Christianity Oasis Forum

[Netchaplain]

No man could have a better moral and religious record than Job in the Old Testament and Paul in the New; but both these men were brought into the presence of God (e.g. He spoke to both—NC), and each one found that his best bit was corrupt; and it was not just God’s estimate but their own estimate of themselves in God’s presence. Job cried, “I abhor myself” (Job 42:6); and Paul states, “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing” (Rom 7:18). If you have learned to abhor yourself (in my opinion this is in reference to the old man—NC), you will easily understand that if you are to be before the Father “holy and without blame” (Eph 1:4) and in divine acceptance, it must be on the ground that you are in the acceptance of another man.

Now I ask, “Is there another man? One who has been to the Cross to take up the whole question of sin and its consequences, and to maintain in connection therewith everything that is due to the glory of God. As you think of Him in His life, death and ascension in glory, are you not delighted to think of standing in the acceptance of that Man? Now, through God’s rich grace, knowing the Lord Jesus as our Savior, we enter by the Holy Spirit into the joy of this new position. Our Father has set us before Him in the acceptance and beauty of the One in whom He has found all His delight, and has given us His Spirit that we might rest in that acceptance.

You may ask, then, has God simply ignored our sinful condition as children of Adam in giving us this wondrous acceptance? No, that sinful state which has cost you so much grief and struggle—which you have not been able to ignore—has been fully taken into account by God, and dealt with to His perfect satisfaction. It has been brought before Him at the Cross, and has received its full and righteous condemnation there. “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh (sin nature, not the physical body which for the believer is holy – 1Co 3:16, 17; 6:19—NC), God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom 8:3).

Is that living Person now in heavenly glory really the Object of your heart? For some time after I knew the Savior I used to think of Him as One who had lived and died on earth long years ago, and I well remember the day when I knelt down with a dear brother who prayed that we might know the Lord Jesus as a living Person in heavenly glory, and it dawned upon me that there was a present Object for my heart in heaven. You heart will never be satisfied until that glorified Person becomes its Object—bright and fair.

“The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if One died for all, then were all dead: And that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again” (2 Cor 5:14, 15). Now, are we living unto Him? Do our lives in some small degree bear the impress of true devotedness?

You may ask what has often been said, that this is all very well for people who have nothing to do but to go about preaching, but that the trials and difficulties of practical everyday life render it all but impossible for most Christians. But this is a great misconception. To begin with, the only thing which a believer has to do in this world—whether he breaks stones on the road-side or preaches to thousands—is to live unto the Lord Jesus Christ. Then the trials and difficulties which so many complain of are intended for the very purpose of helping and not hindering devotedness to Him. Martha could no doubt say, “My beloved is mine”; but Mary had tasted the deeper joy of confessing, “I am my beloved’s.” It is one thing to say, “Christ for me,” and another to say, “Me for Christ.” The latter is true devotedness!

- C A Coats




Excerpt from MJS devotional for June 27:

“If I allow the thought that what I am toward God will in some way or other affect what God is toward me, I shall be filled with the spectrum of bondage. But when I see that what God is toward me is altogether the outcome of what He is, and that He is this though knowing perfectly what I am, it puts my heart in the right direction for liberty.” -C.A.C.
http://www.abideabove.com/hungry-heart/