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.
This quote is the start of understanding Calvinism vs Arminianism. Calvinist believe that God is gracious because He chooses any, Arminians believe that if He can choose any, He is evil if He passes over the reprobate.
It’s all how your perception is on the love of God.
Seth, Romans 9 comes to mind.
Very much so…
So does Genesis 6 and 8…hearts continually evil, yet God didn’t destroy man again in Gen 8…again…grace showing above wrath.
Seth, think also of God choosing Judah to be over all Israel when the man Judah was a scoundrel. At the same time God did not choose Joseph even though, in man’s eyes he was an outstanding person (he was). To man’s eyes this is backward and wrong. God chose Jacob over Esau even though Jacob as a swindler and did not walk by faith. Esau was totally bypassed by God and that before he was even born. To me it is totally amazing that God chose any of us. And I am grateful for His grace which is beyond amazing.
In Christ
Mike Ratliff
We agree with you both. Romans 9 is really a tough one that the arminians don’t like to read. The fact that God chose any of us is a miracal. He could of chose to wipe us all out but He didn’t. None of us deserve salvation. How do you describe in words just how thankful and eternally greatfull you are that He didn’t pass you by? I have never been able to come up with enough to express that one.
Amen Paul, neither have I.
He is one of my favorite preachers. God the Holy Spirit certainly taught him.
I think Ephesians 2:8-9 is a very good one. It explains something to me about being chosen. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is a gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no man can boast. After I learned that we are chosen I eventually read that and I figured we were chosen so we couldn’t claim we did anything because of the phrase, so no man can boast. You certainly lose are your judgmental thoughts.
I mean the thoughts of wondering why someone just can’t accept Jesus as their Saviour. Just pray and repent. Don’t do this and don’t do that. The morals watcher that I was. I got fooled because I sure fell into the pit of sin myself. Thanks to God I was pulled back out. So I am grateful to be chosen myself as I did nothing to deserve it. God is to good to me.
Uh oh, I just realized that I still do that! Only I just think it mostly. That isn’t nice and I need to have a talk to God about that don’t I?