His Finished Work

"I feel like I have just climbed the highest mountain, higher than Everest,

and have arrived at the lip to begin to peer over the edge into a completely

new world below...one I have never seen before!! I have such an expectancy

in my heart(tears)somehow knowing, that what I am going to discover on the

other side of this mountain will change my life forever and continue to

ostracise me from most in the "church."...but I am ready to swan dive into

it!!"

I wrote the above quote  to a friend recently. I don't know if you can relate, I hope you can? Maybe not.

It is like this. We first come to Jesus Christ thinking we can now see clearly, only to find as the years go by that we have clouded vision.

We learn much in head knowledge but our heart lags way behind. That is what keeps us in pride which only serves to continue to blind us.

Blind us to what?

Rom 10:3 For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.

We are blind to our own self righteousness. We have not submitted to God's righteousness.

We have been trying to live the Christian life in our own strength and have not come to the place where we give up on ourself.

We remain blind as long as we will not admit that we are unable to live the life.

The medicine needed is what Jesus prescribed for the Laodicean church - eye salve that you might see" (Revelation 3:17-18)."

We need the illumination of the Holy Spirit! But we must give Him permission to show us where we are wrong...having a heart that is teachable and willing to yield. He will bring the truth before our ears and eyes but can we receive it?

This is the mountain we climb or years. I suppose some take longer to bring to the edge of the abyss than others...I seem to have taken sooo long. The thing is it is God who builds His church. It is Jesus who intercedes for us. It is Jesus who is growing the tree of righteousness that we have become. NOT WE OURSELVES!!

God is at work in us to will and to do for His good pleasure...not we ourselves. So we keep going..only by the grace of the Spirit of God, until at last we come to the place in our experience where we let go of all trust in ourself to live the life.

Jer 17:5

Thus says the LORD:

"Cursed is the man who trusts in man

And makes flesh his strength,

Whose heart departs from the LORD.

Jer 17:6

For he shall be like a shrub in the desert,

And shall not see when good comes,

But shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness,

In a salt land which is not inhabited.

We think we understand the gospel and what Jesus has done only to discover that we are camped on the side of the mountain nowhere near the top! It is not really a good analogy to use a mountain I suppose. A desert would be better...and more scriptural. We travel over the wilderness for years and years, stopping at different waterholes. Some strengthen us , some are bitter, some are sweet but we are kept moving along by the One who has a preordained plan for our life.

The message keeps coming before our eyes...ONLY CHRIST CAN LIVE THE LIFE...but we try to live it ourselves.

The length of time we remain in the desert is up to God. I don't have an answer for that. I used to think if I could pray in tongues  enough I would grow in knowledge and come into "my ministry". But though tongues are good this is still trusting in the arm of the flesh. And it is putting the cart before the horse worrying about doing the thing He wants you to do. First we must know Him!!

All the way through this desert experience we fail to see that it is only through the indwelling life of Christ that we can know God. Paul said he knows Christ when he relies fully on His righteousness and not on his own. Phil 3:9,10

 As long as we continue to think that Christ is separated from us in some way then the desert experience is our experience. We may know He has made us righteous...but still think it is up to us in a practical way to live the life of righteousness.

But even Jesus Himself said, "I can of myself do nothing!"

It is when we discover that Christ is our life that we begin to rest and enter the promised land we have been searching for.

It is Christ and Christ alone. Yet it is us. We are one with Him through faith. May God show our hearts that Christ is our very life. As He is so are we in the world.

http://messagetotheheart.blogspot.com/