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 said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins. (John 8:24)
’nuff said.
I used to think that you could have a lot of pretty bizarre doctrine floating around, but this one point (the deity of Christ) was a painfully obvious given.
The cult of modern liberal theology decided to prove me wrong again. There are no bounds to their ludicrousness.
But since (according to them) we can deal with sin with the right mix of prayer and psychology, it’s okay that Jesus isn’t God.
It’s true — once you start redefining sin, you lose the compass that points you to the cross. You miss the whole point of the Gospel entirely. Who needs Jesus when Dr. Phil is on every evening?
Lord, let us never forget the terrible reality of sin — or the terrible price you paid to free us from it.
Amen Coram Deo!
Stephen,
Great analysis brother and amen — let us never forget the terrible reality of sin – or the terrible price you paid to free us from it.
In Christ
Mike Ratliff
Great quote. And as deception gets much more insidious and robed in false light, it is now demonstrably possible to check the doctrinal box about Christ’s deity but not actually believe and embrace it.
The doctrinal traditions of men sometimes drown the life giving substance in those same doctrines. He who denies the deity of Christ in all it forms and implications , including being the Creator of the universe, has been captured by the spiritof anti-christ. Those that don’t deny it but don’t believe it are just garden variety lost.
All Bible teachers when writing about the incarnation and the Incarnate One, must be expounding and revealing the infinite truths that not only surround our blessed Lord but are inherant in His Person. Any so called teacher that places the incarnation, as understood through the centuries, on the table of open dialogue, is a false teacher and is a wicked instrument of the devil. Do not engage him, rebuke him with all authority.
Amen Rick!
It’s hard to believe that people actually deny the deity of Christ and yet still claim to be Christians! In what do they hope?! Only God could pay the price that God demanded for our sins!