INTERNAL PRIORITY / RAGS TO RICHES / RELIANCE IN TOTO -miles stanford

[Netchaplain]

INTERNAL PRIORITY​

"Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27).
Beware! The world, both secular and religious, is seeking to destroy your individuality by conforming you to the mass of faceless ones. But our heritage and destiny in the Lord Jesus Christ is to be conformed to His image--not at the loss of our individual personality, but by the gain of His nature and character. "I in you"; "Christ liveth in me" (John 15:4; Galatians 2:20).
"Something has got to be done in us as well as for us. We want to proceed on the line of having things done for us, heaven intervening for us, our difficulties removed for us, having a straight path made for us. Heaven may be ready to come in, the Lord may be prepared to work for us, but it is not sufficient for Him--and it would not prove good enough for us--if that were all. The very principle of spiritual growth and maturity demands that He keep the objective and the subjective balanced; that is, that something is done in us as well as for us." -T. A-S.
"We are apt to think that if and when the circumstances and conditions of our lives are changed and we are in another position than the one we now occupy, then something will happen, the purpose of God will begin to be fulfilled. But the Lord says, 'No, it is not circumstances, not conditions, at all; it is you.'"
"Being confident of this very thing, that He who hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:6).

RAGS TO RICHES​

"But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members" (Romans 7:23).
Self is the believer's indwelling enemy; its degrading bondage is his deepest heartache. However, the reign of self is overthrown by its own enmity, since it creates the needs that cause us to hunger for and appropriate Christ's life and liberty.
"A sense of spiritual poverty is necessary to spiritual growth. This awareness of failure becomes acute to the believer during those days when he is attempting to attain holiness of heart through self-effort. Knowing what he ought to be and do, he proceeds to try to reach those goals. He purposes, resolves, promises, struggles, weeps, and fails again. His testimony, with Paul, is, 'The things that I want to do, I do not do, and the things that I do not want to do, I do' (Romans 7:15).
"What a delightful day it is for him when he realizes that 'in him, that is, in his flesh, dwelleth no good thing' (Romans 7:18). Only then does he, in his failure, cry out, 'Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?' 'I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord' (Romans 7:24, 25) comes back the reply. He begins to recognize that God expects only failure from the flesh, never success, but that 'in Christ' is his sanctification, his growth. Thus it is that freedom comes through bondage, life through death." -W.W.
"For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death" (Romans 8:2).

RELIANCE IN TOTO​

"Now our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace" (2 Thessalonians 2:16).
It has been well said that "it takes a lifetime to learn real dependence upon God, and to accept practically our own inadequacy." We are going to learn this only through experience, and now is the time to settle down to this schooling--a day at a time.
"We are to understand that God loves us, and that He justifies us by the work of His Son. We have no longer conscience of sins before God, because He Himself has taken them away before His eyes; we know that being united to the Lord Jesus Christ, who has fully glorified God in that which concerns our sins, we have been made the righteousness of God in Him. So the heart is free to enjoy His love in the presence of the Father." -J.N.D.
"I no longer attempt to produce that which will satisfy God from myself as originator. I know that even if I try I shall only fail. But I do seek to please God by faith in the activity of Another. The Son of God who indwells me by His Spirit is able and willing to carry out in me 'those things that please Him'; and I count upon Him to do so. Consciously, day by day, I take the attitude that I trust Him to work the will of God in me, and in that attitude I go forward and serve Him. I do not trust myself. 'I live by faith in the Son of God.'" -A.I.K.
"Comfort your hearts, and establish you in every good word and work" (2 Thessalonians 2:17).

 

[veteran]

This needs a closer look...

INTERNAL PRIORITY​

"Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27).
Beware! The world, both secular and religious, is seeking to destroy your individuality by conforming you to the mass of faceless ones. But our heritage and destiny in the Lord Jesus Christ is to be conformed to His image--not at the loss of our individual personality, but by the gain of His nature and character. "I in you"; "Christ liveth in me" (John 15:4; Galatians 2:20).
"Something has got to be done in us as well as for us. We want to proceed on the line of having things done for us, heaven intervening for us, our difficulties removed for us, having a straight path made for us. Heaven may be ready to come in, the Lord may be prepared to work for us, but it is not sufficient for Him--and it would not prove good enough for us--if that were all. The very principle of spiritual growth and maturity demands that He keep the objective and the subjective balanced; that is, that something is done in us as well as for us." -T. A-S.

