The Glorious Deeds of Christ

Trials Turned to Gold

And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.

Romans 8:17

We live in the midst of the fallout of the Fall: sin has affected every area of creation and all aspects of our lives. Disappointment, pain, and trouble are significant ingredients of our daily lives. Ill-timed, unexpected tragedies can shape our Christian lives for the better or make our hearts hard through bitterness. The choice is ours: better or bitter. Do we simply want God to deliver us from trials or do we hunger for Christ-like character? It is God’s plan to develop us spiritually before he delivers us materially. God’s goal: character development before material deliverance.

“And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience” (Rom. 5:3). However, suffering for suffering’s sake is not character transforming. It is faith in Christ and his finished work on the Cross which transforms. My weakness, failures, and struggles are channels for his power when I look to Christ in faith. Do I want deliverance or development? My choice: a life of ease without the presence of Christ or a life of suffering with Christ? “What are you seeking in your trouble today? Is it deliverance or development? You may have the one and not grow, or you may have both and grow. Get the development first and the deliverance will be yours, too.

John Wright Follette, Broken Bread (Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, n. d.), 5.

Jesus Gave Everything Away

The Son of God . . . loved me and gave himself for me.

Gal 2:20-21 ESV

The Keswick Movement has almost been forgotten. The annual conference began in the mid-19th century for the “promotion of scriptural holiness.” The Holy Spirit’s work in and through the Keswick Conference has changed lives for Christ for over well over a century and a half. Such notables as Andrew Murray, Amy Carmichael, Watchman Nee, Major Ian Thomas, and F. B. Meyer have all either taught at the yearly conference or were influenced by its teaching.

The sermons, devotionals, and books written Keswick authors and speakers have drawn me into the experience of Christ in a manner no other Christian literature can or does. In their instruction, I have found intimacy with Christ, experienced his constant, conscious presence, and discovered freedom from past pain and persistent sin.

The passage below is one of my favorite selections from a Keswick sermon. Charles Fox declares the greatness of the love of Christ: while suffering inextricable pain, Jesus is thinking about the needs of others. Jesus is carrying the sin of the world on his shoulders, yet he is giving away his inheritance for the benefit of others. Jesus was thinking of others’ needs when you and I would have been self-consumed by our suffering.

Just before He died, Jesus made an inventory of all He had, and then gave it all away. Hear Him: ‘My peace I give you’(John 14:27). ‘That my joy might remain in you (John 15:11).’ He gave His body-‘given for you’ (Luke 22:19). He gave His blood-‘shed for you’ (Luke 22:20). Then He gave what He thought a great deal of-His words. Twice He repeats this legacy, ‘I have given them the words which Thou gavest me’ (John 17:8). ‘I have given them Thy word’ (John 17:14). All He had He gave away. ‘The glory which Thou gavest me I have given them’ (John 17:22).

Then, when He was on the cross-for He was never so rich as when He was on the cross!-He gives away pardon. He gives home-‘Woman behold thy son!’ (John 19:26). He links two of His own together for ever. There are no such friendships as those which are made by the cross of Christ. Then, on the cross, He gives paradise away-paradise, never heard of between Genesis and Revelation, except only at the cross: ‘Today thou shalt be with me in paradise’ (Luke 23:43). Yes, today-immediate transition when you take Christ.

His very clothing was given. ‘They cast lots for His vesture’ (Matt. 27:35). I wonder what that soldier thought as he put on that seamless vesture: a picture of us murderers clothed in the stainless robe of righteousness of Christ.

Then His very dead body was given away. Nobody cared for it, until one disciple came and begged it, and was allowed to have it for the asking (John 19:38).

Is He not rich, my Master? ‘My peace, my joy, my words, my glory!’ All given away! This is indeed the Master. Is He yours?

Charles A. Fox, “The Gifts of Jesus” in Daily Thoughts From Keswick: A Year’s Daily Readings, ed., Herbert F. Stevenson (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1980), 178.

How Much Is Us and How Much Is God?

