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doing good, experience, following Jesus, good works, image of Christ, John Wesley, the new self, the old self
“They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them: I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble: for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.” (Jer 31:9 KJV)
Photo by Susanne Schuberth (Fürth/Rednitz)
Christians without Christ’s Spirit are spiritually dead since they cannot grow. That is an outrageous thing to assert, one might say, but it has been my very observation that people who believe in something that can be seen, touched, and talked about like the Bible, dogmatics, and doctrines prefer to keep talking and thinking about God than to really approach Him as their counsellor, their best friend, or even as the LORD of their life. In fact, you will scarcely see these believers to ever have a real soul-stirring experience with God. However, if you ask them, they can tell you almost everything about Him. But alas, God rarely speaks through these Christians since they are not indwelt by His Spirit. That is why I called them dead in the beginning. If you meet these persons more often over time, you will find out that their relationship with God (in case they claim to have one) has never changed. They do not experience a loving God nor do they struggle regarding their faith – ever. They have no doubts (or at least they do not admit it), yet they can take a stand as to most questions regarding divine matters and it is, admittedly, pretty boring to listen to them. This reminds me somehow of the people’s reaction to the Sermon on the Mount as they realized that Jesus was so different from those Pharisees and scribes who had no spiritual life inside themselves and therefore no divine authority, either (cf. Mt 7:28). By the way, Martin Luther translated the verse I just mentioned not like most translators did with “the crowds were amazed/astonished” at Jesus’ teaching. Instead he said that they were “shocked/frightened.” That makes it even more clear that real divine authority causes reactions in those who are confronted with it. Whether positive or negative, a reaction to God’s speaking can always be observed and we can be sure that nobody runs danger to ever fall asleep when he is all of a sudden directly addressed by God.
I recall that I posted this challenging exposition from John Wesley’s commentary on Romans 8 before, but I think it is worth being repeated. There he told us how to simply distinguish a real Christian from its fake version as he explained the following Scripture.
“You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.” (Rom 8:9 ESV)
Verse 9. In the Spirit – Under his government. If any man [has] not the Spirit of Christ – Dwelling and governing in him. He is none of his – He is not a member of Christ; not a Christian; not in a state of salvation. A plain, express declaration, which admits of no exception. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear!
(John Wesley’s Notes on the Bible, Epistle to the Romans, chapter 8)
Dear reader, I did not write this article in order to condemn anyone. Just for clarification: it is Jesus who redeems and it is God who out of grace pours His Spirit into our hearts in order to more and more transform us into the image of Christ. But we can conclude if Christians do not change over time, then there must be something missing in their lives, or rather SOMEONE must be missing. Brothers and sisters, it is so easy to get distracted by doing (good) works and by being busy with religious activities of any kind. But we should know that these things originally were never part of God’s plan. In fact, they are useless and worthless because these ideas solely sprang from our old nature that rather wants to be busy than to rest in God’s arms in order to wait… and wait… and wait… 😉 until HE gives us something to do for Him. Our self-chosen works may appear to be reasonable and helpful and they may even satisfy our soul in doing them, but our spirit won’t find God’s rest and peace. Actually, without getting aware of it, our old self is kept alive when we do what we always did while our religious schedule remains as predictable as the expected sunrise in the morning. May we never forget that God’s leading and guidance is NEVER predictable while His thoughts and ways are always unfathomable. If we store God and His doing in a neat little box that we can put on the shelf when it is not needed any longer, then God is not our Lord. It is still our old nature that presumes to know what God wants us to do. I do know it is not easy to recognize if we are stuck in these ways and we cannot get out of them without God’s help, either. But we could pray to God that He shows us where we might be wrong, just as it is written,
“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” (Js 1:5 ESV)
Wow! Wow, wow, wow! Yes. And amen. What a challenge, indeed. It is Him who does it. How many do not know this. Are deaf and blind to His voice, His presence. As I read recently (Sparks) explaining the new birth, our spirits are made alive to God by God. It helped me to understand so much. If our spirits are not made alive by God, if what we’re doing instead is the good works or bowing to a human being and their teaching or preaching, how we cannot hear Him.
