Posted on 02/18/2015 5:01:02 AM PST by metmom
THE COMPLACENCY of CHRISTIANS is the scandal of Christianity.
Time is short, and eternity is long. The end of all things is at hand. Man has proved himself morally unfit to manage the world in which he has been placed by the kindness of the Almighty. He has jockeyed himself to the edge of the crater and cannot go back, and in terrible fear he is holding his breath against the awful moment when he will be plunged into the inferno.
In the meantime, a company of people exist on the earth who claim to have the answer to all life's major questions. They claim to have found the way back to God, release from their sins, life everlasting and a sure guarantee of heaven in the world to come.
These are the Christians. They declare that Jesus Christ is very God of very God, made flesh to dwell among us. Thy insist that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. They testify that He is to them Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification and Redemption, and they steadfastly assert that He will be to them the Resurrection and the Life for eternity to come.
These Christians know, and when pressed will admit, that their finite hearts have explored but a pitifully small part of the infinite riches that are theirs in Christ Jesus. They read the lives of the great saints whose fervent desire after God carried them far up the mountain toward spiritual perfection; and for a brief moment they may yearn to be like these fiery souls whose light and fragrance still linger in the world where they once lived and labored. But the longing soon passes. The world is too much with them and the claims of their earthly lives are too insistent; so they settle back to live their ordinary lives, and accept the customary as normal. After a while they manage to achieve some kind of inner content and that is the last we hear of them.
This contentment with inadequate and imperfect progress in the life of holiness is, I repeat, a scandal in the Church of the Firstborn. The whole weight of Scripture is against such a thing. The Holy Spirit constantly seeks to arouse the complacent. "Let us go on" is the word of the Spirit. The Apostle Paul embodies this in his noble testimony as found in his Philippian epistle: "But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ . . . that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection . . . but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."
If we accept this as the sincere expression of a normal Christian I do not see how we can justify our own indifference toward spiritual things. But should someone feel a desire to make definite progress in the life of Christ, what can he do to get on with it? Here are a few suggestions:
1. Strive to get beyond mere pensive longing. Set your face like a flint and begin to put your life in order. Every man is as holy as he really wants to be. But the want must be all-compelling.
Tie up the loose ends of your life. Begin to tithe; institute family prayer; pay up your debts as far as possible and make some kind of frank arrangement with every creditor you cannot pay immediately; make restitution as far as you can; set aside time to pray and search the Scriptures; surrender wholly to the will of God. You will be surprised and delighted with the results.
2. Put away every un-Christian habit from you. If other Christians practice it without compunction, God may be calling you to come nearer to Him than these other Christians care to come. Remember the words, "Others may, you cannot." Do not condemn or criticize, but seek a better way. God will honor you.
3. Get Christ Himself in the focus of your heart and keep Him there continually. Only in Christ will you find complete fulfillment. In Him you may be united to the Godhead in conscious, vital awareness. Remember that all of God is accessible to you through Christ. Cultivate His knowledge above everything else on earth.
4. Throw your heart open to the Holy Spirit and invite Him to fill you. He will do it. Let no one interpret the Scriptures for you in such a way as to rule out the Father's gift of the Spirit. Every man is as full of the Spirit as he wants to be. Make your heart a vacuum and the Spirit will rush in to fill it.
Nowhere in the Scriptures nor in Christian biography was anyone ever filled with the Spirit who did not know that he had been, and nowhere was anyone filled who did not know when. And no one was ever filled gradually.
5. Be hard on yourself and easy on others. Carry your own cross but never lay one on the back of another. Begin to practice the presence of God. Cultivate the fellowship of the Triune God by prayer, humility, obedience and self-abnegation.
Let any Christian do these things and he will make rapid spiritual progress. There is every reason why we should all go forward in our Christian lives and no reason why we should not. Let us go on.
Man: The Dwelling Place of God – Chapter 1
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/3242797/posts
The Call of Christ – Chapter 2
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/3244492/posts
What We Think of Ourselves is Important – Chapter 3
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/3246397/posts
The Once-born and the Twice-born - Chapter 4
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3247452/posts
On the Origin and Nature of Things-Chapter 5
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3250352/posts
Why People Find the Bible Difficult - Chapter 6
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3253131/posts
Faith: The Misunderstood Doctrine - Chapter 7
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3255583/posts
True Religion Is Not Feeling but Willing - Chapter 8
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3257460/posts
The word to me this morning. Thank you for posting.
2 Peter 1 Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition (DRA)
1 Simon Peter, servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained equal faith with us in the justice of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ.
2 Grace to you and peace be accomplished in the knowledge of God and of Christ Jesus our Lord:
3 As all things of his divine power which appertain to life and godliness, are given us, through the knowledge of him who hath called us by his own proper glory and virtue.
4 By whom he hath given us most great and precious promises: that by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature: flying the corruption of that concupiscence which is in the world.
5 And you, employing all care, minister in your faith, virtue; and in virtue, knowledge;
6 And in knowledge, abstinence; and in abstinence, patience; and in patience, godliness;
7 And in godliness, love of brotherhood; and in love of brotherhood, charity.
8 For if these things be with you and abound, they will make you to be neither empty nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
9 For he that hath not these things with him, is blind, and groping, having forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.
Good one!
Tozer - one of the great spiritual leaders of the last generation.
I think that statement causes a lot of misunderstanding. I think that for many the realization of the Holy Spirit is in fact a gradual thing. Some of those think that because they didn't completely change in an instant that they actually are not filled with the Holy Spirit and doubt takes control. The affects of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the realization of that indwelling is often a gradual thing.
There is a lot of confusion and opinions about what the filling of the Holy Spirit is and what it should look like or manifest as.
There’s not even consistency in terminology.
Some people say you are baptized into the Holy Spirit when you are saved, and filled later.
Others say you are filled initially upon salvation but baptized later.
I think they’re talking past each other, meaning the same thing but not expressing it clearly.
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