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Phil. 2:12-13

When Evangelicals and Roman Catholics debate the nature of justification by faith alone, the phrase, “work out your own salvation” (Phil. 2:12-13) is much discussed. The word, “work,” is often sighted as proof that salvation is not by faith alone (Rom. 4:5). However, the Apostle Paul’s use of “work” is not a work of accomplishing or earning our salvation: an attempt to achieve through our own efforts acceptance with God. No, this “work” is a living out of the life of faith: the indwelling Christ operates through us exhibiting a life of faith and love.

How do we know what the Apostle Paul meant by “work”? In the writings of Paul, he never used justification ( our acceptance with God) synonymously with the word, “salvation” [Frank Thielman, The NIV Application Commentary: Philippians (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995), 137]. Salvation for Paul is not acceptance with God; but sanctification, our growth in Christ. Sanctification and justification are different.

Justification is a looking to God that receives Christ death as our death, his righteousness as our righteousness, and his life as our life. By grace through faith, we stand accepted before God. Sanctification is progressively grasping Jesus’ victory over our sin. Sanctification is living a life that is pleasing to God by being transformed into the image of Christ. Justification is a past event. Whereas, sanctification is an ongoing process.

The “fear and trembling” of which Paul speaks is a fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is not a fear of punishment, but the dread of hurting or breaking God’s heart by disappointing his plans and purposes for us. Our responsibility according to Paul is to pursue holiness of heart knowing that one day we must give an account to God for our choices and lives.

In turn, God promises divine enablement, “For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). “Work” here in the Greek means to energize and this energy produces the desire and ability in us to delight in God’s will and obey God’s word.

In summary, Philippians 2:13-14 teaches that human responsibility and divine empowering simultaneously cooperate together with the Holy Spirit to enable us to obey the words and do the works of Jesus.

Will you begin now? He may be working in you to confess to that fellow-Christian that you were unkind in your speech or act. Work it out. He may be working in you to give up that line of business about which you have been doubtful lately. Give it up. He may be working in you to be sweeter in your home, and gentler in your speech. Begin. He may be working in you to alter your relations with some with whom you have dealings that are not as they should be. Alter them. This very day let God begin to speak, and work and will; and then work out what He works in. God will not work apart from you, but He wants to work through you. Let Him. Yield to Him, and let this be the day when you shall begin to live in the power of the mighty Indwelling One.

F. B. Meyer, The Epistle to the Philippians (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 1979), 110.

A Grace that Empowers

For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.

Titus 2:11-12 NIV

Grace is a word that has been cliched in Christian churches. So overused and misused that very few people truly know what the word actually means anymore. Grace has become an abstraction in people’s minds. Often, it is misunderstood to mean, “God overlooks our sin(s).” Some truth exists in that statement, but not the whole truth. Biblical grace has two meanings:

Justifying grace is God’s undeserved, loving commitment to rescue us from his wrath and judgment. In Christ, God delivers us from sin and transports us into his loving kingdom of forgiveness.  Justifying grace calls us to trust Jesus Christ as our Savior, the one who has taken all our sin and just judgment upon himself. When we trust Christ by faith, his work of forgiveness begins by releasing us from our debt, transforming our hearts, and freeing us to live for him. Grace flows from the Cross: Christ death, burial, and resurrection was a costly grace.

Sanctifying grace is Jesus being the desire, ability, and power in us to respond to every life situation according to the will of God. Jesus is our desire for he works in us a hunger for holiness. Jesus is our ability for he enables us to make godly decisions and righteous choices. Jesus is our power for he strengthens us to overcome the world and its influence, our flesh and its passions, and inbred sin and its bondage.

In other words, grace is not the freedom to sin, but the freedom not to sin. Freedom from our sinful past, we are made right God; freedom from the power of sin, we can walk with God; and eventually, freedom from the presence of sin, we will live with Him in eternity.

