The Glorious Deeds of Christ

God is Love and Holiness

Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church.

Eph. 4:15 NLT

We tend to cast God in our own image. We can only experience one thought, one feeling, or carry out one act at a time (Psalm 121). We often assume that since we are limited than God must be so constrained. However, God can be merciful and holy at the same time (Exodus 34:6-7). He can be gracious and righteous simultaneously. The Lord can be loving and performing judgment in the same act.

Believers, and non-Christians, tend to emphasize one character attribute of God over and against his other qualities. We focus on love while ignoring to need to walk in the Spirit and obey the clear dictates of scripture (Gal. 5:16). Or, we emphasize the commands of God without acknowledging the Lord’s graciousness that enables us to obey. However, this either/or kind of Christian is a false dichotomy. Love without compassion or righteousness without mercy are not our only choices.

As Christ lives in us, we trust his Holy Spirit to make Christ known in and through us. As we keep in step with the Spirit (Gal. 5:24-25), we will understand when to have compassion on the hurting and when to take a stand on God’s law. As believers, there is no need to compromise Christian conviction and no requirement to be hard hearted enforcers of God’s law. We can act in love and holiness at the same time because a loving and holy God lives in us (John 16:12-14).

If we stress the love of God without the holiness of God, it turns out only to be compromise. But if we stress the holiness of God without the love of God, we practice something that is hard and lacks beauty. And it is important to show forth beauty before a lost world and a lost generation. All too often young people have not been wrong in saying that the church is ugly. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ we are called upon to show to a watching world and to our own young people that the church is something beautiful.

Several years ago I wrestled with the question of what was wrong with much of the church that stood for purity. I came to the conclusion that in the flesh we can stress purity without love or we can stress the love of God without purity, but that in the flesh we cannot stress both simultaneously. In order to exhibit both simultaneously, we must look moment by moment to the work of Christ, to the work of the Holy Spirit. Spirituality begins to have real meaning in our moment-by-moment lives as we begin to exhibit simultaneously the holiness of God and the love of God.

Francis A. Schaeffer, The Church before the Watching World (Downers Grove, 1971), 63.

HT: Ray Ortlund

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.

Spirit-Filled Souls Are Sanctified Souls

But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.

Romans 6:22

This is the will of God, even your sanctification.

1 Thessalonians 4:3

Sanctification is a work of the Holy Spirit which delivers us from the control and influence of sin and transforms us into the likeness of Jesus Christ. God takes worldly thinking, fleshly habits, and unrighteousness behavior and convicts us of our wrongful thoughts, breaks our selfish patterns, and transforms our sinful actions through the Word of God, sacraments, prayer, circumstances, and Spirit-filled worship.

Sanctification is the progressive work of the Holy Spirit which creates Spirit-filled souls. He removes sinful imperfections as we are daily enabled to put off the bondages of sin and put on the life of Christ. Walking in the Spirit is actively attained for it involves continuous choices of faith and obedience. We passively receive the empowering of the Holy Spirit, but we purposely choose to appropriate his power for victory over the world, the flesh, sin, death, and the devil.

Fire is the chosen symbol of Heaven for moral passion. It is emotion aflame. God is love; God is fire. The two are one. The Holy Spirit baptizes in fire. Spirit-filled souls are ablaze for God. They love with a love that glows. They believe with a faith that kindles. They serve with a devotion that consumes. They hate sin with a fierceness that burns. They rejoice with a joy that radiates. Love is perfected in the Fire of God. Nothing can separate us from the love of God (Acts 2:1-4).

Samuel Chadwick, The Way of Pentecost (Berne, Indiana: Light and Hope, 1937), 21.

HT: Holiness Data Ministry

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.

On Seeking and Finding God

As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?

Psalm 42:1-2

Seeking God is being a true mystic. A mystic is someone who has a deep internal hunger for the Lord Jesus Christ. A mystic’s life is ruled by seeking, loving, and worshiping Jesus Christ alone. He or she enjoys the peace that comes in resting in the arms of the Abba Father of Jesus. They are able to receive the mercy, forgiveness, grace and reconciliation granted them by the finished work of Christ on the Cross. Their hearts are surrendered to the Word made flesh and they will follow the Lamb wherever he goes. They accept the acceptance by which they have been accepted in Christ.

