Losing our possessions...

'Often we are unconscious how powerful our self is until tested in regard to material matters. At times it seems we require more grace to lose our wealth than to lose our life! Earthly things truly represent an acid test for soul life. God’s children who indulge in eating and drinking and in ease and comfort need a deeper cutting away of the cross to free their spirit from the bondage and influence of the soul and to be free to live in God. Any who still hanker after the things of the world have yet to learn how to lose their soul life through the deep penetration of the cross.'  The Spiritual Man - Watchman Nee

Do you believe what Watchman Nee wrote, that bit we just read?  Do you agree that those of us who have a life of relative ease- plenty of food, in fact food to the point of excess, plenty to drink and many comforts to make our lives easier have a harder time than those who have very little and next to no comforts?  In some respects it has to be true, right? Yet in others we can tell ourselves that those who have little are in a constant state of want.  Is that true? Or is it those who have already who always seem to want more, to want better, to want the best there is?  We live in a culture that tells us we should want more, constantly. We compare ourselves to  the rich, the famous, the important, and we are taught to want that. We are taught it by many things- tv, books, peers, family, movies.  So even when we truly do have a lot compared to those who have very little, we believe we need more. We fear losing our possessions. We make plans for losing them, insuring our possessions so we can get them back again should we lose them.  And all this is normal to us. 

So, to ask the question again- Do we believe what Watchman Nee wrote about 'requiring more grace to lose our wealth than to lose our life?'

I believe it.  For me personally, I believe it. I know how incredibly hard I find it to give up things and I know all the reasoning I come up with as to why I shouldn't have to give up my things, there are so many excuses I use and I believe them.  Society tells me I'm allowed to desire all the things I desire and it screams at me that it's NORMAL. 

More on this tomorrow, by the grace of our loving God.

In Jesus' name!

The world is contrary to God.

From yesterday--

'He whose self life has been sacrificed to death is cut loose from the things of the world. Gaining spiritual life is conditional on suffering loss.' - The Spiritual Man- Watchman Nee

Mat_16:26  For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

Do you want to gain a spiritual life? How important is it to you to have a spiritual life? Seriously, do we even care about our spiritual lives? How often do you think of your spiritual life?

These are questions that need answering.

What would YOU give in exchange for your eternal life?

What good does having ANYTHING if we do not have eternal life?

… How much do we DAILY TAKE UP OUR CROSS and how much do we let Christ work in us? Do we separate the two? These are many questions we need to consider.

*******  Today-

It shouldn't be how much, it should be how often do we take up our cross, and how often do we let Christ work in us? Do we separate the two?

Christ should ALWAYS be working in us, yes?  If Christ is working in us always then when we take up our cross it is still Christ working in us. We need to LIVE for Christ. We truly need to DENY ourselves, and you know what, our SELF will fight against denying ourselves and come up with a million reasons why we don't need to do that. And yes, I mean a million excuses. For every opportunity that arises for us to deny our soul-self, there will be several reasons for us not deny it and every one of those reasons will NOT come from Christ. We can be foolish enough to believe they do, but they don't and never will.

Why are we to give up stuff we want?

We need to comprehend whether the stuff is good or bad for us first, right?

We need to comprehend if the stuff will take the place of Christ in our life in any way.  If we are being drawn away from Christ and the love of Christ, from living in love, in the SPIRIT as Christ would have us live then WE are to deny ourselves from what is drawing us away.

The world and the things of the world ARE contrary to God.

1Jn 2:15  Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 

1Jn 2:16  For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. 

1Jn 2:17  And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever. 

Mat 6:24  No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. 

Jas 4:4  Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. 

Col 3:2  Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. 

LOVE NOT  THE WORLD.

LOVE NOT THE THINGS THAT ARE IN THE WORLD.

Lusts of our flesh- our flesh desires- and these can be any and all things we desire MORE than our Savior!

Please Father, please, help us to DENY self, help us to TAKE UP OUR CROSS, help us to know what is of the world and what is of You. HELP US! We would follow our own wants, we despise having to give up our desires, help us to despise those desires!

Please, Lord, please!

In the name of our SAVIOR Jesus Christ, our LORD!

Spiritual Life.

'He whose self life has been sacrificed to death is cut loose from the things of the world. Gaining spiritual life is conditional on suffering loss.' - The Spiritual Man- Watchman Nee

Mat_16:26  For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

Do you want to gain a spiritual life?

How important is it to you to have a spiritual life?

Seriously, do we even care about our spiritual lives? How often do you think of your spiritual life?

These are questions that need answering.

What would YOU give in exchange for your eternal life?

What good does having ANYTHING if we do not have eternal life?

