The Lord is with you! His Spirit is breathing on His people these days - praise Him!
For the next couple of weeks I will be away visiting Chiang Mai, Thailand, and someone else will be filling in for me, for which I am very grateful.
Meanwhile for this week, we read chapters 16 and 17 about the "liberation of the self" and the "liberated self."
In the chapter on the liberation of the self, Marshall presents God's answer to self-centeredness or selfishness, and that answer is a cross. An important truth he underscores is that the cross deals with self-love or selfishness: "It is not the self as self that is the problem: it is selfishness...From being a means for us to express love, the self has become the goal or object of love. It is this fixation of love on the self as an end or object that has to be dealt with, in order that we can be free to love the self the way it was meant to be loved...Jesus makes it plain that only something as drastic as a cross can break that fixation of love of the self..."
It's so important to understand what the cross deals with or else we will be denying and trying to put to death the wrong things. Self-acceptance (in other words, healthy agreeing with who God has made me to be in Him) is a virtue that is necessary in order to love others and God rightly. I like to think of self-acceptance as self-forgetfulness. In other words, lack of self-consciousness which is a wonderful liberty!
The cross of Jesus is where self-centeredness is dealt with. The author explains that on the cross Jesus' individual humanity became a corporate humanity. So that all that happened to Him incorporated all who would believe in Him. A holy exchange took place according to II Cor.5:21 - Jesus took on Himself our sinfulness (not merely our guilt but the attitude of independence behind all acts of sin), and in exchange we "become the righteousness of God."
"When on the ground of Calvary, we disown the right of the self to rule us, we can become free of its binding power. Thus the self must come to the cross, not to be destroyed, but to give up its illegitimate claim to rule." Tom Marshall goes on to say that to apply the cross to this, there must be an act of renunciation, in which we disown the self as the goal of our affections and the ruling center of our life. And there must be an act of recognition, in which we appropriate the work of Calvary to accomplish this deliverance...The cross is absolutely necessary to break the power of self-centeredness over me - I have no power to do this.
As always, the work of the Holy Spirit is necessary along with the work of the cross: He enables us to make Jesus Lord, and He pours out the love of God within our hearts.
When the self is in its proper place, it "will become what it is ideally fitted to be: a channel for divine love to flow through, in an unending stream."
Please read carefully chapter 17 about the liberated self. This teaching on the cross and the work of the Spirit applied to the false self, coupled with inner healing of wounds inflicted on us at the hand of others, leads us to a place of beautiful freedom to be ourselves...no longer trying to live up to the expectations of others or of our own wrong expectations. There's nothing more wonderful than to live in the freedom that comes in biblical self-acceptance and the fullness of the Spirit where the human soul is aligned with the Holy Spirit who indwells the human spirit!
At the end of last week's posting, I wrote about the power of "contemplating" the Person of Jesus, and chapter 17 ends by focussing on this. The self, being a "goal-directed mechanism" will produce whatever it focuses on: "Fixed on Christ, it will work day and night, consciously and unconsciously, by any and every means, to reproduce in us the likeness of Jesus...God not only chose the goal for our lives, He created the ego with the capability of bringing His purpose about. Our only requirement is that we keep it directed towards Jesus." (II Cor. 3:18)
"We become like Him just be being absorbed in Him. As we concentrate the core of our life on Jesus, as we contemplate His actions and meditate on His words, we - without being aware of it - are being changed into what we are focused upon."
Praise the Lord for how He has created us and for His redemptive power to bring us back into right order so that we can fully enjoy being who He made us to be! Holy Spirit, come and continue Your loving and thorough work in our lives, for the sake of the Lamb and many others who need to know the love and grace of God through us.
For next week please read chapter 18, Living Out of the Spirit.
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How amazing it is…this intersection with truth—yet graspable! (or is it that I am able to grasp it better).
ReplyDeleteTo think of loving self…what a concept…yet I have often pondered on the words to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Loving self as a means to an end of loving God...whew! OR… a means to an end to express love. I love it all.
How true it is that we find out that we can’t crucify ourselves…first off, it is of no value (I still seem to be me) and second, it really is harmful to the real person that God made us to be.
Don’t you love the part of comparing the Garden of Eden and the Garden of Gethsemane? Just think Jesus is sharing something with us. We can understand somewhat our own humanity, and its own dealings, when we understand Jesus’ dealing with His humanity also…the absolute end of Himself, the pain, the suffering that we have shared in some fashion or another. I don’t mean us putting pain on ourselves but the pain of righteousness that we all suffer when we are trying to live rightly by the Holy Spirit. Comparing these two gardens helps in understanding why we feel the rebellion/self-centeredness, and distress/grief, and so often carry this burden. This is in order to bring humanity to God’s longing love through Jesus the Intercessor.
It seems so often I’m not really aware of it, but the inner grief of our present world affects us deeply…I know it does affect me. But when I become aware that this is going on inside, I finally realize that it is the Lord’s burden for the world, our friends, our families.
Going on to chapter 17, to have our own freedom brings with it the possibility of some real relationship…with both God and others. How true this quote: “The self now acquires genuine significance. So often there is the feeling within us that what we have to offer God or others is of little value, and is unlikely to be appreciated. Therefore we either do not offer it or we offer it without expecting or being open to a response.” There is a true individuality, and as this happens, it seems it is also true that as I am real then Christ can be seen in me…so allow the unraveling of all the hidden areas. The term “find the courage” is a tough one, but I can see that, as it does, it would work in revealing ourselves as beautiful in the Lord…and also to be free to love ourselves. (Do you know how hard it is to write those words????? Ughhh). Would there be a more wonderful thing on a personal level than to be authentic, credible, and therefore believable, as the author says?
But one thing I know…it is by being absorbed in Him, contemplating His ways, and meditating of His words that the change comes. This has happened in just such a way in some areas of my life…ok, ok…there is a great distance to go yet….but I want to just keep absorbing. I listen to worship music driving back and forth to work, etc, at home and just about anywhere I can. It seems part of the meditating of words of Jesus, and contemplating on His ways….even when taken over with impatience at driving around the city…it’s working. I ask “how does Jesus ways fit into this?”
Well, I’ve gone on a bit longer than I thought. Personally these were tough chapters on me, but they were wonderful to me. Challenged by the Lord but loved by Him as well, but that is good!!
Upon reading this chapter on 'Living out of the Spirit,' one thing that really struck me was Jesus coming incarnate, forever man now, and He came to redeem us body, soul, and spirit. The fact that He became like us to do that...WOW! Not only to redeem, buy us back to Himself, but to call us into partnership with Him - to reign & rule w/Him forever. Sometimes the most elementary truths/understandable truths are the most profound realities to ponder...like forever!
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