The word grace is used in two senses. It is first the gracious disposition in God which moves Him to love us freely without our merit and to bestow all His blessings upon us. Then it also means that power which this grace does its work in us. The redeeming work of Christ and the righteousness He won for us, equally with the work of the Spirit in us and the power of the new life He brings, are spoken of as “grace.” It includes all that Christ has done and still does, all He has and gives, all He is for us and in us.

Andrew Murray, The Believers’s New Covenant (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 1984), 83.

It is impossible to speak too strongly of the need to know that as wonderful and free and sufficient as is the grace that pardons, so is the grace that sanctifies; we are just as absolutely dependent upon the latter as the former. We can do as little to the one as the other. The grace that works in us must as exclusively do all in us and through us as the grace that pardons does all for us. In the one case as the other, everything is by faith alone.

Andrew Murray, The Believers’s New Covenant (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 1984), 85.

Victory of the Heart

Then he said to the crowd, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross daily, and follow me.

Luke 9:23 NLT

Dying to self is not strictly the idea of giving up possessions: it is giving up the right to myself. My ways, my wants, and my demands are yielded to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Want a full, deep, intimate experience of Jesus? Give up the right to yourself and hand your heart and will over to Jesus and there find “joy inexpressible and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8).

Naturally, a man regards his right to himself as the finest thing he has, yet it is the last bridge that prevents Jesus Christ having His way in a life.

The approaches to Jesus are innumerable; the result of coming to Him can be only one—the dethroning of my right to myself, or I stop short somewhere.

Jesus Christ is always unyielding to my claim to my right to myself.

The one essential element in all our Lord’s teaching about discipleship is abandon, no calculation, no trace of self-interest.

Oswald Chambers, Disciples Indeed (London: Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1955), 35.

When you are forgotten or neglected or purposely set at naught and you don’t sting and hurt with the insult or the oversight but your heart is happy, being counted worthy to suffer for Christ – THAT IS DYING TO SELF.

When your good is evil spoken of, when your wishes are crossed, your advice disregarded, your opinions ridiculed and you refuse to let anger rise in your heart, or even defend yourself, but take it all in patient, loving silence—THAT IS DYING TO SELF.

When you are content with any food, any raiment, any climate, any society, any solitude, any interruption by the will of God–THAT IS DYING TO SELF.

When you lovingly and patiently bear any disorder, any irregularity, any impuctuality or any annoyance–THAT IS DYING TO SELF.

When you never care to refer to yourself in conversation or to record your own good works, or to itch after commendation, when you can truly love to be unknown–THAT IS DYING TO SELF.

When you stand face to face with waste, folly, extravagant spiritual insensibility—and endure it as Jesus endured it– THAT IS DYING TO SELF.

When you can see your brother prosper and have his needs met and can honestly rejoice with him in spirit and feel no envy, nor question God while your own needs are far greater and you are in desperate circumstances—THAT IS DYING TO SELF.

When you can receive correction and reproof from one of less stature than yourself and can humbly submit inwardly as well as outwardly, finding no rebellion or resentment rising up within your heart—THAT IS DYING TO SELF.

When like Paul-you can throw all your suffering on Jesus, thus converting it into a means of knowing  His overcoming grace; and can say from a surrendered heart, “most gladly,” therefore, do “I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake”(2 Cor. 12:7-11)–THAT IS DYING TO SELF.

Are you DEAD yet?

In these last days, the Spirit would bring us to the cross. “That I may know Him…being made conformable unto His death” (Phil 3:10).

Anonymous, Bethany Publishing House Tract

Christ Keeps Us From Sinning

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy,to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

Jude 24-25

Day-by-day holiness is Jesus’ active obedience becoming our present obedience by the power of the Cross through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. This is the Life of God in us: we trust the indwelling Christ who changes our hearts, thus producing right character in us leading to right conduct through us. Jesus Christ has brought us into union with a holy God. His holiness becomes our holiness by faith. His victory is our victory. Jesus’ victory over the world, the flesh, sin, death, and the devil is our victory over the world, the flesh, sin, death, and the devil. The resurrected Christ lives in us by the Holy Spirit: He who raised Jesus from the dead gives us life and that life is the freedom not to sin (Rom. 8:11).

