“If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed” John 8:36
If there is even a trace of individual conceit left in us, it always says, “I can’t surrender,” or “I can’t be free.” But the spiritual side of our being never says “I can’t”; it simply soaks up and absorbs everything around it. Our spirit or personality hungers for more and more. It is the way we are built. We are designed with a great capacity for God, but sin, our own individuality, and wrong thinking keep us from getting to Him. God delivers us from sin. However we have to deliver ourselves from our individuality. This means offering our natural life to God and sacrificing it to Him, so that He may transform it into a spiritual life by our simple obedience.
God pays no attention to our natural individuality in the development of our spiritual life. His order runs right across our natural life. We must see to it that we aid and assist God, and not stand against Him by saying “I can’t do that.” God will not discipline us; we must discipline ourselves. God will not bring our “arguments … and every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (II Cor. 10:5) – we have to do it. Don’t say “Oh Lord, I suffer from wandering thoughts.” Don’t suffer from wandering thoughts! Stop listening to the tyranny of your individual natural life and win freedom into your amazing spiritual life.
“If the Son makes you free… Do not substitute Savior for Son in this passage. The Savior has set us free from sin, and this is the freedom that comes from being set free from myself by the Son. It is what Paul meant in Gal. 2:20 when he said “I have been crucified with Christ … His individuality had been broken and his spirit had been united with his Lord; not just merged into Him, but united and made one with Him.. “… You shall be free indeed” – free to the very core of your being; free from the inside to the outside. We tend to rely on our own energy, instead of being energized by the power that comes from identification with Jesus.
This 11/18 Utmost post and the next two Utmost devotionals, also to be posts, from November 19 & 20 are a continuation of the theme, “Winning into Freedom” that actually for me began with the recent post, The Legend of the Social Gospel Jesus. For decades I had quietly struggled before I experienced an intimate relationship with the Son and last evening when I read the final paragraphs in The Serving Leader book by John Stahl-Wert, the dilemma of my former decades was succinctly revealed to me in three points and I’m compelled to share the page with you now through Mike’s eyes.
In the car, I asked Dad one remaining question. Given my own track record, was I fit to be a Serving Leader? He knew exactly what I needed to hear.
“We’ve all made mistakes and wasted lots of time and talent, Mike,” he said, reaching over to lay his hand on my arm.
“But mistakes aren’t the issue here. What we do with them though, is the issue.”
I nodded.
“We’re all faced with three choices in life,” he continued. “First, we can pretend that everything’s always been just fine. If we make this choice, we have to spend all our time putting on a front for people, acting like we have it all together, and making up excuses for our meaningless lives.”
Dad let the point hang in the air. I was thinking back to the years when I had finally quit attending church, mainly to lessen the pain of my hypocrisy.
“We become smaller people when we do this, Mike. We’re justified in our own minds but useless to anyone else.”
Secondly, and just as bad, we can destroy ourselves in lament and self-recrimination. Since we’ve wasted so much of our lives, we figure it’s too late to get back on track now, thinking we don’t really deserve another opportunity and so we slide into a perpetual spiritual oblivion.
This description, actually fit my condition better better than the first one, I realized. Dad had just cut to the quick of my fundamental struggle.
“Again, this is wrong, and just makes us small. What good can a groveling, self-whipped soul be to anyone else?” he asked, the question needing no answer.
“And the third one, Dad?” I asked trying to hide how desperately I needed to hear a better option.
Dad squeezed my arm. “Ask to be forgiven for the past, Mike. And then seize your future with all you’ve got. Join the team! Live empowered!”
It wasn’t clear to me if he was just giving me his third point or if he was giving me a command. I liked it either way. I was ready.
Go Forth gratefully renewed >>>>> merlin