food for thought - testimony of God & spiritual life

August 8, 2011

This is the basis of all testimony for God. Without entering into the death of Christ we have no life for ourselves, and without a practical experience of His resurrection life there can be no true ministry.

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What is the trouble with organized Christianity today? Human power is used to do divine work. If this testimony is to be the Lord's testimony, then we must die not only to self, but to the energies of nature. All that is carnal must be utterly repudiated, for the spiritual life is life out of death. No earthly power could have made Aaron's rod bud, for it was a piece of dry wood, of dead wood. Aaron in himself was just as dead as any other man. It was God's good pleasure to call him, and God's call was the only thing that distinguished him from any other man. The calling was of God; therefore the life and beauty and fruit had all to be of God too. There was no contribution whatever from the human side. (Twelve Baskets Full Vol III)

The spiritual life is out of death. Death of our 'self', of all that is carnal - anything that increases our love for the world, and does not increase our love for God (there is no neutral or 'in between' thing). Now that is a lot of what we hold dear today.

And He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. (Mark 8:34)

I think this call is a lot more extreme than we'd allow ourselves to believe. To deny ourselves, to take up our crosses, to die to ourselves, &THEN to follow Christ. If we think about the full weight of such a call, do we realize how much we must die to in order to truly follow Christ? Do we realize how VERY UNNATURAL that is to ourselves? Even just thinking about it right now makes a part of my self turn in rebellion, it makes my flesh ask 'does it really have to be so extreme? does it really mean everything?' because I honestly would love to hold on to certain things and have Christ as well.

Here is a trustworthy saying:

If we died with him,
we will also live with him; (2 Tim 2:11)

But we see that, to live with Jesus, TRULY live with Jesus, we must die with Him first. And there is no such thing as half deaths or partial deaths. It is either 'dead' or 'alive'. Lord Jesus, by myself I cannot die to this flesh, I feel it so strongly within me, fighting against the Spirit, but by Your Spirit, this flesh will die, so I pray that this flesh WILL die, that I may truly live and abide in You!