Before God led
me into the wilderness where I spent years learning at His feet, there was a
period of time where He lead me to a place where I surrendered all with no
reservation to Him. While my surrender was not perfect (I did not know it at
the time) but, to the extend I knew Him, I was all His. Over the years I
learned not only surrender is not a one shot deal, it is in fact a daily battle.
This in itself is a subject for few posts. My point is the complete surrender
was part of the months of preparation that He took me through so that I would
not die in the wilderness. I guess because I was so well prepared by His grace
to enter the wilderness with Him, I was able to wait in silence at His feet while
learning.
Through the waiting
process, I have gone through what He means by obedience through the eyes of the
Father, He taught me sufferings to the highest degree my soul could take. I
learned through Him what it means to be detached from the world, what it means
to be a soldier in His court and the true meaning of taking up my cross and
follow after Him. I was taught what it
means to have faith until I became as strong as an oak tree. I have been given a
great understanding of the true meaning of Salvation according to the Father’s
definition. He stripped away religion from my soul and made the Holy Spirit my
only religion. I was taught how to find His footsteps inwardly, He taught my
soul what it means to reach the state where you can say like Paul “for me to
live is Christ and to die is gain”. He showered me with gifts that I never thought
someone like me would possess. He taught me what He meant when He said our
righteousness has to surpass the Pharisee’s. Through the wilderness process He also worked
in me most of the Sermon on the Mount.
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| Happy Holidays! |
I am going to
stop there because while I waited in suffering and silence upon Him, with Him,
and for Him, I have learned so much that I need to put them in several books if
I am to share what He has done in my life. While I am very well aware my book
Apprehended & Apprehending along with the other books that I planned to
write, will not appeal to everyone. But, if I learned anything from the
spiritual growth series with J. C. Ryle that I just finished yesterday, as long
as you are the type of Christian who finds comfort and satisfaction in
comparing yourself to your neighbors, then you have no capacity to care about
what I have to say. And, if through my writings God is able to touch one or two
or ten people, to reach for a deeper Christianity in Him, even if it’s long after
I passed away, then I would have accomplished His will and purpose for my life.
I already
shared with you in one of my posts, where the Holy Spirit has shown me one day
how the Word of God in the Bible is alive and each iota in the Word is a full
Christ. That day I learned the truth that most Christians are spending so much time
to uncover, is no less than Him in His fullness. I shared with you all the
emotions I went through that day where all I could do after this revelation was
to walk back and forth with no aim because the revelation was too much and my
heart was ready to explode.
What I did not
fully share with you, is that the day He showed me the Word of God was the
truth, was really the end result of having spent years in the wilderness with
Him where He was able to work out Himself in me. Then after that experience He
showed me that I have found the truth, so now I am held at a higher standard for
it. Following God is a relationship, but believe me there is a process behind
it all. We repeat words like “God is a God of order” we miss out on the fact
that the Christian life comes also with an order that God meant to work out in
us.
We can spend a lifetime
studying to uncover the truth when in reality what we are doing is not better
than the Pharisees who studied so much they missed out on Christ. Sure, we need
to search for the truth, we need to be alert, and most of all we need to share
it with unbelievers in and outside the Church. But, the search takes on a whole
new meaning when He actually dwells in His fullness in us. Because we no longer
search for something that is outside of us, since He would have become part of
us. But, to get there, we need to also walk
with and in the truth, experience the truth, surrender to the truth, believing
the truth, trust the truth, live out the truth, and be one with the truth.
We need to let
the truth transform us, be willing to sacrifice all so the truth can move
freely in us. We need to live out the truth so much that the unbelievers can
see the truth in us. We need to be totally abandoned to the truth and live
purposely for His will and His truth. Failing these things, we can study till
He comes, and all of it will not amount to nothing unless we make the decision
to let Him enter our lives and move freely as He sees fit. Understand what I am
saying here, I am aware that there is nothing good in me, even at my best, when
I am at my highest with Him and I offer up my utmost to Him, I am still nothing
more than filthy rags. I do not deserve His grace, His cross, His suffering and
even for Him to give me a second look. So, I would be a complete idiot to take
credit for my wilderness walk with Him where I have seen Him who is invisible. It
is all a work of His grace.
