your church, your minister, the other churches throughout the land and, closer at hand, the dear ones in your own family-everywhere you look people are going on in this double blindness, not knowing, and not knowing that they don’t know. And then get God’s loving vision for them, that He wants to open their eyes and bring them to a new reality and liberty.”

"When I Saw Him" by Roy Hession, part 1

   When God draws us closer to himself, He uses the same methods for all of us; His grace leads us through brokenness, forgiveness, and surrender to an intimate relationship. Each one of us must come alone; no one can do this for us or anyone else.

 

   Roy Hession wrote in his book, When I Saw Him, about the experiences of Isaiah, Saul, the Disciples, and Joshua and then writes, “What Is Your Vision?”

   In Isaiah 6:1-9, the reader is taken to Isaiah’s view of the throne. “Woe is me! for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips...” God desires that we see Him in His holiness: that our service has been done in the flesh, perhaps for many years, and that without our knowing it. Self has intruded even into holy things, and so much of what has been done has been only in the power of the self-life rather than in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit convicts of sin. We read about three main forms of the self-life. First of all, there is self-will-I make the plans; I, rather than the Lord, initiate things. As each day dawns, I am the king of that day and if I want to indulge in something, I will. The second form of the self-life is self-effort-I trying to do God’s work for Him by my own efforts, expedients, and schemes. What begins with me, has to be done by me. This applies not only to service, but to the Christian life itself. And then the third form of the self-life, self-glory- the desire for people to think well of us; the doing of things ostensibly for God, but really for our own glory, hoping that people will think “What a victorious Christian!” God’s plan is completely otherwise. Read Romans 11:36. When we see the Lord we are convicted of this right down to details, in the holy as well as the secular part of our lives.

   Saul of Tarsus saw Him, Acts 9:1-9; what effect did this vision of Jesus have on Saul on the inside? Paul describes himself as being full of pride, though at the time he was quite unaware of it. That is the usual thing with pride: you are quite unaware of it until the Holy Spirit shows you; then you see you are full of it. Even God, he thought, must have regard to a man with these things to his credit. The first was pride of ancestry; the second was pride of orthodoxy; the third was pride of activity; the fourth was pride of morality. Now all these things had to do with Saul’s righteousness, that is, his rightness with God. All his efforts were directed to adding to his store of righteousness. He wanted to excel. How many of my activities are directed to adding  to my store of righteousness before God and before other fellows?

   Now what was revealed to him when he had this vision? Saul saw the brokenness of Deity. This was Saul’s final surrender of self. What was the effect that this vision had on Saul? Let him speak for himself by reading Philippians 3:7-8. Doing so, he cast away his own pathetic righteousness in order to embrace Christ as his own.

    “…what the Lord desires to do is to take us all much deeper in what we already know and give us a much deeper conviction of sin and brokenness than we have ever experienced before and with regard to areas we have never allowed Him to touch before. It might be His purpose for these pages to be stained with the tears of the one who reads them, as he looks again on Him whom he has pierced and mourns for Him, and as a result be brought into an altogether new liberty and fruitfulness.”

Sit, Walk, Stand

Sit, Walk, Stand by Watchman Nee

Watchman Nee in his book, Sit, Walk, Stand concludes with “The Christian life consists of sitting with Christ, walking by him and standing in him. We begin our spiritual life by resting in the finished work of the Lord Jesus. That rest is the source of our strength for a consistent and unfaltering walk in the world. And at the end of a grueling warfare with the hosts of darkness we are found standing with him at least in triumphant possession of the field.

‘Unto him…be the glory…forever.’”

   This book, only 78 pages long, is a concise, brief study of Ephesians demonstrating the Exchanged Life message. May I suggest, that before studying this book, read entirely the book of Ephesians in one sitting?

   Using the key words of sit, walk and stand, Mr. Nee writes: 

•  Our Position in Christ “Sit” 2:6 
•  Our Life in the World “Walk” 4:1  
• Our Attitude to the Enemy “Stand” 6:11

   Please note the order and the connection in which these words are used.

