Christianity Oasis Forum

[Netchaplain]

When the believer in Christ learns that the forgiveness given at rebirth will never be subject to change, the concept of the permanency of faith and salvation come clearer into view and the walk is less difficult due to the right to “lay aside every weight, and the sin which does so easily beset us . . .” (Heb 12:1). We cannot know the freedom from sin’s reign if we do not walk in the knowledge that it all has been completely dealt with in the Cross.

Only when we consider any sin to remain that has not been addressed by the Blood will we walk in our own misjudgment of its full cleansing, even though all the sin has been completely addressed and absolved in the Cross. Only when we know this truth can we always “cast all your care upon Him” (1 Pet 5:7); disallow “your heart to be troubled” (Jhn 14:1, 27); know “you are clean through the Word (Jhn 15:3),” and realize we are ever one with the Father, the Lord Jesus, and one another (Jhn 14:20; 17:21).

-NC

Long Gone

A great many souls are thinking how they stand with God, instead of thinking how God stands with them. When the prodigal came to the father his thoughts were all about what he had done and what he was. He soon found what his father had done and how he felt. There is the sense of how God stands towards us, and how everything about us is removed from His eye, before we know in our soul that everything is removed from our own vision. Do you believe all is gone before the eye of your Father? Yes! Is all gone from before your eye? Ah, that is another matter?

It is a great thing to get peace by the work of the Lord Jesus, but it is even greater to have the enjoyment of it. That is what the prodigal son wanted; he knew there was nothing between his father and himself when his father kissed him; but what troubled him was, he was not fit for his father’s house.

Many a one knows peace with God who does not know deliverance from himself, and hence he does not enjoy his peace. I know it myself, I have gone that road. When I saw Christ had borne my judgement, and all was gone from before the holy eye of God forever, I said it was beautiful; it was profound blessing—but then when I looked at myself I was not a bit happy. The fact is, at the time I was trying to improve the “flesh,” the “old man.”

For deliverance from the reign of the Adam-life you must have more than justification; you need to see that the old man is gone (permanently powerless concerning damnation - Rom 8:1; and permanently powerless concerning domination - Rom 6:12, 14—NC) from your eye, as clearly as you see that it is gone from God’s eye. It must be by the Spirit and the Word that you learn it; it is only by the Spirit that you can see that it is judicially gone. Peace is that I see that my Adam-life is gone from the eye of my Father through the work of the Cross.

It is clear that my conscience is truly awakened as to what is due to God, because of the sentiments of my new nature, that begin to find that “in me (that is in my flesh) dwells “no good thing”; and I long, as seeing what would suit me, to be delivered from the “body of this death” (Rom 7:24 - referring to “the body of sin” – Rom 6:6, along with its “members” – Col 3:5—NC) and not to now improve it, but to be delivered from it. It is then that I rise in delight of heart to the full work of the Cross. Nothing can afford me full freedom from the old Adam-life but the scriptural knowledge that my Father has removed it entirely from His own eye in the Cross of His Son.

The Lord Jesus made Himself a sacrifice for sin, thereby removing it from before the Father according to the measure it was in His mind. He was made to be sin and suffered for it fully, because He alone knew what it was in God’s sight. Now as He has removed it according to God’s estimate, it is evident that it must be gone according to mine, however much my sense of it may increase.

Therefore it is of immense importance that I should believe that God has removed in the Cross everything in me that could offend Him; that it is now judicially true for the believer that the end of all flesh (sinful nature—NC) has come before God. For then I am not only clear of it before Him through faith in Christ, but as the old man has been crucified with Christ, I have nothing to work on or improve. I have only to reckon it as in the place of death, where God has placed it.

I must know that through grace I am in Christ before I can survey and apprehend the dignities of this great position; and as I do so, I begin to connect myself with the heavenly places. I cannot understand His glory until I have known His grace, and as I am enjoying His glory, I am in the place where He is. Thus the highest blessing is contingent on the apprehension of the fullness of His grace.

- J B Stoney


Excerpt from MJS devotional:

“The Lord Jesus Christ is the Christian’s very life (Col 3:4), and the Holy Spirit dwells within our spirit to manifest Him (Rom 8:18), to work out all that is in Him and to reproduce Him in us. We must remember that there is something in the sight of God that is higher than work. There is Christ-likeness. That is our Father’s purpose, and it is His work.” -A.M.

http://www.abideabove.com/hungry-heart/