Can we detach ourselves from the things of this world? Can we suffer the loss of things, anything that would keep us from a true spiritual life?  At what point are people going to call us crazy? We need to LIVE in this world, with our loved ones - Jesus would NOT want us to divorce our spouses, ignore our grown children, turn our back on our co-workers- because we come into truth we do not follow warped ideas of truth. The heart of our Savior is loving each other, and that love is connected to Him, through His cross. That love is selfless not self-serving. Yes, we are to GIVE up all- but we do this THROUGH Christ, not through self-serving! God does not call us lightly to give up on any one. IF we are growing further from Christ through another, then maybe we are called to leave.  Christ will teach us, we need to learn. How much giving up of ourselves can we do in order to live in Him, truly live in Him.  Can we give up all of our selves, replacing it with Him? How much do we DAILY TAKE UP OUR CROSS and how much do we let Christ work in us? Do we separate the two? These are many questions we need to consider.

More tomorrow by the grace of our God, our Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ!

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!

*******

'Gaining spiritual life is conditional on suffering loss.'

'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.

He whose self life has been sacrificed to death is cut loose from the things of the world. Gaining spiritual life is conditional on suffering loss.

We cannot measure our lives in terms of “gain”; they must be measured in terms of “loss.”

Our real capacity lies not in how much we retain but in how much has been poured out.

Those who can afford to lose the most are those who have the most to give.

The power of love is attested by love’s sacrifice.

If our hearts are not separated from love of the world, our soul life has yet to go through the cross. “And you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property” (Heb. 10.34).

(Heb 10:34  For ye had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance. )

The believers referred to in this passage did not simply endure but even joyfully accepted the plundering of their goods. This is the work of the cross.

The attitude of saints towards their possessions most assuredly signifies whether they continue to preserve their self life or whether they have consigned it to death.

If we desire to tread a pure spiritual path we must allow God to so operate in us that our hearts can be severed from everything pertaining to the world and be totally released from the intent of Lot’s wife. This is the prerequisite for experiencing perfect life in Christ. We can despise all the things in the world only after the Holy Spirit has shown the reality of heaven and its perfect life. '

The Spiritual Man- Watchman Nee

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Read the above a few times and by the GRACE of our God we will discuss it more fully tomorrow.

All in HIS amazing LOVE! Please, Lord, open our hearts to only YOUR TRUTH and NO OTHER'S. Work in us, live in us, love us, save us from ourselves!

In the name of Jesus Christ our LORD, our SAVIOR now and forever! AMEN!

Revelation of Selfishness

'If in the disposition which Christ displayed in relation to His cross we are willing to take up ours, then we shall find that the power of His cross abides in us and enables us to lose our natural life. Each time the cross is taken up, each time does the soul life suffer loss. Each time the cross is circumvented, each time is the soul life fed and preserved.

The Lord Jesus does not imply that dealing with our natural inclinations is a once for all matter. We find in Luke the word “daily” is added to our Lord’s call to take up the cross. Cross-bearing is continuous.

The cross which condemned sin to death is an accomplished fact: all which remains for us to do is to acknowledge and receive it. But the cross through which we forfeit our soul life is different.

Self-denial is not a matter already and completely accomplished; this we must experience daily.

Now this does not mean that the soul life will never be lost or only be lost slowly. It simply bespeaks the fact that the cross which deals with the soul life operates differently from that which deals with sin. And the reason?

Because death towards sin is accomplished for us by Christ: when He died, we died with Him. But the denial of the soul life is not an accomplished matter.

We are required to take up our own cross daily by the power of the cross of Christ and determine daily to deny self—until it is lost.

Renunciation of our natural life is not something which is done once and forever.

As for sin, we only need take the ground of the cross (Rom. 6.6)

Rom 6:6  Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. 

and immediately we are freed from its power and our servitude to it. In a moment this can be experienced with a full and perfect victory. But the self life must be overcome step by step.

The deeper the Word of God penetrates (Heb. 4.12),

Heb 4:12  For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. 

the deeper works the cross and the further the Holy Spirit completes the union of the life of our spirit with the Lord Jesus. How can believers deny the self when it is yet unknown to them? They can deny only that part of the soul life which they already recognize. God’s Word must lay bare more and more of our natural life so that the work of the cross can probe deeper and deeper. That is why the cross must be borne daily. To know more of God’s will and to know more of the self- furnishes the cross increased ground to operate.' The Spiritual Man- by Watchman Nee

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Jesus revealed to Peter (we read about it in yesterday's study) that his desire for Jesus to be spared suffering and the cross was of Satan. Why? Because Peter would have HIS own will done, not the WILL of God. In Peter's desire he did not want this man he was coming to know as His Savior to disappear, he didn't want Him to suffer anything, he loved Him.  Peter was shown that this WANT of his was of Satan, it wasn't a good thing at all.  Peter was shown the soul-self in Himself that had to be denied. Peter had to LOOK at himself, he had to examine himself and comprehend why Jesus would call Him Satan and tell him what he said wasn't of God. You can just imagine how taken aback Peter had to have been.  Called to take stock of himself, of his motive, of his reasoning, Peter needed to comprehend the truth and that truth did not include any selfish motive, not a single one.

God's will, not ours.

We must not presume to know better than God knows.

