CONTINUOUS CONVERSION....?

EDIT: I've retitled this thread, and bumped it up, because the points which Oswald Chambers makes in this extract, are worth our deep consideration.... for all sorts of reasons....

The reason which strikes me most strongly, is the steady stream of threads in the Scriptures forum, about whether it is possible to stop [i]what WE call [/i] 'sinning' or not.

This ('sinning') doesn't seem to be the thrust of the following quotation, but, I submit that [i]obedience[/i] and the need for a consciousness of what flows from obedience (or lack of obedience), forms a large part of what OC is bringing to the front of our minds, here, with the aim of making us more conscientious about taking every opportunity to do what is right.

George Muller advised 'try not to sin'.... because, he points out, (my paraphrase), it takes the ground from under the enemy's feet.... One does not, then, have to spend time and energy fighting him (the enemy) off, or, in getting right with God... The strengths which would be thus dissipated, can be put straight into furthering God's kingdom.

'The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof' Psa 24:1.

Is the 'earth' of your body (the dust of the ground), your heart (parable of the sower), your [i]life[/i] being wholly possessed by God?

(Don't worry. I ask myself the same questions all the time.)

OK. Here's Oswald Chambers. [EDIT end]

December 28th.

CONTINUOUS CONVERSION

"Except ye be converted, and become as little children. . . ." Matthew 18:3

These words of Our Lord are true of our initial conversion, but we have to be continuously converted all the days of our lives, continually to turn to God as children. If we trust to our wits instead of to God, we produce consequences for which God will hold us responsible. Immediately our bodies are brought into new conditions by the providence of God, we have to see that our natural life obeys the dictates of the Spirit of God. [b]Because we have done it once is no proof that we shall do it again.[/b] The relation of the natural to the spiritual is one of continuous conversion, and it is the one thing we object to. In every setting in which we are put, the Spirit of God remains unchanged and His salvation unaltered, but we have to "put on the new man." God holds us responsible every time we refuse to convert ourselves, our reason for refusing is wilful obstinacy. Our natural life must not rule, God must rule in us.

The hindrance in our spiritual life is that we will not be continually converted, there are wadges of obstinacy where our pride spits at the throne of God and says - I won't. We deify independence and wilfulness and call them by the wrong name. What God looks on as obstinate weakness, we call strength. There are whole tracts of our lives which have not yet been brought into subjection, and it can only be done by this continuous conversion. Slowly but surely we can claim the whole territory for the Spirit of God.

I was looking for something else, which I haven't found yet, but it's so long since I read My Utmost for His Highest on a regular basis, that I'm just enjoying the stroll through this remarkable man's gift of expressing truth.

His description of 'continuous conversion' - particularly the idea that one act of obedience does not commit us [u]reliably[/u] to the next, (in conjunction with his other thoughts about not relying on feeling the wind of the Spirit before doing what we know we should, or have been inspired or commanded by the Lord), I think, years ago, I really [i][b]hadn't[/b][/i] grasped.

Recently, I was thinking about this from a different perspective..... simply.... the gospel I had heard seemed to suggest that once one was born again, one was floating along in a sea of willing compliance with all the Lord's heart.

Perhaps, if one is older, knows one's Bible and has been through a frustrating time of powerless Christian endeavour, that is genuinely how the baptism in the Spirit comes..... carrying one into a whole new world of victory on all fronts.

Certainly, that didn't happen to me. Long after I was born again I was a sitting duck because my expectations were so high but my actual 'life' was in bondage to past experience. Sigh.

That was until I heard the book of Joshua preached upon at a conference; then I began to understand what OC says here:

'There are whole tracts of our lives which have not yet been brought into subjection, and it can only be done by this continuous conversion. [b]Slowly but surely we [u]can[/u] claim the whole territory for the Spirit of God[/b].

Amen. :-D

Diane said;

We must repent, [b]not only of sin and unbelief, but also of faulty thinking and dead works[/b]. Now, let’s be honest, none of us accomplishes all that in one act of “repentance” It is a life long process!

I, too, have been meditating on the need for a new mind, and the apostle's words 'but we have the mind of Christ'.

It led me to think about Noah being 'shut in' to the Ark, by God. That took faith on Noah's part. Am I willing to climb into the safety of Christ, as he did in a figure?

I've edited the leading post, in the hope some of you who struggle with the idea it is possible to 'stop sinning', will take some hope from the Oswald Chambers quote in the leading post, as much as being realistic at how to view such progress...... that is, that it's a process..... not an instantaneous once and for all transaction in our experience.

In heaven, everything is settled, (Heb 10:14), but, on earth we come into the [i]good[/i] of what is settled in heaven, as we lay hold of it believingly, and put into practise the moment by moment obedience God speaks to our hearts. This is how we are [i][b]being[/i][/b] saved, day by day.