The Root is Dealt with

Our real problem has never been the sin we have committed, but the sinner who commits them.  It is this infected ego, this defiled self in me, of which my sins are only an outward expression.  If I lose my temper, if I hate or resent, if I lie or respond to a lust, it is my infected “I” which has done it because it likes to – and that is my basic trouble.  It is the “I” which all men really worship.

Unless it has been exchanged for the great ‘I AM’.  Love for one’s own family, class, morality, religion can all be its cloaks.  But it must be destroyed.  The virus in the self, producing a self, that lives unto itself and by itself.  It is like an iron cage in which all humanity is confined.  Religions of the world exhort man to try to free himself by his own efforts, religious observances, good works.  But helpless human self is always a slave and can never deliver itself.  Only the living God has given the remedy and it comes down from above.  

God, Himself who from eternity was the selfless self

God, Himself who from eternity was the selfless self.  He who is love, took flesh and became man.  Scripture says he was ‘made sin for us’ (2 Cor 5:21).  He representing us all, became egotistic humanity, infected with all that abominable, rebellious, hateful, independent self.  He became once and for all separated in death from that evil spirit of independent self and rose possessed by another Spirit – the Holy Spirit.  He was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father – ‘by the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead’.  Everyone who is born of God is born in no other way than by Christ being born in Him.  Christ becoming his new life.  Christ becoming the new self in his redeemed self.  

Every born-again believer is a crucified believer.

Therefore the first effect of our union through faith is the separation of my ego from its false infection.  When in Christ those iron bands are broken and we are born anew, we can look back and plainly discern between what we were in our unsaved condition and what we are now.  Let us make no mistake.  We have died, so far as being the egocentric-self we were from our mother’s womb, we have risen altogether new in Christ.  Every born-again believer is a crucified believer.  Whether they understand their true position in Christ or not they are living a new life which is Christ-centered and not self-centered or they are not truly born again.  When they can look back and plainly distinguish between what they were and what they – that is actual death and resurrection.

Taken from The Deep Things of God by Norman Grubb

God’s Glory and Man’s Dignity

O Lord our God Your greatness
In all the world is seen.
Your praise reaches up to the heavens
Where all is beautiful and serene.
You have taught the children
To praise Your name.
May their example silence Your enemies
And put them to shame.
When I look up to the heavens
That You so beautifully grace,
At the moon and stars
Which You have set in place
I cannot understand
How you can
Bother with
Mere puny man.
What is he that You think of him?
Yet of him You take heed.
You make him inferior only to Yourself
In Your love providing his every need.
You have crowned him with glory and honour;
In Him all things are complete.
You have made him ruler over everything;
Putting all things under his feet.
All the sheep and cattle
And the beasts of the field,
The birds, fish and creatures in the seas
All now humbly yield.
O Lord, our God
Who can measure Your worth?
The majesty and glory of Your name
Fills the earth!

By the late Andrew Feakin (passed away 16th March 2019)      

But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have taken us away Isaiah 64:6

Do you feel the wind of change? Calling you higher, calling you deeper?  I am the Lord your God, who called you before the foundation of the world, to be a called out one.  Though you do not feel worthy – yet you are made holy through My Son who bled and died for you.  This is why you receive My Words.  This is why you knock and you seek and why the door is open to you.  I am detaching you from all that hinders.  I am breaking you free from all shackles that you may go out in My name to preach the gospel to the poor, to heal the sick, to cast out demons, to raise the dead, to cleanse the unclean.  You shall go out in My power and bring My Kingdom here.  And it shall not be for fame or fortunes as some may do – but shall only be for My Glory and for a demonstration of My power.  Fix your eyes on Me.  Have a steely eyed determination to follow Me.  It will cost you everything – but everything you will gain.