Obedience from the heart is a wonderful thing.
We should never mistake our fight against Legalism as a fight against obedience. When we obey the Lord out of love and surrender, we are exercising a glorious response to a blessed relationship.
But there is something even better than obedience.
Life.
The very Life of Jesus being lived out in us, as we are in close communion and fellowship with Him. It's Galatians 2:20 springing forth in fruit. "It is no longer I who live, but Christ..." It's the fruit of His Spirit being produced in us, and expressing itself, not in obedience to a specific command, but in our hands being His hands, our feet being His feet, our minds expressing His mind.
This is not an abnormal state for the believer, though it may not be common. It's the normative state of a believer who is filled with the Spirit. Christ, Who is our life, living it, with us, as one spirit with Him (1 Cor. 6:17).
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2 comments:
Hi Terry,
I continue to enjoy your blog postings- A wonderful rest spot for a soul still bearing wounds from legalistic thinking in days gone by (and perhaps some still lingers). Here's some Thomas Brooks quotes I recently read. I thought you, and your readers, might appreciate them. Your blog just seemed the right place to drop them.
"Jacob's meeting with Rachel, and enjoying of Rachel, make his hard service to be easy and delightful to him; and will not the soul's enjoyment of God, and meeting with God, render his service to be much more easy and delightful?"
"Oh, 'none but Christ, none but Christ'. Oh my prayers are not Christ, my hearing is not Christ, my fasting is not Christ. Oh! one smile of Christ, one glimpse of Christ, one good word from Christ, one nod of love from Christ in the day of trouble and darkness, will more revive and refresh the soul than all your former services, in which your souls rested, as if they were the bosom of Christ, which should be the only centre of our souls. Christ is the crown of crowns, the glory of glories, and the heaven of heavens."
"So poor souls that see not the excellency of that resting-place that God has appointed for their souls to lie down in, they wander from mountain to hill, from one duty to another, and here they will rest and there they will rest: but souls that see the excellency of that resting-place that God has provided for them, they will say, Farewell prayer, farewell hearing, farewell fasting. I will no more rest in you, but now I will rest only in the bosom of Christ, the love of Christ, the righteousness of Christ."
"God never gave a believer a new heart that it should always lie a-bleeding, and that it should always be rent and torn in pieces with discouragements."
"A sheep may often slip into a slough, as well as a swine. . . there is a great difference between a sheep that by weakness falls into the mire, and a swine that delights to wallow in the mire. "
With love in Christ, brother-
Shane Becker.
Hi Shane,
Good ones, brother. Thanks so much.
I'm reminded that I owe you an email also. Sorry for the delay.
Blessings,
Terry
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