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.
I guess “I don’t believe it so it doesn’t exist for me” isn’t just our modern way of thinking, but was in Spurgeon’s day also. I hear so many people say they don’t believe in hell, and they act as though that solves their problem of going there. Ignorance might be bliss here on earth (not really) but it certainly won’t be there after. I praise Him for His mercy toward me that He opened my eyes and then gave me a new heart to receive Him with!
Sarah,
There is nothing new under the Sun. You are Spirit-led, therefore you see. Those who don’t see are Soul-led or led by their flesh. Where would we be without God intervening into our lives?
In Christ
Mike Ratliff
Mike:
One of the most dangerous lies circling among professing believers is the distortion of the doctrine of hell. I grew up a Mormon and in essence they deny the doctrine of hell and any concept of eternal damnation. I pray that the true Christian church wakes up and realizes that myriads are headed for a Christless eternity. May we be so bold as to warn them!
Blessed are you Wendy, because God has placed that burden on your heart. Yes, we must be very bold in warning them all.
In Christ
Mike Ratliff
Man believes he is more compassionate than Jehovah Himself. But man’s compassion is carnal and based upon His own feelings when God’s compassion is based upon His infinite mercy.
One day it will all come to light that not only was God just in punishing unregenerate man, He will be revealed as more merciful than we could have ever inagined. Praise His Name!!
Rick,
Yes, praise His Name! Those who are under the spell of God is Love, Love, Love and that overrides everything else, are in bondage to a false Gospel.
In Christ
Mike Ratliff
Mike…
I guess as we age and mature in our faith we find many things that are “obvious” in the Scriptures and ask, “how did I not see this before?”
God’s timing is perfect…and so is His Holy Spirit’s revelation. Sometimes hard to swallow when we see friends and family not believe in the same doctrines that we hold so dear, and we ask, “how can they not see this?” May we truly rely on God’s grace and timing and not our own, and also know that we too have these “hidden” errors in our theology and bow our knees at the cross where all our wisdom flows…
Thanks for your blog…it has become a new stop for myself.
Thanks Seth!