How attached are you to the things of this world?

Yesterday we read a long excerpt from a book I've been reading, me and my sisters have been studying from the book - The Spiritual Man by Watchman Nee. We are taking our Bibles and making sure that the things we read are from God. Do I believe in everything Watchman Nee believes, no, not everything.  However, I'm not willing to ignore all the amazing truths he expounds on because we don't see eye to eye on everything. God gives us all light and we have to walk in that light, by HIS grace. He may not have giving Watchman Nee the light He has given to me or others. We are accountable to God for our own walk.  

Today I want to start to study more indepth the passage we read yesterday.  May the Holy Spirit guide us as we seek to learn more of our SAVIOR, of HIS LOVE, of HIS WILL.

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'Soul life is worldly; hence it is attached to the things of the world. Only after one is actually willing to offer his soul life to death will he be fit to follow the “Sermon on the Mount” without flinching. Though in that “sermon” we do not find the Lord Jesus mentioning the work of the cross, we nonetheless know for certain that unless one experiences identification with Christ in death—not merely having died to sin but having died to the self life as well—he attempts in vain to keep our Lord’s teachings enunciated on the Mount. He may appear to be following these instructions, but his heart is not one with his appearance.

Only a Christian who has yielded his soul life can spontaneously and unpretentiously give away his cloak when he has been sued for his coat.'

******My thoughts-

Spontaneously, unpretentiously giving away your cloak with SUED for your coat.  In Jesus' day articles of clothing were sometimes one of few possessions a person would own.  They didn't live a materialistic world to the degree most of us do in the United States- I didn't say all, but most. Sue a homeless man for his coat, that would be a huge deal, but again very unrealistic in our day and age.  To put this on another level we could say that ANY time, any one sues us for something can we imagine not only giving them what they sued us for but also more? It's unthinkable isn't it? People generally are sued when they won't give up what the other person wants. They sue in order to get something. Sure, I imagine sometimes people don't even try to get something from someone before suing them, they just assume there will be a fight for what they are after and so the suing begins, the court summons goes out.  Appearing in court the arguments begin, or rather the charges are read, the reasoning is made known and then would you simply, in answer to the charge, say- 'No problem they can have that and more.' ?  I can't help but wonder if that has ever happened and if so, how often. 

Now, let's add to that this part-   'SPONTANEOUSLY- UNPRETENTIOUSLY' -  Without any thought, your automatic response is to offer more than the person wants of you. Clearly the person didn't think you'd give them anything let alone more than what they want.  What does this say about the one offering more than expected and doing so spontaneously and unpretentiously? The SERIOUSLY and SINCERELY do not have any ties to their possessions, or rather their ties to their 'neighbor' are greater than their ties to anything they own. 

Look around your room, your house, your storage spaces and ask yourself if you'd be willing to lose it all? How tied to our things are we? And being tied to things we are also tied to the SOUL-SELF automatically.

Are you attached to things of this world?

May God help us to take note of our attachments to this world- people, places, and things.  Let's examine them a bit and if we find we have an attachment that preempts our ability to give it up for whatever reason there may be let us pray for our drawing closer to Christ, to the Spirit and farther away from ourselves!

Please, Lord, in Your most holy name! Jesus Christ our Savior, our Redeemer now and forever!

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