Day-to-day holiness can be great acts of sacrifice and suffering, but normally consists of a thousand little choices of yielding self in the minute, daily, ordinary stuff of life. This holiness by faith is a resting confidence in “a trusted Christ” who renovates our hearts, purifies our spirit, uplifts our soul, and strengthens our inner man.  Jesus Christ in us adjusts our character choices, He strengthens us to do the right thing.

Total abstinence is the watchword of the Gospel about all sinning on the Christian’s part . . . . And now let us remember that for this total abstinence there is stored up in Him divine sufficiency. Yes, and we are in Him. The feeblest believer in this tent is in Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ in the eternal covenant is in him. What we want is to turn the fact into practical realization; it is to turn what we have into what we use; it is to turn what we know into what we are. Look then, look off, look in, unto the Lord!

It is not manufactured within; it is derived from above; and it is derived in that most wonderful way–the embosoming of Jesus Christ in the very hearts of His own, by faith and by the Spirit . . . .

I will not think of the infinities of my need, except to lead me to the divine simplicity of the infinity of His supply. We are in Him; we derive it from Him. . . . I know what it is to lay the whole of it [i.e., besetting sin] upon my Lord’s head, and the whole of it beneath my Lord’s feet, and without anticipations of the future, to know that for the next step He is able to keep me from stumbling as well as hereafter, as He will, to present me faultless with exceeding joy (Jude 24-25).

Handley C. G. Moule, “The Total Abstinence of the Gospel,” Keswick’s Authentic Voice, ed., Herbert Stevenson (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1959), 55.

Good Works Prepared in Advance

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

Eph. 2:10 NASB

Good works are the fruit of salvation, not its cause or basis. Justification is by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone. No amount of good works can achieve salvation, however, a faith-filled salvation will produce many good works.  Works is a biblical expression to indicate all the righteous actions and virtuous deeds that we perform as a result of Christ living his life in and through us. We are not called to be fruit or works producers, but fruit bearers of the life of Christ in us.

Brothers and sisters, a great mistake is to think that salvation comes to us freely, while victory comes to us as a result of our own effort. We know we cannot trust in any merit or any work of our own for salvation. We simply need to come to the cross and receive the Lord Jesus as our Savior. This is the gospel. While we think that salvation does not require our works, we also think that we should have good works after we are saved. Even though we do not try to be saved through works, we try to overcome through works.

But just as one cannot be saved through good works, one cannot overcome through good works. God says that we cannot have any good works at all. Christ has died for us on the cross, and He is living for us within us. What is of the flesh will always be of the flesh, and God wants nothing that is of the flesh.

We think that salvation is through the Lord Jesus’ death for us on the cross, but that after salvation, we should try our best to do good and hope for the best. But let me ask, “Though you have been saved for years, are you good yet?” Thank and praise the Lord. We cannot do good. We cannot produce any amount of good. Hallelujah! We cannot do any good. Thank and praise Him that victory is a gift from Him; it is something freely given to us!

Watchman Nee, The Life That Wins (New York, Christian Fellowship Publishers, 1986), 34.

The Holy Spirit Is With You

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

John 16:13

The sweetness of the presence of the Holy Spirit is hard to put into words: deep peace, love engaged, hope imparted, and faith encouraged. The Holy Spirit’s job is take all that Christ did on the Cross and make it known to us. Not known in our heads as information, but truth taken, illumined, revealed, and applied. The Holy Spirit makes Christ available to us, in us, and through us. He can make the sweetness of Christ’s presence known to us every minute of every day.

The Holy Spirit makes grace (i.e., Jesus) available to empower us to live the Christian life: make righteous choices, overcome temptations, receive gifts for service, strength in spiritual warfare, and an anointing for evangelism. As believers, we can be assured that wherever we are, the Holy Spirit’s sweet presence goes with us making Christ known to the hurting of this world.

