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I've been reading some interesting books as of late. I've mentioned Sit Walk Stand before, which I've read twice now, but there are a few other things as well. Anyway, they've all been on one's walk with God, or one's sit with God as is one of the main points.
All of the things I've read in the past few weeks have been the same basic message over and over, and I've been trying to take it to heart. The basic message is that we try so hard to do the right thing, because we feel as christians it is our duty or something, perhaps our payment, to do the right. But as Sit Walk Stand has pointed out, that's trying to walk, and walk on our own at that. Watchman Nee, the author, points out that the true base of the christian life comes when we first sit with God; when we realize that not only can we not truly do anything without him working through us, but that in terms of a battle, he's already won, and in us believing in him, we've already won. I've heard it before, but it never really sank in before he talked of it the way he did. The thing is, yeah, we want to do "good" things, good works, but if we don't first go to God, and realize that none of them make a real difference, that it's the relationship with God that makes the deed, then we will stumble.
He goes further at one point to say that we have to be utterly still in the lord first. It's hard to contemplate at times, but in accepting Jesus, we have in effect already finished, we have already won, but only because he won for us. The point of sitting first is to get one's head around that point; it's never us, it's always him. It's not me trying to do good to be worthy of my gift, it's not me doing good for the sake of being good, it's me stepping aside and saying, "you work through me." One point that also got to me was that it's never about striving to be like him at all. It's not about asking him to help us, or give us something we need, because he is all that we need, and we already have him. Instead, it's about getting out of the way, letting him kill off the part of us that's preventing him from getting that particular gift through.
As C.S. Lewis once said, we are as dirty mirrors trying to reflect the light of God. The light's already there, but dirt is our self, our ego, the part of us that says, "I". To be whole, to fully reflect, we have to let someone come along and wipe all the crap off. And it is a hard thing to say, for we feel ourselves to be the dirt, we have come into existence with the dirt on us, and feel that it is somehow part of what being a mirror entails. In fact, many of us get so preoccupied with the dirt that we forget we are meant to be mirrors.
That's why we had to die with Jesus at Calvary, to kill off that part of us that won't let go of the dirt. Someone pointed out recently that if you read the Gospels, they always speak of our sinful selves being crucified with Christ in the past tense, as in, it's already happened. So when we speak of being dead to sin, it's not what will happen the day we physically die, that's just when the sinful fleshbags we call bodies get stripped off and replaced; rather, we are already dead, we just tend to forget it. We should no longer be slaves, but we tend to act like we still are. That's what happens to people who've lived in such a position their whole lives and continue to live within similar situations.
Now, back to the part about walking, which Nee meant by living the christian life. He said something I found particularly interesting. What he basically said was, among other things, that being a christian doesn't mean just doing anything old good thing that presents itself to us. We must always sit in our walk, much like someone in a wheelchair; there's forward motion, but still with the sitting. Doing good for the sake of good is not in of itself good. Rather, we should be listening to God for what he wants of us, what he wants to use our gifts for.
As my friend John said in his talk last week, a lot of us christians, when we think of being a good christian, we think it means we should be out there in a soup kitchen feeding the homeless and poor. And since that idea doesn't really appeal to us, we don't do it. But just because that's a good thing to do, it doesn't mean that's what God has planned for our gifts. Doing good just because it's good, sometimes is done for the wrong reasons. God usually has the best plans for us, and besides, what we see as a good deed, may not always be. I'm reminded of Bruce Almighty, when he grants everyone what they pray for, and this one older woman gets the money she needed, but God ends up telling him that he never intended to give her the money because the poverty would have driven her to swallow her pride make up with her sister.
And that's all I can think of for the time being.
All of the things I've read in the past few weeks have been the same basic message over and over, and I've been trying to take it to heart. The basic message is that we try so hard to do the right thing, because we feel as christians it is our duty or something, perhaps our payment, to do the right. But as Sit Walk Stand has pointed out, that's trying to walk, and walk on our own at that. Watchman Nee, the author, points out that the true base of the christian life comes when we first sit with God; when we realize that not only can we not truly do anything without him working through us, but that in terms of a battle, he's already won, and in us believing in him, we've already won. I've heard it before, but it never really sank in before he talked of it the way he did. The thing is, yeah, we want to do "good" things, good works, but if we don't first go to God, and realize that none of them make a real difference, that it's the relationship with God that makes the deed, then we will stumble.
He goes further at one point to say that we have to be utterly still in the lord first. It's hard to contemplate at times, but in accepting Jesus, we have in effect already finished, we have already won, but only because he won for us. The point of sitting first is to get one's head around that point; it's never us, it's always him. It's not me trying to do good to be worthy of my gift, it's not me doing good for the sake of being good, it's me stepping aside and saying, "you work through me." One point that also got to me was that it's never about striving to be like him at all. It's not about asking him to help us, or give us something we need, because he is all that we need, and we already have him. Instead, it's about getting out of the way, letting him kill off the part of us that's preventing him from getting that particular gift through.
As C.S. Lewis once said, we are as dirty mirrors trying to reflect the light of God. The light's already there, but dirt is our self, our ego, the part of us that says, "I". To be whole, to fully reflect, we have to let someone come along and wipe all the crap off. And it is a hard thing to say, for we feel ourselves to be the dirt, we have come into existence with the dirt on us, and feel that it is somehow part of what being a mirror entails. In fact, many of us get so preoccupied with the dirt that we forget we are meant to be mirrors.
That's why we had to die with Jesus at Calvary, to kill off that part of us that won't let go of the dirt. Someone pointed out recently that if you read the Gospels, they always speak of our sinful selves being crucified with Christ in the past tense, as in, it's already happened. So when we speak of being dead to sin, it's not what will happen the day we physically die, that's just when the sinful fleshbags we call bodies get stripped off and replaced; rather, we are already dead, we just tend to forget it. We should no longer be slaves, but we tend to act like we still are. That's what happens to people who've lived in such a position their whole lives and continue to live within similar situations.
Now, back to the part about walking, which Nee meant by living the christian life. He said something I found particularly interesting. What he basically said was, among other things, that being a christian doesn't mean just doing anything old good thing that presents itself to us. We must always sit in our walk, much like someone in a wheelchair; there's forward motion, but still with the sitting. Doing good for the sake of good is not in of itself good. Rather, we should be listening to God for what he wants of us, what he wants to use our gifts for.
As my friend John said in his talk last week, a lot of us christians, when we think of being a good christian, we think it means we should be out there in a soup kitchen feeding the homeless and poor. And since that idea doesn't really appeal to us, we don't do it. But just because that's a good thing to do, it doesn't mean that's what God has planned for our gifts. Doing good just because it's good, sometimes is done for the wrong reasons. God usually has the best plans for us, and besides, what we see as a good deed, may not always be. I'm reminded of Bruce Almighty, when he grants everyone what they pray for, and this one older woman gets the money she needed, but God ends up telling him that he never intended to give her the money because the poverty would have driven her to swallow her pride make up with her sister.
And that's all I can think of for the time being.
