This is a thought I drafted last year. The Lord brought it to me today after drafting another thought. I feel led to share it now.
Immanuel Sun - 09.26.2021
This morning, I had a very disconcerting dream. In it, a wonderful young sister took personal offense at Brother Tim when he openly shared the need for a follower of Jesus Christ to learn to be rid of the old tendencies or rather the temperament of our human soul. (In essence, the old soul can never be the driving force of one’s life. If left alone, it will eventually wreck our spiritual walk and cause much damage to the very people we love. )
At that, she took it as a personal criticism and walked out of the fellowship in anger. The husband, without proper discernment, sided with her. It was a difficult thing to witness, especially when seeing so many beautiful hearts were deeply hurt by it and the confusion that it caused to the innocent children.
At that, the Lord urged me to engage head-on with this scheme of the devil by sharing a few thoughts. My hope is that somehow, He will bring grace to it and that it will be useful to spare us from such troubles of our soul and our life.
—-
The refusal to allow one’s self to be further “sanctified”, or to bring death to our soul (old self), can cause grave damage to our walk in God, and thereby, our relationships with others. Paul spoke of the shipwrecking of one’s faith, something that caused much pain to him and great damage to his ministry.
It is almost “comical” and it is enlightening to witness that people of the world and many saints work very hard to grow in “love” and try their best to love others so as to gain other’s love, only to be dismayed at the results of such a noble effort. The reasons are many. A few can easily be identified. Yet like weeds in life, they are hard to get rid of in the field of the human heart, which is the current condition of the day within the culture of man:
1. Self-pity or self-justification is not love unto oneself. Everyone knows this as an obvious truth. But we do just that to ourselves, consciously or unconsciously knowing that such a love is not from God. It is, like it or not, from our old soul. And this old soul is, more often than we like, informed and controlled by our adversary, the devil. No wonder Brother Oswald Chambers observed that ”self-pity is of the devil”.
2. To love someone else before ourselves or as unto ourselves is hardly the product of our natural affections, as beautiful as they can be. Quite the opposite, true love for others can only be produced by a willing heart with an enlightened understanding of God’s will and ways for others and our “approved” roles from Him for them. That is His ”other-worldly” love in action and in practice through our living obedience, and via the sacrifice of our old self to that end. Put to death (burn into ashes like a slaughtered sheep on the altar) the ”natural” self, and be transformed or born (raised to life) anew into the spiritual self. Only spiritual death, and with it the end of the power of the old soul, leads to spiritual life, with it the activation of the wisdom of the mind of Christ (the approved life of Sonship in God) and then love from the heart of God the Father.
The Love of God is very conditional. If it is conditional to John the Baptist and the great prophets before him, to Peter and John, even to Paul who had to learn the way of Sonship with strenuous devotion and “unconditional” obedience, then we have to be humble enough to know that we are very limited in the knowledge of this love, and are in great need to learn this love. (John 15, Eph. 1-3, Rom. 7-8)
3. Continuing to refuse to properly yield to the dealing of God to old self is proof of the lack of the love of God in us. It is deadly contagious, like a virus, to the culture of Godly love (1 John). Even more dangerous is that it makes us at enmity with God and thereby an enemy to the very people God positioned and graced us to love, spiritually speaking of course (Romans 5-6). We damage others by our un-learned way of love. Is this not the common experience of mankind?
What is the lesson then? Plain and simple, the soul is the altar and self-love is the ark of the “religion of self”. From the beginning this seed of evil was sown and its thorns and thistles are well alive in us and among us today.
In order to illustrate this, allow me to offer an example. When we say others just don’t ”understand” ME. That is a very common way to vent out our frustrations in dealing with unsavory relationships or situations.
However, we need to be extremely aware not to assume that is the case. Make sure to prayerfully give it a serious evaluation. What if our impression or conclusion is wrong? What if they understand and see us in ways we can’t see ourselves? What if they are the messenger of God to reveal our true problem or true condition in life? What if they hold the key or the grace to God’s solution for our life? What if we are so blurred, or blinded, or pridefully stubborn that we have lost the art to hear others clearly and heed other’s counsel gladly? What if I am a Nathaniel and they the Lord Himself, who is opening a door for me to dwell in the house of God and I am refusing His invitation because to us they are just another man from my hometown, a familiar figure in the familiar circle of my life, a regular folk from North, South, West or East? What if when we think like a mere man, we act like no child of God at all, and God will have no option but to treat us as a mere man. And if God Himself can’t have a better choice with us, what would we expect others to do? To understand us like God and treat us like Jesus? What if He is doing just that and we don’t like it and, like a fish on a hook or a young horse under the rein, fight against his every move to draw us closer to Him? What if our daughter is the hook and our friend the rein, and our unrestrained life is coming to an end? What if he is calling us to be a Peter or a Paul, or a Mary? What if he is not content that we ourselves learn to give up and He needs us to help others to give IT up? What if I am called to be more than a teacher of death to self, but He eagerly desires for everyone to be a teacher of life in Him? To feed His sheep?
“Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.”
John 21:18 NIV
And even if it is the case, do not blame others for their inability to understand us, rather use it as an opportunity to learn how to communicate in love and in wisdom. If God can refute a false prophet with the voice of a donkey, or humble a righteous king through the anger of a frenzied man who was so mad at him that he had to speak curses and cast dirt, then why would I assume God has to speak to me in ”godly ways”? Do I deserve His ”gentle voice” as Elijah did? Do I respect His revelation as Daniel and Paul did? Do I ”fear and tremble” at His words? And if I don’t, why should I expect God and others to understand and treat me ”fairly” and ”properly”? Am I not ”a sinner”? A rebel from birth? A vain-glory by holding unto the pride of an alienated self from God? An enemy of God and a friend to the Devil?
Even if I am unfairly misunderstood, unscrupulously and unjustly treated by others or by life in general, is God a heaven away and an age afar? Is He not even closer to the broken-hearted and the poor in spirit? Am I not more blessed than those with an easy life and unworried soul? Would bliss on earth be the highlight of my passion and the hope of glory, leaving the joy of eternity as but an echo of my cluttered and distanced soul?
To practice love, we have to know what love is and what are the ways of love. Love is a verb, and not a lofty notion, a poetic emotion or an intellectual elevation. And most importantly, it is not a relational commotion. This kind of love starts with a ”love” for the new and true self in God as a son of God. And so is it ordered, it is to be practiced and perfected by loving others as ”unto our self”, not the old one with all the whims and appeals, but the new self, who follows the teaching of Jesus, making leaps and bounds on the journey thru the valley of death unto the mountain top of the feast of victory, the fellowship of love, the throne of righteousness, the kingdom of peace, the life of power and glory, and an age of universal happiness and joy in the Father and in the Son, on earth as it is in heaven, now and for eternity.
In essence, what does it take for us to be sanctified by God to become this Church, the pure bride of Christ (partners of a covenant life)? By the washing of the Word of God. That is, by the genuine and undiluted ways of discipleship in the life of Sonship. There is no other way. It starts with teaching us how to truly die.
Now may the Lord bless us and keep us and make His face shine upon us, that we are rather not freely happy, but happily free, to enjoy the new life in Him by growing, in ”increasing measures”, a new self in us.