Tozer said
[b]that it may work for us in promoting and furthering [u]our kind of Christianity[/u][/b].
When I read this, I chuckled... that kind of nervous chortle which spins into self-examinaton mode, to check whether I'm guilty of the same... :-?
Also, it reminded me of this excerpt from DeVern Fromke's book "The Ultimate Intention", [1963], which was posted elsewhere on SI recently.
[color=006699]THE IMPORTANT KEY
Many times in the past forty years of ministering in Bible conferences, folk have confessed to me, “We have tried to make the truth of identification with Christ in death and resurrection real in our lives. Yet in spite of all our knowing, reckoning and yielding, it hasn’t seemed to bring reality. It has not brought the victory and blessing which we sought.”
As I listen the problem becomes evident. Their very words reveal it. Without realizing the truth, these people are far more concerned for themselves than for Him. They are far more alive to what they want God to do for them, than what they might become unto Him, if they could, they would use God and the work of the Cross for their own ends. Here is the source of their trouble!
The Cross is not the threshold to selfish attainment, but a terminal to selfishness. Many would use it for themselves, but God has designed that it should bring men wholly unto Him.
Even among those who continually attend deeper life conferences and retreats, we find many who have fallen victim of this vicious snare. After years and years of reckoning on more knowledge and deeper teaching, they are still camping around their old self-center— getting all God has for me, possessing all my possessions appropriating all my inheritance in Christ.
Oh! May God strip the veneer and shatter every attempt at using the Cross, instead of dying on the Cross. Hidden behind most begging and pleading for God to give victory is the secret concern for ourselves—not Himself. God will not condone this self centeredness. How many years I taught the truths of Romans six and counseled with those who were in defeat and bondage before I found this key—In His death I am to become “alive unto God!” As long as a believer’s primary concern is to get victory or deliverance for himself; subtlety it means that he continues to live unto self. Four times in four verses in Romans six, God emphasizes that the key is living unto God:
• V. 10— “... liveth unto God”
• V. 11— “... alive unto God.”
• V. 13— “... yield yourselves unto God.”
• V. 13— ... as instruments unto God.
What does God intend this to mean in actual practice? Simply that the primary thing He will realize through the Cross is to change man’s old center and purpose of living and bring him unto Himself and His ultimate intention. Here is a Bible principle—when we seek Him first, then all these things will be added. The very moment one becomes alive unto God, the door has opened for Him to accomplish victory and full deliverance.
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If self-aggrandisement is held up in churches as a sign of God's blessing and the [i]increasing[/i] spiritual status of the status-seeker, then this lie will re-direct the aspirations of those to whom this display comes as an 'example'.
Perhaps this glitch in Christian thinking finds its root in our secret belief that each of us is an exception... that while others may need the cross, 'I' am somehow excused from it's full implications..... 'because.... [add your own 'exception' here] or - even more deceptively - 'just because...' [No need to put an exception here: [u]I'm[/u] 'different'.]
Let me qualify my last two paragraphs this way.
The fact is, we are [i][b]all[/i][/b] 'different', and yet we are all under the same fog created by sin and its sicknesses, to which the cross is the where God wrought [u]our healing[/u] - to bring us into a normality of human existence - spiritual, mental and physical health - we cannot have [u]any other way[/u].
It [u]requires[/u] our total abandonment to it, or simply, it [i][b]cannot[/b][/i] [u]work[/u].
I'm realising more and more that the explanation of overwhelming struggles in my earlier Christian life, were because humanly, I couldn't 'bear' the answer in its outworking, in one single event, and God knew that. I was [i]far[/i] from understanding His mind and how this all worked, but, still He gave me His Spirit to bring me into that finished work, and [i]then[/i] He walked with me until I was healed enough to begin to embrace His death willingly... which is where I still am. It is only as we recognise our idols and put them away - divorce them - that we increasingly worship Him in spirit and in truth. It is His grace, and one of the miracles of faith, that He receives us on the merits of Christ's death, long before we have any real idea what we are trying to do or doing.
Only now - like this morning - I woke up and found myself thanking God that He hadn't come yet... that I hadn't woken to find Him executing His wrath on unbelievers, and that despite my best protestations of love for Him, I had somehow failed to really [i][b]know[/i][/b] Him.
May God continue to save us into His will, daily, that dying daily, we may begin to be that sweet-smelling savour in His nostrils.
Having used the pronouns 'us' and 'we' let 'us' not forget that 'we' opt into this death, one by one as individuals, and [i]there[/i] we fellowship.