  SIT  Our Christian life begins with the discovery of what God has provided…Christianity begins not with a big DO, but with a big DONE…we are invited at the very outset to sit down and enjoy what God has done for us…

   What does it really mean to sit down? When we walk or stand we bear on our legs all the weight of our own body, but when we sit down our entire weight rests upon the chair or couch on which we sit. We grow weary when we walk or stand, but we feel rested when we have sat down for a while. In walking or standing we expend a great deal of energy, but when we are seated we relax at once, because the strain no longer falls upon our muscles and nerves but upon something outside ourselves. So also in the spiritual realm, to sit down is simply to rest our whole weight-our load, ourselves, our future, everything-upon the Lord. We let him bear the responsibility and cease to carry it ourselves.

 WALK  Though the Christian life begins with sitting, sitting is always followed by walking. When once we have been well and truly seated and have found our strength in sitting down, then we do in fact begin to walk. Sitting describes our position with Christ in the heavenlies. Walking is the practical outworking of that heavenly position here on earth…Eight times in Ephesians the word ‘walk’ is used…It brings immediately before us the subject of Christian conduct…’Walk in love, even as Christ also loved you...’5:2, ‘Walk as children of the light…proving what is well-pleasing unto the Lord’ 5:8, 10.

STAND ‘Stand against the wiles of the devil…’6:10,11,13-18

We war against Satan to maintain and consolidate the victory which Christ has already gained. By the resurrection God proclaimed his Son victor over the whole realm of darkness, and the ground Christ won he has given to us.

   God never asks us to do anything we can do. He asks us to live a life which we can never live and to do a work which we can never do. Yet, by his grace, we are living it and doing it. The life we live is the life of Christ lived in the power of God, and the work we do is the work of Christ carried on through us by his Spirit whom we obey. Self is the only obstruction to that life and to that work…the end and object of all work to which God can commit himself must be his glory. This means that we get nothing out of it for ourselves. It is a divine principle that the less we get of personal gratification out of such a work the greater is its true value to God. There is no room for glory to man in the work of God. True, there is a deep, precious joy in any service that brings him pleasure and that opens the door to his working, but the ground of that joy is his glory and not man’s. Everything is ‘to praise of the glory of his grace’ 1:6, 12, 14.”

"Humility" by Andrew Murray

More Gleanings from Humility by Andrew Murray

“Whosoever would be greatest among you, shall be your servant” (Matthew 23:11)

   “He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” (1 John 4:20)

   The only humility that is really ours is not that which we try to show before God in prayer, but that which we carry with us, and carry out, in our ordinary conduct. The insignificances of daily life are the importances and the tests of eternity because they prove what spirit really possesses us. (pg 44)

   The humble man seeks at all times to act on the rule, “In honor preferring one another; Serve one another; Each esteeming others better than himself; Submitting yourselves one to another.”(pg 46)

   Amid what are considered the temptations to impatience and touchiness, to hard thoughts and sharp words-which come from the failings and sins of fellow-Christians-the humble man carries the often repeated injunction in his heart, and shows it in his life: “Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, even as Christ forgave you” (Colossians 3:13). He has learned that in putting on the Lord Jesus he has put on the heart of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and long-suffering (Colossians 3:12). Jesus has taken the place of self, and it is not an Impossibility to forgive as Jesus forgave. (pg 47)

   May God teach us that our thoughts and words and feelings concerning our fellow-men are His test of our humility toward Him. May He teach us that our humility before Him is the only power that can enable us to be always humble with our fellow-men. Our humility must be the life of Christ, the Lamb of God, within us. (pg 56)

   It is not sin, but God’s grace showing a man and constantly reminding him what a sinner he was, that will keep him truly humble. (pg 64)

   Being occupied with self, even amid the deepest self-abhorrence, can never free us from self. It is the revelation of God, not only by the law condemning sin, but by His grace delivering from it, that will make us humble. (pg 65)

