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Sunday, September 5 |
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| Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. (John 15:4a) | |||
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Dying, Submitting, Listening, Obeying
Why do you think the way you do? How do thoughts enter your mind? Do you always have to be thinking about something? Where do your thoughts come from? Has your way of thinking changed, matured and grown as a believer? What we think about plays a large part in how we live our lives. My experience is that we can have some control over what we think about, but largely we are slaves to our sinful, fleshly nature in what we think and how we think. We can choose thoughts which (at least appear) to be more pleasing to God which appear to change our lives for the better. Much of what I have written about over the years has focused on our choice of what we think about. My initial "awakening" almost five years ago was basically that we should focus our minds on God and the worship of Him. This certainly is a "good" thing, but, as I have shared more recently (See the article "Walk in the Spirit not the flesh"), this effort to focus my thoughts on the Lord was largely the work of the flesh. I actually found some value in a change in focus of my mind, but I think any improvement in my life was minimal and I was largely a failure in my effort to focus my heart and mind on Christ. Doing this in the strength of my flesh could never work because the flesh is opposed to God. If such a noble and sincere effort to focus on the Lord doesn't work, what can we do?
The Flesh
One foundational truth we must grasp is the futility and worthlessness of our flesh. In ourselves we are corrupt and unable to please God in any way. As believers we have been given an new life in Christ, but the flesh (sin nature) remains. As believers, we follow either the flesh or the Spirit.
The flesh does all sorts of obviously evil things, but the flesh also likes to try to imitate (never succeeding, of course) true spiritual life. As I discovered in my life, the flesh can even try to focus on God. The flesh can "worship" God, study the bible, pray, go to church, preach sermons, sing in the choir and do everything we might associate with "Christian" living. Are any of these things done in the strength of the flesh pleasing to God? Certainly not.
Doing "good things" is not pleasing to God. Only that which is from God is pleasing to God. Nothing from our flesh or our efforts can ever be pleasing to God. Just as our righteousness before God is gift from Him, so any effort or work we do which pleases Him is also a gift from Him. We will never be perfect in walking in the Spirit. The flesh will be with us as long as we live. As we grow in Christ, though, the Spirit will increase and the flesh will decrease. More and more we will walk in the Spirit if we understand the provision of our victory over sin and the flesh through Christ alone.
Dying
The solution for our flesh is death. The flesh cannot be fixed or improved. It must die. We are identified with Christ in His death and raised with Him in newness of life. The old person is dead and we are made new in Christ.
The flesh is out of the picture. In Christ, the flesh, the old nature, has no power over us. As believers, though, we can still struggle with the flesh if we don't rely on the provision of Christ through the Holy Spirit. If we try to do good in the strength of our flesh, we will always fail and face the same struggle Paul described in himself in Romans 7.
Praise God, though, that in Christ, through the Holy Spirit, we have freedom from sin and the flesh. Led by Him, following Him, we can know real life, the fullness of life in Christ.
Submitting
Leaving the old self, the flesh, behind, we are then free to submit ourselves to Christ. Submitting brings the dying of self to the forefront of our lives. As I have already described, the flesh cannot please God and it certainly cannot submit to Christ. We must lay aside all that we are and consider ourselves as dead if we are to follow Christ.
Christ's words, "Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.", captures the truth completely. The fullness of life in Christ is only found as we lay aside our old self, who we are, and submit fully to Him. Taking up our cross means nothing less than dying. Many times each day we are confronted with choices to submit and obey Christ or to follow our own way. We must "die" (take up our cross) and give our lives fully to Christ in however He is leading. This cross, denying ourselves, is not easy. The flesh fights and wars against Christ. We must choose, though, to die, that we may truly live.
It is tempting to take the easy way out and compromise with the flesh. This choice will never honor God and it will never bring life. Again, only through death can we have life.