My wish for you
who have been a Christian for decades, yet still feel you need one more study
to uncover the truth, just because you are not prepared to find out what is
underneath of it all. I pray instead of spending time searching for the truth,
you would decide to open your heart and let Him in because He is at the door,
waiting and willing to come in and teach you according to His Gospel what He
meant by it all. I pray that you stop being afraid of the narrow gate, and
enter it with Thanksgiving in your heart. As I explained in my book, the path
that leads to the wilderness is exactly behind the narrow gate. He took my left
hand in His right hand and led me there.
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| The Obedience Of Christ! |
The hesitation
you have that causes you to keep studying instead of truly receiving Him in His
fullness, says that you are in the same place those foolish Galatians were
which caused Paul to say in Galatians 4:19 “My dear children, for whom
I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you.” Paul
knew they were missing something, he knew they had to continue at a deeper
level to apprehend what Christ had apprehended them for. Christ had a goal, He
had a purpose and it was not for the Galatians or for you to keep living a half
truth. He wants to give you His fullness; He wants you to keep apprehending the
truth within you. You cannot keep apprehending the truth within, unless you learn
to live in oneness with Him where you abide like a branch and be fed by Him
like a helpless branch depending on the tree to remain alive.
All of it is
wrapped up in one thing, “His grace” the grace to receive the obedient heart
that Christ cultivated when He was here on earth. His obedience lead Him to the
cross. Don’t be afraid to go like a defenseless and stupid sheep because this
is exactly what it feels like. But, it is worth it. Go to Him with that attitude, because you want
to uncover the truth. Let Him show you behind the veil.
I will leave
you now with a few words that William Winslow wrote in 1849 about the truth.
What is
Truth? Momentous question! The anxious inquiry of every age, of every
Church, of every lip. Pilate knows it now. And he might have known it
when the question first fell from his trembling lips- for ETERNAL and ESSENTIAL
TRUTH stood as a criminal at his bar! But summon the witnesses, and they shall
testify what is truth. Ask the devils who beheld His miracles and
quailed beneath His power and they will answer- "It is Jesus, the Son of
God Most High." Ask the angels who beheld His advent and announced
His birth, and they will answer- "It is the Savior, who is Christ the
Lord." Ask His enemies who nailed Him to the tree, and they will
answer- "Truly it is the Son of God!" Ask His disciples who
were admitted to His confidence, and who leaned upon His bosom, and they will
answer, "We believe and are sure that it is Christ, the Son of the living
God." Ask the Father, testifying from the 'secret place of thunder,'
and He will answer- "It is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."
Summon witnesses from the inanimate world. Ask the water blushing into
wine- ask the sea calmed by a word- ask the earth trembling upon its axis- ask
the rocks rent asunder- ask the sun veiled in darkness- ask the heavens robed
in mourning- ask all nature agonized and convulsed, as He hung upon the tree-
and all, as with one voice, will exclaim- Jesus is TRUTH.
Happy are they,
who, through the teaching of the Holy Spirit, receive Jesus into
their hearts as the truth- believe in Him as the
truth- walk in Him as the truth, and who, under the sanctifying
influence of the truth, are employing their holiest energies in
making Him known to others as "the way, the truth, and the life"
-thus, like their Lord, "bearing witness unto the truth."
In the Lord
Jesus, then, as the head of the new-covenant dispensation, "Grace and
Truth " essentially and exclusively dwell; and sitting at His feet, each
sincere, humble disciple may receive grace out of His fullness and be taught the
truth from His lips. "The law was given by Moses, but GRACE and TRUTH came
by Jesus Christ."
To encourage
the 'house of Jacob to possess their possessions,' is the lowly design of these
pages. Should their perusal stimulate the Christian reader to seek an increase
of grace from Christ, - impart to him clearer unfolding of Jesus as the truth,
or lead him into deeper, more comforting and sanctifying views of the 'truth as
it is in Jesus,' -let him, in return, pray for the unworthy writer as greatly
needing and desiring in his own soul a larger measure of these precious things.
And all the glory shall be ascribed to the TRIUNE GOD, to whom exclusively and
most justly it is due.
Please feel free to send an email to "obedience at intothyword.us" and you will receive a link right back to download Andrew Murray "The School Of Obedience"