Thank you for this post, Susanne!
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You are so welcome, dear Becky. I am glad you liked the post since I had not felt ‘inspired’ as I began to write. Maybe, it does not depend so much on our feelings…
Your explanations are spot-on! ⭐ Indeed, reading Sparks has been a tremendous help and confirmation for me, too.
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Yes, Susanne, our feelings are not our ultimate guide!
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I know, Louise, I should know it by now. Only if our feelings sprang from His Spirit who fed our soul, then we can rely on them. But alas, my flesh with its old ideas and thought habits dies so hard. 😉
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SO spirit felt, Susanne. I can feel the Lord’s heart wooing through your words. Thank you.
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You are very welcome, David. I am happy to hear that you could even feel the Lord’s heart through this writing. 🙂
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It did. Add although i can feel your heart in each of your posts, this one in more than all the others (and I am fed by all of them) really ministered to me. thank you again.
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You are very welcome, David. Thank YOU! 🙂
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This was lovely, Susanne. I’ve had some similar thoughts recently about the Western church, about how complacent people can become and how what is so often missing is healing. How can we all gather around the Great Physician and not really believe He heals?? I speak mostly of emotional, psychological wounds, whatever things have afflicted us, whatever weighs heavy on our souls. It’s just so tragic to me that people can sit in church year after year, basically dead inside. A church is kind of like a hospital, so we need to be in the business of healing.
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Thanks, Gabrielle. 🙂
As for healing… yes, Jesus promised to give our souls rest and relief from all our burdens (Mt 11:28-29). But who really believes this? Isn’t it the one who has experienced it himself?
Ha! Just found a Scripture regarding the healing business in the OT. It says,
“There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” (Prv 12:18 ESV)
I think that is what we all should do when, by God’s grace, a new heart has been given to us. Then it will be a natural thing to speak the truth in love just as the tendency to chatter and gossip that is natural to the old nature (even if not uttered) were before our salvation.
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Susanne, how many times in my life I can remember being forced to meet “God” at a certain time, day and place each week at a church service. But it was like our family knew that it was not real for if there was to be an argument break out among us it was right before we had to pack up and head out to “church” on Sunday morning. But fear not! We would all have our plastic churchy smiles in place before we bailed out of the car at the appointed time and place.
Then there was the so-called “service.” It was so predictable! I especially liked the part where Pastor Wonderful told everyone, “Now, turn and greet your neighbor.” All the smiles and glad handing with a feigned show of caring for one another for a whole 60 seconds before we were “called back to order.”
What a contrast this all is to what it was like to be around Jesus. You never knew what He was going to do or say next. Even when the disciples tried to out-guess Him, they were wrong. Why? He explained it this way, “The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound thereof, but can not tell from where it came, and where it goes: so is everyone that is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8, KJ2000). As long as we live our Christian lives by the timing and mechanisms of men, by the power of the soul instead of by the wind of the Spirit, we are living as Christians without Christ. But the soul of man loves things that are predictable and under its control. This kind of life is much easier to deal with than LIFE in Christ and requires no faith at all.
Thank you, dear sister, for pointing out the life transforming difference of what it means to live IN CHRIST. ⭐
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You are so welcome, dear brother. By the way, your comments made me grin, Michael. 🙂
Actually, these “plastic churchy smiles in place before we bailed out of the car” reminded me of an ‘old’ article by Jeremy Myers (you know this ex-pastor on whose blog we both commented in the past). There he admitted openly that a pastor and his wife plus kids had the most controversies on Sundays BEFORE church. It is truly hypocrisy to go on as if everything was right when you would rather explode emotionally. God could have a chance here if the first pastor steps away from the pulpit and admits being human, equipped with an average Old Adam nature like everyone else who has not been fully redeemed as yet. But if he does this, his days in a bigger and influential church are numbered, I am afraid.