Listening
As we lay aside the old self, deny ourselves, take our cross and follow Christ, we must listen to Him as He leads us. We must be thorough and complete in our dying to self and the world. We must leave no stone unturned. Our flesh and the world fills our minds with thoughts and desires which distract us from God. The worries and cares of life can overwhelm our hearts and minds so that we cannot even hear God. If we can't hear Him, how can we follow Him? We certainly can't follow Him in our own strength apart from His leading. Any fleshly attempt is futile and a complete waste of time. We can only follow Christ as we are lead by God and we can only be lead as we listen and hear Him speak to us.
Let us briefly consider how God speaks to us. We would agree this is not an audible voice, but it is God impressing a truth, a leading or a message upon our hearts in different ways. Certainly He speaks to us through His Word, the Bible both as we read and study and bringing to our mind truths we have learned. Any leading from the Lord will be consistent with His Word. He also speaks to us through circumstances of life, through the words of fellow believers and in many other ways.
A significant step of faith in the process of submitting to God and listening to Him is to turn off the thoughts and concerns of our hearts and minds and devote our hearts and minds to listen only to Him. We assume we cannot live if we are not constantly thinking and planning about what we are going to do next or worrying about this and that. How many times has your prayer time been derailed by the thoughts and concerns of your life? We can demonstrate our complete trust and submission to Him by setting aside our life and our worries (denying our self) and listening only to Him. Don't feel like you must always offer to Him words of worship or that you must be praying on behalf of others. I would challenge you to spend time just listening to Him. Receive fully and freely from Him who overflows in all abundance. One word from Him is better than countless words from us. The greatest act of worship we can ever do is to submit fully and completely to Him. Wait in His presence in complete quietness and stillness of heart.
I challenge you to make this a way of life: a life of listening and submission. I am not advocating a special formula or method. This effort can be the work of the flesh just as anything else. It must be sincere and from the heart. We all know a huge area of our lives which most of us struggle with is the thoughts of our heart and mind. To lay aside these things as dead and to then simply to listen to Him is a huge step of faith, obedience and submission. One place to start this is any time we set aside to spend with the Lord. Quiet your heart and mind and just listen to Him. If He gives you words of praise, speak it back to Him. If He lays someone on your heart to pray for, lift that person up in prayer. If He says nothing, just glory in His presence and enjoy Him. Ignore any prayer list you have and let God guide you in prayer. Whose "list" should you follow? God's or yours?
Active Listening
We need to take this idea of listening beyond just a special time we spend with the Lord and let it become part of our lives throughout the day. The idea of submitting to Him, denying ourselves and taking up our cross is something we do as a moment by moment walk. A brother in Christ shared with me not long ago the idea of "active listening" when describing how to begin to understand walking in the Spirit.
From Proverbs 3:5-6 he pointed out that we can acknowledge God in every area of our lives by bringing Him into each of our moments. We can do this by asking Him what He wants us to do and what He wants us think in all that we do each day. Look and listen for God's leading and actively seek after His direction in the little and big things of our lives. Bring Him into everything. Acknowledge Him in all that you do.
We seek and ask and then listen for His leading and then follow and obey. Listening implies we are ready to obey. We must deny ourselves, take up our cross and obey when God speaks to us. Similar to quieting our minds so we can listen to God, I believe we could drastically reduce both the amount of things we think about and the types of things we think about during each day and rather spend this time listening to God. I know much of what passes through my mind during the day is at best worthless and is more often dishonoring to God and unhealthy for me. If those times were spent listening and submitting to Him, how much more would He be honored and glorified in our lives.
Closing Thoughts
I pray this is more than just an inspiring article which pleases your mind but doesn't impact your heart and life. Certainly, nothing I or anyone can write or say can change you. Only that which is from God can truly transform your life and the lives of those around you. I only point you to Him who is the Author of all Truth, Wisdom, Righteousness and Love. Listen to Him. I would be incredibly delighted if you were to devote your mind and heart to listen and submit to Him and completely forget you ever read this article. If you are enamored or pleased by what I or anyone else writes when pointing to God, and you make no effort to change your ways, you are completely missing the point. You have been deceived by the evil one who is delighted when believers acquire more "worthless" knowledge, but never live in the power and the strength of Him alone who knows all things.
Then Jesus said, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." (Mark 4:9 NIV)
Listen to Him, submit to Him and obey Him.
July 2005
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