Wherever you have to go, whatever you may have to do, however isolated your life may be, the Holy Spirit is with you and in you to make you aware of the presence of Christ. Christ reveals himself to you thus; and every time of awareness, every time of recollectedness, is the direct result of the operation of the Holy Spirit in your mind bringing you to think about, recollect, and to respond to the presence of your Lord.

Whatever you have to do in the shop, or office, or factory, or home, on the street, or as you travel, as you in these varied senses and occupations recall Jesus Christ, it is the Holy Spirit who is enabling you to do it.

In the special circumstances of life, you may be cut off from Christian fellowship. But you face all such loneliness in the calm confidence that the Spirit of God is always within you to remind you of the presence of Christ.

Christian fellowship is a glad and happy thing, but it is not the chief thing in a Christian’s life. The chief thing is to have Christ Himself. And that gracious presence is ministered to you through the indwelling Holy Spirit, the Comforter.

Thus in every of temptation or difficulty the Holy Spirit is ready to reveal Christ as the answer to all your problems and the Savior from all temptations.

J. Russell Howden cited in His Victorious Indwelling, ed., Nick Harrison (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998), 12.

What Injures Us? Difficult People or a Wrong Reaction in our Spirits?

Work at living in peace with everyone, and work at living a holy life, for those who are not holy will not see the Lord. Look after each other so that none of you fails to receive the grace of God. Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many.

Heb. 12:14-16 (NLT)

Reacting is resisting and rejecting God’s working in the midst of a disappointing circumstance. Our reacting leads to anger deepening into a bitter and unteachable spirit. Reacting to a circumstance is denying that God has a higher purpose in our difficulties (Rom. 8:28). Reacting comes from the flesh which prefers pleasure and convenience over spiritual growth and the glory of God.

Responding is trusting that our Heavenly Father has a divine appointment in our trials and tribulations. Responding comes forth from a thankful heart drawing us into the Holy Spirit’s wellspring of grace. We must evaluate our circumstances by our biblical knowledge of God instead of, as we have a propensity to do, evaluate our knowledge of God by our circumstances.

Do we believe what the Bible teaches about God’s character or do we judge God’s intentions by the difficulty of our circumstances, disappointments, and setbacks? Responding trusts that God in his wisdom has sovereignly cultivated circumstances in our lives for us to meet Christ and be transformed by his grace (James 4:6).

Responding is choosing to trust our Lord with people and their bad attitudes, difficult circumstances, persistent disruptions, confusing situations, and unexpected disappointments (Heb. 11:6).

Holiness, that is responding, consists of daily yielding to God our experiences of the Fallout of the Fall: sinning people, selfish actions, broken things, and disrupted plans (Phil. 3:7-8). The issue of holiness is not what people do to us, but how we respond to their fallenness (Heb. 12:14-15). Our choice: respond by thanking the Lord for difficult people and situations or react with burning anger toward God and others over my frustrating circumstances.

Amy Carmichael says that nothing anyone can do to to us can injure us unless we allow it to cause a wrong reaction in our spirits. Only our reaction can bless or burn.

Paul Billheimer, Mystery of God’s Providence (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1983), 15.

Following the Example, Pattern, and Model of Christ

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Eph. 5:1-2

The imitation of Christ is modeling the life of Christ by maintaining his holy attitude and living his loving actions empowered by the Holy Spirit through faith in his indwelling presence. Jesus lives in the believer providing grace to the saint for making right choices in the midst of various and great temptations (1 Cor. 11:1-2; Eph. 5:1; 1 Thes. 1:6).

God can do a such work in us by His Spirit, that all that he commands us to do will come about naturally, and not because we feel we ought to do it. To make up your mind to praise God may be good, but it is very much better to be so filled with the Holy Spirit that you cannot help praising! What God wants out of us He will put in. The secret of power for service is to go to Calvary and get rid of the obstacles to the outflow of the Spirit of God, and then ask God for the new life that will bring forth the new fruit.

Jessie Penn-Lewis cited in His Victorious Indwelling, ed., Nick Harrison (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998), 301.