We have to commit our lives and all its aspects to God and know that whatever is taking place that He is in control.

Truly, the cross we bear consists of daily revelations of selfishness, of self-focus.  When we are shown our particular soul-self ways we are shown in order for us to comprehend their nature and in comprehension determine to DENY self.  We aren't show the horrors of our soul-self just for the fun of it. We are shown for a purpose.  Satan would use it to lead us to despair while Christ uses it to teach us, to reveal to us just how desperately we need Him working in our lives. 

Will Jesus call you Satan too?

Mat 16:23  But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. 

'Peter speaks because he cherishes the Lord, yet he is being manipulated by Satan.

Peter prays the Lord to be kind to Himself, not knowing this prayer is inspired by the enemy.

Satan can urge people to love the Lord or even teach people to pray.

He is not apprehensive if people pray or love the Lord; what strikes fear in him is that they might not love the Lord or pray to Him with their natural energy.

While soul life continues, his business prospers.

May God show us how dangerous this life is, because believers may too quickly conclude that they are spiritual merely because they love the Lord or admire heavenly things.

God’s purpose cannot be accomplished as long as Satan continues to find opportunity to work through that soul life which remains uncommitted to the death of the cross.

Self-pity, self-love, fear of suffering, withdrawal from the cross: these are some of the manifestations of soul life, for its prime motivation is self-preservation.

It is exceedingly reluctant to endure any loss.

This is precisely why the Lord summons us to deny self and take up our cross so as to crush our natural life.

Every cross which passes before us beckons us to forsake our selves.

We should not harbor any self-love but lay down our lives by the power of God.'  The Spiritual Man- Watchman Nee

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Savoring NOT the things that be of God.  One of Jesus' apostles was NOT savoring the things that be of God. What exactly was Peter savoring? He didn't want Jesus to follow God's will all the way to the cross.

Mat 16:21  From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. 

Peter didn't want Jesus to 'suffer many things', Peter didn't want Jesus to 'be killed'.

These all seem like good things, don't they? Seriously. We don't want to suffer and we surely don't want those we love to suffer. We don't want to be killed, or our loved ones to be killed. These are logical, loving things to desire, right? Peter out of his love for Jesus didn't want Him to suffer and be killed- logical and loving. Jesus didn't see it that way though. Jesus comprehended fully the suffering and death coming His way, He wasn't pulling blinders over His eyes. He wanted His disciples to be prepared, to understand His prophetic words of the near future.  Instead of accepting what Jesus was telling them, Peter REBUKED the Lord!

Mat 16:22  Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee.

Peter REBUKED the LORD telling Him - FAR BE IT FROM THEE- THIS SHALL NOT BE.

Peter wanted to save the LORD from His future.

Jesus was TELLING them the TRUTH.

Jesus was TELLING them FACTS.

Jesus wasn't telling the things that MIGHT happen. Jesus wasn't throwing the ideas out there looking for solutions. Plainly He was making a revelation, a prophecy of His own future.  Why would Peter even think for a moment that He could in any way alter what Jesus was telling them? Simply because He hated the idea of Jesus suffering and dying, He made the very rash statement, He rebuked the Lord.

Just imagine Peter hearing Jesus' response to what He thought were words of undeniable love and concern.

Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

Peter was called SATAN!

Peter was told he was and OFFENCE to Jesus- the very One he believed he was showing adamant, unfailing, unwavering, undeniable love for.

Peter was told that he SAVOREST NOT the THINGS that BE OF GOD- but the things that be of MEN.

He was called SATAN not because he savored things of Satan, but things of MEN. Think about that for a moment, a long moment.

Peter did NOT truly desire in that moment for God's will to be done, but rather His own will. He believed- like we believe that, any sort of suffering is to be shunned. The suffering of loved ones, our own suffering, all of it is to be abhorred and to say otherwise makes us monsters in our own eyes.

How can we look upon the suffering of another and not despise it?  When we do despise it are we doing so through God's will or our own. Surely, God hates suffering, we know it will all end one day, that He wants it to end.  Yet until that day we are called to suffer the sacrifice of self and all involved in self.  We are to seek God's will and God's will only.  Peter was not seeking God's will, but His own. He couldn't stand the idea of an innocent suffering. He couldn't stand the thought of the Savior being killed.  He loved HIM and didn't want Him in any sort of pain, and He didn't want Him to die. HE DID NOT WANT THIS TO TAKE PLACE.  HE DID NOT WANT.  And because He did not want- Jesus called Him - Satan.

Truly we are to place ALL our desires, ALL our wants in God's will and NOT presume to know better than God knows.  We may see suffering and heartache beyond our imagining and still we will NOT know better than the will of God. And so many believe that a God who loves cannot allow suffering and heartache.  The same God who allowed His own innocent Son to suffer and die.  God with God agreeing to the suffering and death in order to assure the eventual end to all suffering.

More tomorrow on all of this, by the GRACE of our SAVIOR, JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD, now and forever!