by G. D. Watson
If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. Matthew 16:24-25
If God has called you to be truly like Jesus in all your spirit, He will draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility. He will put on you such demands of obedience that you will not be allowed to follow other Christians. In many ways, He seems to let other good people do things which He will not let you do.
Others who seem to be very religious and useful may push themselves, pull wires, and scheme to carry out their plans, but you cannot. If you attempt it, you will meet with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you sorely penitent.
Others can brag about themselves, their work, their successes, their writings, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing. If you begin to do so, He will lead you into some deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good works.
Others will be allowed to succeed in making great sums of money, or having a legacy left to them, or in having luxuries, but God may supply you only on a day-to-day basis, because He wants you to have something far better than gold, a helpless dependence on Him and His unseen treasury.
The Lord may let others be honored and put forward while keeping you hidden in obscurity because He wants to produce some choice, fragrant fruit for His coming glory, which can only be produced in the shade.
God may let others be great, but keep you small. He will let others do a work for Him and get the credit, but He will make you work and toil without knowing how much you are doing. Then, to make your work still more precious, He will let others get the credit for the work which you have done; this to teach you the message of the Cross, humility, and something of the value of being cloaked with His nature.
The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch on you, and with a jealous love rebuke you for careless words and feelings, or for wasting your time, which other Christians never seem distressed over.
So make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign and has a right to do as He pleases with His own, and that He may not explain to you a thousand things which may puzzle your reason in His dealings with you.
God will take you at your word. If you absolutely sell yourself to be His slave, He will wrap you up in a jealous love and let other people say and do many things that you cannot. Settle it forever; you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit, He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue or chaining your hand or closing your eyes in ways which others are not dealt with. However, know this great secret of the Kingdom: When you are so completely possessed with the Living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit over your life, you will have found the vestibule of heaven, the high calling of God.
What can I say? Paul did mark one of the signs of a reprobate mind was the desire to elevate the creature above the creator. By re-writing the gospel to conform to man, they are in fact elevating man above God.
Now, I do believe some can fall into this deception and be actual believers. But the subjective witness of the spirit, along with the word of God, ought to make such an individual one of the most unhappy Christians alive. For these others, I do not embrace them all as brothers.
Again, what can I really say?
-Mike
Thank you Mike for posting this article. It is a hard-hitting article. Trusting that the LORD will accomplish the work HE has ordained through the faithful work of both you and Pastor Ken.
Mike Young,
Exactly. God is sovereign. He is actively calling His remnant out of deception into pure worship and service. Those who are deceived and will not repent then…what can I really say?
Good comment.
Mike Ratliff
Kim T,
You are very welcome. Yes, we must simply trust Him and not devolve into despair over the sorry condition of the so-called christians who refuse to repent of their humanistic christianity. Sometimes I feel like a voice crying in the wilderness. God is the one drawing His people to the truth. We must be ready to give it to them.
In Christ
Mike Ratliff
I stumbled on your site a few weeks ago and I read it every morning. Normally I read the Word along with MacArthur, Weirsby and others. Now yours. What a blessing. Thank you. By the way you are a voice crying in the wilderness but you aren’t the only one.
God bless.
I am new! What happened to part 7 and so on? You are going to the end of the book arn’t you?
Kim,
At the time I finished part 6 back in 2006 when I was working on this, I became very busy working on other things that God brought to the forefront. I have never got back to it because of the effort it takes to write for this blog each evening. However, I will continue to pray and seek God’s will in this.
In Christ
Mike Ratliff
That’s enough for brother. You are a real blessing for sure.