These are very tricky type reasonings with vague sayings. We are to speak plainly, especially when it involves doing The Lord's work. The principle of spiritual maturity involves an inner growth through Christ Jesus by staying in His Word and getting understanding, and doing HIS word He gave us to do. It does not involve some tricky idea like we need to keep the objective and subjective mind balanced, which is a completely vague idea.

"We are apt to think that if and when the circumstances and conditions of our lives are changed and we are in another position than the one we now occupy, then something will happen, the purpose of God will begin to be fulfilled. But the Lord says, 'No, it is not circumstances, not conditions, at all; it is you.'"

"Being confident of this very thing, that He who hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:6).

Where does The Lord say that (underlined)? No matter where we live, if we're serving Christ, new circumstances and conditions will be present in order to keep doing His Work, and we ARE to be confident that His Will and Work will be done (Isa.60:21). It is God doing it through us.

RAGS TO RICHES​

"But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members" (Romans 7:23).
Self is the believer's indwelling enemy; its degrading bondage is his deepest heartache. However, the reign of self is overthrown by its own enmity, since it creates the needs that cause us to hunger for and appropriate Christ's life and liberty.

Another vague statement that is more in line with mysticism than with God's Word. The mystic pagans are those who teach the idea of denying 'self' as a spiritual exercise to try and attain a hightened spiritual state.

It is not our 'self' that Paul was speaking about in Romans 7. It was his 'flesh', meaning this body of sin our 'self' lives in at present during this world.

Rom 7:18
18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
(KJV)

Rom 7:25
25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
(KJV)

Paul is contrasting the difference between the flesh and self there. He is not talking about his 'self' as that part where dwelleth no good thing. He speaks of that part being his flesh body.

"Now our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace" (2 Thessalonians 2:16).

It has been well said that "it takes a lifetime to learn real dependence upon God, and to accept practically our own inadequacy." We are going to learn this only through experience, and now is the time to settle down to this schooling--a day at a time.
"We are to understand that God loves us, and that He justifies us by the work of His Son. We have no longer conscience of sins before God, because He Himself has taken them away before His eyes; we know that being united to the Lord Jesus Christ, who has fully glorified God in that which concerns our sins, we have been made the righteousness of God in Him. So the heart is free to enjoy His love in the presence of the Father." -J.N.D.

That idea (underlined) is clearly FALSE per Scripture. In 1 John 1 he establishes our continued need to recognize and repent of sin after we have been washed by Christ's Blood shed on the cross. Paul also stated the propitiation of Christ for the remission of sins is for sins past (Rom.3:25)... not sins yet future that we will need to repent and ask forgiveness for (see 1 John 1:6-10).

How will the Christian be able to repent and ask forgiveness of later sin if they have no "conscience of sins"? Teaching that we need not be aware of sin, and that we no longer need to repent to Christ is a doctrine of devils. It's a design by the "crept in unawares" to try to lead Christians blindly into... sin, a free get-out-of-jail card for later sinful actions. It is... an ATTACK upon the Christian Church in toto.

 

[Netchaplain]

"Self is the believer's indwelling enemy": Here, the writer referres to "self" as the old self, not the new self which Paul calls the "I" in "it is no more I that do it" (Ro 7:17).

But the Lord says, 'No, it is not circumstances, not conditions, at all; it is you.'": The writer doesn't mean the Lord actually spoke this but it is an inference, meaning that God's work which He does in us is superior to His work by us, as Christ told Martha that Mary was doing (getting to know Him) something superior to what she was doing (Luk 10:42). The greater we mature in Christ's image in our lives, the more effective we will be in our service.

"We have no longer conscience of sins before God": The phrase "conscience of sins" referrs to awareness of the guilt from sin, not the awareness of sins presense, which would be denial (1Jo 1:8). An example would be that the Law's intent wasn't to clear one's guilt from sin but to make one aware of the guilt of it, which prepared man for the redmption from the guilt from sin. I believe God causes us to be aware of sins as He deals with them. The more He teaches us the level of decatancy of our sin, the more He teaches us His holiness.

"For the law having a shadow of good things to come and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect (guiltless). For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins" (Heb 10:1, 2).

God has His reasons for leaving sin in us for our learning, just as the devil is still here. I believe the primary issuse isn't the presense of sin as much as it is what we allow God to do about it, which sholud be us believing that Christ continualy
"washes us from our sins in His own blood" (Rev 1:5).