As a former Catholic, I gave mental assent to the fact that Jesus is the Son of God and that He died for my sins. I readily believed that in my head. The fact was, I did not know Him. Its not the knowing about Him or the giving mental assent to abstract truths that save a man, its about actually “knowing,” Him. Trusting Him completely and surrendering your whole life to Him. This is a work of the heart, not of the head. You cannot know Jesus through your intellect, no more than you can know Napoleon. One is dead, the other is alive and must be met, this is a meeting of the heart.
Yet, by merely giving mental assent to a few sentences, can that possibly save? No, and it did not and does not. So how is it that it can have went unnoticed for so long. Most have hidden (admittedly unknowingly) in Romans chapter 7. To me, there are three broad categories of people that can be found dwelling in the world of Romans 7, the world of “oh wretched man that I am.” First there is the man who gave a mere mental assent to abstract truth and is still dead in his sins but does not know it and believes he is having a Romans 7 experience. This man never lost his life for the sake of Christ, was not willing to give up everything and put all of his trust in Jesus.
Second group is the genuine Christian who has taken up camp in Romans 7 and feels safer in his prison of sin, does not reckon himself to be free and looks to himself rather than Christ for his strength(began in the Spirit and is now attempting to finish in the flesh)When he looks at himself he only sees his sin.
Third group, the Christian that is passing through and onto Romans 8. He has struggled with his sin and thrashed and thrashed and is now about to reach desperation. He has rightly concluded that he has a sin nature and will eventually cry out”who will deliver me from this body of death?” This journey is vital for every Christian. For if we, at the beginning, have a head knowledge of the fact that we can never overcome sin, and therefore “sin boldly,’ relying on grace, then that grace is cheap grace and no grace at all.
But, if after having walked the narrow path we eventually come to the conclusion that we can never overcome sin, then we stop looking at ourselves and look to Jesus. It must be pointed out though, that when Paul is writing this, it is the writings of a man very sensitive to the Holy Spirit. What he describes in Romans 7 is not the path of a man who walked about sinning without a care.
The only person who can discover the truth of Romans 8 is the man that has struggled and failed. And when I say struggled, I am not talking about people who are going about murdering or sleeping around or drunks or people who were still in bondage to the sins of their life before Christ, I am talking about the people who , in Christ, overcame all of that and yet still came to the conclusion of the end of Romans 7. To them, lies the glorious freedom of Romans 8. And to them is still the requirement of “abiding continually,” to be intimate.
This intimacy, this presence is the key to all aspects of our Christianity. There is no difficulty in Christendom today that could not be resolved by the presence of God. That is why it all comes back to Calvary. Calvary is the expression of absolute Love, absolute surrender, absolute victory. It is the totality of the expression of God’s love for the world. To understand the cross and its meaning more deeply is to know God more deeply. That can be said in reverse and have the exact same meaning.To know God more deeply is to understand the cross on a deeper level. The more you understand the cross, the deeper you “know,” God, the less you care about yourself, your rights, your agenda and your circumstances.
For on the cross we see the highest expression of “not my will but thine be done.” To understand the cross more deeply is a revelation. To know God more deeply is a revelation, an encounter with the living God Himself. Revelation comes by the presence of God. Therefore all understanding of Spiritual things come by a revelation by the Holy Spirit, and can come no other way. It is impossible for the carnal mind to understand Spiritual things. So, without a revelation, without an encounter, all we have is a head knowledge.
To stand in the light of God, and be totally transparent and for the light of God to penetrate every particle of your being is something that truly defies description.
The English language, in all of its beauty, is at a loss to describe this. The mighty prophet of God cries out “Woe is me, for I am a man undone.” Now this sounds like a negative thing, but of course it is not, it is a penetrating thing. To come to this place we must pass the alter, and the alter is a place of sacrifice. Too long has the Church leaders called out “come forward and be blessed, come forward and get healed, come forward and be prayed for, come forward and get something. You dont get anything from the alter, you bring something, its a place of sacrifice. So, unless the Church as a whole understands this, they are destined to stay out in the courtyards and not enter into(past the alter) the inner sanctum. The courtyard is Cain’s court, this is the place where most of the soulish activity of the church takes place. Its not a bad thing if it leads you to the alter, but more often than not, it leads you deeper into the soul. The soulish experience belongs to the dwellers of of Romans 7, the Spiritual experience, the presence of God, belongs to those who will walk in Romans 8.
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