Prayers of St. Anselm:

Up now, slight man! flee, for a little while, your occupations; hide yourself, for a time, from your disturbing thoughts. Cast aside, now, your burdensome cares, and put away your toilsome business. Yield room for some little time to God; and rest for a little time in him. Enter the inner chamber of your mind; shut out all thoughts save that of God, and such as can aid you in seeking him; close your door and seek him.

St. Anselm, Proslogion, prologue.

Be it mine to look up to your light, O Lord, even from afar, even from the depths. Teach me to seek you, and reveal yourself to me, when I seek you, for I cannot seek you, except you teach me, nor find you, except you reveal yourself. Let me seek you in longing, let me long for you in seeking; let me find you in love, and love you in finding. Amen.

St. Anselm, Proslogion, prologue.

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.

No Mechanical Solutions to the Christian Life

And this is the eternal life, that they should know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.

John 17:3

Twenty years ago, I read True Spirituality by Francis Schaeffer and there found a friend and a true spiritual guide. Schaeffer’s book taught me that the effects of this fallen world are still with us and will continue to be with us till the Second Coming of Christ. Perfection in personal holiness, absence of trials and troubles, and faultless behavior from others cannot be expected this side of eternity. Substantial healing in this life can occur, but pre-Fall conditions cannot be anticipated until we see Christ arriving in the glory clouds.

What does this doctrinal truth of the Fall do for us?  Understanding the problems created by the Fall properly frees us from personal perfectionism, unreasonable expectations of others, and unrealistic standards. This side of heaven, we expect to experience struggles, disappointments, and shortcomings. With the effect of the Fall acknowledged, we are freed to enjoy Jesus. We can trust him with the up’s and down’s of life without bitterness, anger, and resentment.

We wait for the resurrection of the body. We wait for the perfect application of the finished work of Christ for the whole of man. We wait for this, but on this side of the Fall, and before Christ comes, we must not insist on “perfection or nothing,” or we will end with “nothing.” And this is as true in the area of psychological problems as it is in all other areas of life (p. 136).

Second, Schaeffer taught me that walking with Jesus is not a formula. The Christian life is on-going, intimate, personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Schaeffer taught that a relationship with Jesus is not about taking orders, but is a love relationship with the one who loves you most (John 15:15). True spirituality is not a hyper-spirituality: both feet are planted firmly on earth while looking to Christ who is seated at the right hand of the Father (Col. 3:1-4).

The Christian life, true spirituality, can never have a mechanical solution. The real solution is being cast up into moment-by-moment communion, personal communion, with God himself, and letting Christ’s truth flow through me through the agency of the Holy Spirit (p.88).

Last, victory over sin is possible in this life while admitting that moral perfection is not obtainable till the next life. Victory over sin is not achieved by our own power. We stand trusting Christ’s finished work on the Cross as our victory over the values of the world, the temptations of the flesh, and the wiles of Satan. We are empowered by the Holy Spirit to say,”no,” to ungodliness and we are strengthened by grace to say, “yes,” to righteousness (Titus 2:11-12).

True spirituality is not achieved in our own energy. . . . It is not that I disappear. I am very much in existence. However, as finite and marked by the Fall, I cannot do the Lord’s work in the lost abnormal, broken world in my own energy, my own cleverness, my own persistence, “charisma,” my own spiritual gifts and so on. I am there, but I must not count on these things as the source of power. Consciously, the power must not be of myself. It is the power of the crucified, risen, and glorified Christ, through the agency of the Holy Spirit, by faith (p. 253).

Francis A. Schaeffer, True Spirituality (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1971).

Contentment is Learned Not Instantaneously Acquired

Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.

Phil. 4:11-12

Contentment is satisfaction in God himself. We don’t care whether life is the way we want it as long as we have his presence, joy, and love. Nothing the world offers compares with the satisfaction we have in Christ. Contentment is finding our needs met in God’s love and our sufficiency fulfilled in God’s adequacy (Phil 4:11; 1 Tim. 6:6; Heb. 13:5). We are able to experience joy while being fulfilled with the necessities of life that the Lord has provided. Contentment is developed over time: its is not an instant virtue. Contentment is obtained through trusting Christ and a willingness to live without the world’s passing fashions. Contentment is obtained by trusting God’s will, submitting to his appointments (even if they are disappointments), and drawing our strength from Christ (Phil. 4:13).

Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God’s wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.

Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment (Reprint; Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1964), 19.

HT: Redeemer Blogs

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.