Learning to lean

SANCTIFICATION


"This is the will of God, even your sanctification." 1 Thessalonians 4:3

The Death Side. In sanctification God has to deal with us on the death side as well as on the life side. Many of us spend so much time in the place of death that we get sepulchral. There is always a battle royal before sanctification, always something that tugs with resentment against the demands of Jesus Christ. Immediately the Spirit of God begins to show us what sanctification means, the struggle begins. "If any man come to Me and hate not . . his own life, he cannot be My disciple."

The Spirit of God in the process of sanctification will strip me until I am nothing but "myself," that is the place of death. Am I willing to be "myself," and nothing more - no friends, no father, no brother, no self-interest - simply ready for death? That is the condition of sanctification. No wonder Jesus said: "I came not to send peace, but a sword." This is where the battle comes, and where so many of us faint. We refuse to be identified with the death of Jesus on this point. "But it is so stern," we say; "He cannot wish me to do that." Our Lord is stern; and He does wish us to do that.

Am I willing to reduce myself simply to "me," determinedly to strip myself of all my friends think of me, of all I think of myself, and to hand that simple naked self over to God? Immediately I am, He will sanctify me wholly, and my life will be free from earnestness in connection with every thing but God.

When I pray - "Lord, show me what sanctification means for me," He will show me. It means being made one with Jesus. Sanctification is not something Jesus Christ puts into me: it is Himself in me. (1 Cor. 1:30.)


My Utmost for His Highest

I have lived so much of my life to just serve my own selfish desires. I have lived a life of ME, ME, ME. I spoke as if my eternity was secure and yet I lived a life that reflected consuming as much of the here and now that I could. I lived a life that was so stupid, so useless, so empty.

And now my life really is emptied out of everything that is not of God. It is just me and God. It is so different. I am learning so much of ME. I am learning what truly matters in life. I am standing at the edge and looking over the edge of a red rock cliff. With jagged rocks above me and jagged rocks below and nothing but the horizon covered with the most beautiful trees, clouds, and breeze that only God to paint. I am above clouds but i am so far below the massive heavens above. The snow capped mountains overshadow me with their majesty, and they shelter me from the gusts of wind strong enough to push me over the edge. And then it begins to pour, and just as I feel as though it was a mistake to have my toes curled over the edge i feel this great hand holding me fast. I dont quite lean into it all the way at first but the more i do the safer I feel. It is a weird feeling to lean into a hand at your back, a hand that from its position seems as though itself is going to push you off to your doom....but it is more of a seat. It is a active decision to sit on the seat too. Its not a recliner, its not a stool either. It is a shelter from whatever the fall, mountains, gusts, or rain might try and freak me out with. It is also a foundation. That it might seem like a small seat but really it is a seat that wraps all around me and has room for certain things but not others. This seat can hold people's hearts but not their bodies, it can hold wealth but not money, it can hold dreams but not fears, it can hold challenges but not failures, it can hold a hope, a future but not disappointment or pity. This chair, this shelter; for those whose dare lean into it will keep all those things safe as the rest just slips away down the gorge and out of site underneath the canopy of the trees. You can't take anything into the chair that isnt supposed to be there otherwise it will cause you to slip and fall till I lose grasp of it. And interestingly enough, the more you lean into the chair the more cloudy the future gets but more important the vision becomes. Not that this is a circular logic, of course not. The future is that of our control, the schemes that we try and make in our own little worlds. But the vision are those passions, those permanent "chair-dwelling" items that remain there with us. Those visions that when my heart is stripped away from its cold outer shell, its tough metal skin, its guarded fleshy barriers, and then left with only the burning ember of my heart's true desire. A white hot passion that is so small and feels like it may go out at any moment. A white hot passion that consumes its true nature to express itself and set other eternal items on fire with the love I have already experienced through God. No one can just hand off God's love. What God's love does is it transforms us so that we even have the ability to love. And when we are able to love others, and when they are open to our love, it is then that we are so full of God's love that our attempt to love how we are uniquely created to...looks in distinguishable from the love of God.