I want to begin with a short passage in Ephesians 4:17-24
So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, 18 being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God. . . . That, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. And that you put on the new man, which in God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
So, everyone has done that, right? You’re a new creation in Christ and you are living perfectly in all that the new life implies? Or maybe, like me, you’re just really close to perfection but haven’t quite got there yet. It is so frustrating – sinning occasionally:)
We know we aren’t supposed to live like we used to; that we’re supposed to lay aside the old life and move into a whole new life, but for most Christians the real issue is not knowing what we are supposed to do, but knowing how to do it.
For example, Paul struggles with this issue in Romans 7,
For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.
I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?
We’re not alone in this battle. Even the great apostle Paul went through a season of knowing exactly what was expected of him and discovering he wasn’t even close to living that way. So, how do we move from the old to the new? The first step is to recognize the fact that there is an old and a new - and that the old life is both empty and destructive.
Our old life at its absolute best is nothing more that spiritual death disguised as living a normal life. The first thing to realize is that no one moves out of their old life until they know, beyond doubt, that it’s worthless and self-destructive. When you and I can honestly, inside, say,
Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death?!”
Can you relate to this? There’s nothing like desperation to motivate change. So then the question is - how, exactly, does the change occur? What does moving forward look like?
The change occurs when God shatters your life.
Let’s just take a couple of brief examples. We already saw Paul’s cry of desperation in Romans 7. Here’s a similar experience Peter had in Luke 22:31-34;
Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simo, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” But he replied, “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.” Jesus answered, I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me.
Remember Peter’s three denials? Afterward the Bible says Peter went and wept bitterly. All of Peter’s illusions of how capable he was of living the Christian life were shattered that night.
I want to cite an author’s description of this experience. If this hasn’t happen to you yet, it will – assuming you really do want to live the spiritual life Christ has brought you into.
Every true servant of God must experience a disabling from which he can never recover; he can never be quite the same again. Something must happen to you which means that from now on you will genuinely fear yourself. You will fear to move out on the impulse of your own mind, your own desires and creativity.. We must be aware that we are often working and serving the Lord in our own natural strength; we are not drawing from God.
God must bring us to a point – I cannot tell you how it will be, but he will do it – where, through a deep and dark experience, our natural power is touched and fundamentally weakened, so that we no longer dare trust ourselves.
The Lord graciously laid me aside for a season in my life and put me, spiritually, into utter darkness. It was almost as though he had forsaken me, almost as though nothing was going on and I had really come to the end of everything. And then by degrees he brought things back again. The temptation is always to try to help God by taking things back ourselves; but remember, there must be a full night in darkness. It cannot be hurried; he knows what he is doing.
And of course I cannot tell you how long he will take, but in principle I think it is quite safe to say this, that there will be a definite period when he will keep you there. It will seem as though nothing is happening; as though everything you valued is slipping from your grasp. There confronts you a blank wall with no door in it. Seemingly everyone else is being blessed and used, while you yourself have been passed by and are losing out. All is in darkness, but it is only for a night. It must indeed be a full night, but that is all. Afterwards you will find that everything is given back to you in glorious resurrection; and nothing can measure the difference between what was before and what now is....When once your back is broken, you will yield to the slightest touch from God.
Watchman Nee
Peter, and everyone who has ever been used of God in a great way, had to come to a place experientially that when he looked at himself, all he saw was a total failure. The Lord had great plans for Peter, but none of those plans could happen until first Peter understood his complete inability in himself to live the Christian life. Remember how our Lord said that only those who lose their lives will find it? Now you know what that means.
As long as we believe we having something to offer, something in us that will be of great help and value to God, we are still living at least in part in the old mindset of pride and blindness. But when we come to the end of ourselves, when we genuinely lose our lives, we discover that God is willing and able to strengthen us to live by His life, by His power. This is why Paul wrote the following to the Corinthians,
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; confused, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
The Lord desires that we express the likeness of Christ, of our new life in Him; not the likeness of our old life. And the only way that can happen is if we allow the Lord to bring us to a place of no confidence in ourselves and all confidence in Him. As Paul told the Philippians in 3:3,
For we worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.
How do you get to the place of “no confidence” in the flesh? It is only when we see ourselves as absolute failures when it comes to living as Christ lived that we can begin to understand the how of all this.
In Galatians 2:20 Paul said, It is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me, and the life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God. . .
Paul had experienced Romans 7 and knew, beyond any doubt, that only Christ could live the Christian life. Once that foundation of zero expectancy from ourselves and all expectancy from God is established, then we can approach the leading of the Spirit in this new life we entered with assurance that, as Paul told the Philippians, It is God who now works in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure. (Philippians 2:13).
At that point, we want what God wants. We know that only He has the power to live that way; and we know that He is willing to work in us in a way that will get us there. The “getting us there” process is never an overnight thing; it may take years of learning and failing and winning and losing. But if we are walking by faith in Him instead of faith in us, He will definitely complete what He has begun in us. Like the Potter shaping the clay, if the clay is willing to be shaped, it’s only a matter of time until that clay represents exactly what the Potter has in mind. As painful as this training under the hand of God is, the outcome is perfect; it is exactly what He, and what we, long for. As one author put it,
Nothing so reveals the solid progress of a soul as when it is enable to view its own depravity without being disturbed or discouraged.
When we became Christians, what did we really expect from us? Why do you think God says the Christian life is a life of faith; of dependence upon Him, not on us? Jesus said that there is none good but God. Do we really believe we’re good? The goodness of any man or woman exists only to the extent that Christ is seen in them. We must decrease – He must increase. And the path of our decreasing and His increasing is that season of life that shows us in a very personal way that we cannot, in our own strength, be what the Lord would have us be. But He is more than willing to get us there by His mercy and power.
Finally, notice this comment by another writer,
Let us remember for our consolation that the perception of a disease is the fires step to a cure; when we have no sense of our need, we have no curative principle within. Discouragement is not a fruit of humility, but of pride. Suppose we have failed; all our falls are useful if they strip us of a disastrous confidence in ourselves.
Remember the passage I mentioned earlier from Philippians,
For we worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.
When, because of the experiences of life you know, personally, beyond any doubt that you can’t live the Christian life, and when you believe that He can and is willing to do so in you, you will be able to move forward, walking by faith in the Son of God Who loved you and gave Himself for you. As Paul wrote in 1 Thess. 5:24, Faithful is He who called you, who will also do it.