   Humility is simply the disposition which prepares the soul for living on trust. And every, even the most secret breathing of pride-in self-seeking, self-will, self-confidence, or self-exaltation-is just the strengthening of that self which cannot enter into the Kingdom or possess the things of the Kingdom, because it refuses to allow God to be what He is and must be-the all in all. (pg 68)

   “He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death: (Philippians 2:8)

   Humility is the path to death, because in death it gives the highest proof of its perfection. Humility is the blossom of which death to self is the perfect fruit. Jesus humbled Himself unto death and opened the path in which we too must walk. As there was no way for Him to prove His surrender to God to the very uttermost, or to give up and rise out of His human nature to the glory of the Father, but through death, so it is with us, too. Humility must lead us to die to self. We must prove how wholly we have given ourselves up to it and to God. Only thus are we freed from fallen nature and find the path that leads to life in God, to that full birth of the new nature of which humility is the breath and the joy. (pg 73)

   The death of Jesus, once and forever, is our death to self. And the ascension of Jesus, His entering once and forever into the Holiest, has given us the Holy Spirit to communicate to us in power, and make the power of the death-life our very own. (pg 77)

   Accept with gratitude everything that God allows from within or without, from friend or enemy, in nature or in grace, to rind you of your need of humbling, and to help you to it. (pg 90)

   May God teach us to believe that to be humble, to be nothing in His presence, is the highest attainment and the fullest blessing of the Christian life. He speaks to us: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and with him that is of a contrite and humble spirit” (Isaiah 57:15) Be this our destiny!

Humility by Andrew Murray

God loves sinful man

 “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Romans 8:38-39

BACK TO THE FUTURE

   A pervasive hindrance to an active, productive life of faith is a misdirected focus on the past. God is always working to help us move forward in our faith. He is future oriented. Our past experiences obviously influence our current and future actions; but when our gaze is too often fixed on the rearview mirror, we aren’t going to make the progress God wants. If our minds continually churn up destructive debris from the past, enjoying today and tomorrow is a chore. The past becomes a heavy metal albatross that few can bear.

   A pantheon of great characters in Scripture was chosen by God despite their checkered past. Moses spent four decades in oblivion following a heated killing. Abraham had a regrettable liaison with his maidservant. Peter turned his back on the Savior at a defining moment. Paul was the ringleader for Pharisaic persecution of the emerging church. Had they allowed their prior behavior to unduly control them, they and we would be spiritual paupers.

   I’m not sure what your past holds. Others may have hurt you deeply, abusing you physically or mentally. The memories are there every day and the feelings of shame won’t go away. Perhaps you are the guilty party and you are continually besieged by guilt and remorse over your actions. The past has a suffocating grip on your emotions.

   The way of escape is through forgiveness─real, genuine, biblical forgiveness─that releases you from the irons of the past and releases those who hurt you. God put your sins behind you through his forgiveness the instant you trusted Christ. He holds nothing against you. You are no longer a debtor to God. You may not forget the past, but you can break away from it by extending God’s forgiveness to those who wronged you and forgiving yourself as God has. If this appears too easy a solution for complex problems, it isn’t. Extending God’s brand of forgiveness to others or yourself takes courage and determination. But forgiveness is the only cure for the wounds of the past. Denial, suppression, or penance don’t work. There is no other recourse.

   Forgiveness is an act of grace, treating people with the favor of God, not as they deserve. Such grace is an expression of our faith in God’s provision for our future. We can move on with our life. We can look forward to good things. We are not prisoners of our past. Forgiveness has cleaned the slate and liberated us to become what God wants. Like Paul we possess the mindset that says, “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14). Paul’s past wasn’t pretty, but it didn’t stop him from enjoying and serving God effectively.

   Put the past behind you, where it belongs; and watch Christ propel you into future grace, anticipating the goodness of God.

   Thank you, Father, for revealing to me how you used people with a sinful past to accomplish great things─even being a part of the earthly lineage of your Son. It comforts me and lets me realize you can do much through me.

   Learn from the past, but don’t drag its dregs into the future.

A Touch of His Goodness Dr. Charles Stanley page113