“Now, turn and greet your neighbor,” has become a Catholic usage/tradition as well. Actually, it was not Spirit-led, but sometimes I ‘felt’ a little love and peace, though. Maybe, that happened due to the reason that it was the ONLY form of communication that was allowed between fellow believers during a church service. How different from what the NT tells us about how a church gathering should look like! The apostle Paul said,
“To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.” (1 Cor 12:7-11 ESV)
That is the way church should look like, right? Everyone should have their part in it. It appears to me that God is still working on it when He shares His Spirit with a few people. While the scribes had taken away the key of knowledge and hindered people from getting to know God closer (cf. Lk 11:52), Peter and all the other called-out disciples received the keys of the kingdom of heaven (Mt 16:19, 18:18-20). Suppressing the Spirit’s leading in churches is all too common and therefore the Institutional Church often keeps people away from going deeper into a real spiritual life and to begin to follow Jesus. There might be better and worse churches, however, following the Lord is usually not about going to church. It is about letting Him lead us in our everyday life as to every small and tiny thing. I think this is how God shows us His love. We do not need to do anything for him and there is no need to perform, either. It is simply about learning to rest and letting Him do inside us what is really needed. Works might follow later if He wills. And if not, then it should be no problem, either. God is not so much concerned about our activities, as I read in one of TAS devotionals lately (see http://www.austin-sparks.net/english/openwindows/003288.html), He is more interested in the inward man and his perfect illumination of the heart and mind that finally chases all the inner darkness away, as it is written,
Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (Jn 8:12 ESV)
Ha! Thank you very much for your thought-provoking stories, my brother. I could go on with writing, but it is already waaaay too much… XD
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And the comment section once again sparks a reply that brings more glory to God! In studying 1 Cor. 12-14 lately we noted that the only time Paul takes more than a chapter to address what takes place when believers gather, he had to insert the “love chapter” right in the middle to emphasize what would be the foundation of all this playing out. Currently I am enjoying fellowship with two very humble “Pastors” in my little town and they are seeing these truths and God is working on them. I hope this kind of article spurs prayer for “Pastors” who are over-burdened with the man-made system and are open to the Spirit enough and humble enough to lay on the altar the whole false system.
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Thanks for your helpful contribution, Chuck. Indeed, I came to know humble pastors and priests too. What I saw was their difficulty to find another than this paid job in churches. There they really need God’s help to come out of the system and find another paid job. If they let God lead them, He will provide. Just thinking of our ‘duty’ to first seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness… and then everything else we might need will be given to us.
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Susanne, thanks for your lengthy reply. You wrote,
“We do not need to do anything for him and there is no need to perform, either. It is simply about learning to rest and letting Him do inside us what is really needed. Works might follow later if He wills. And if not, then it should be no problem, either. God is not so much concerned about our activities… He is more interested in the inward man and his perfect illumination of the heart and mind that finally chases all the inner darkness away…”
I have read your reply now, three times and I am afraid that I have no comment to share back with you. Arg! I am glad that there is no need for us to perform in our relationship with the saints, either, as we follow the Lord together in His rest. His love for one another in us is enough. ❤
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Yes and amen, Michael!
Love IN Christ ❤
Susanne
PS
I guess that was not too lengthy this time. XD
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Susanne, it was not that your reply to me was too long or even uninspired, but rather that I was too empty of inspiration to reply at length. I hate it when God leaves me that way for lengthy periods of time, but HE is GOD and I am not.
Michael ❤
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I got that, Michael, and I was just kidding here. Indeed, we do not always like it when God takes us through these dry and empty times.
Susanne ❤
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Whoo-ee, boy! Good word!
God had to stop me from doing the dead works you mention, years ago. Even reading the Word and praying can become dead works, odd as that sounds.
Sometimes I wonder if I have lost my way, then something reminds me that, no, God is still working. My flesh just hasn’t adjusted to the simplicity of it. I suppose the flesh never adjusts…
Thank you for reminding me, it is a blessing!
Love to all who gather here~
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You are so welcome, dear Louise. 🙂
I guess any religious rituals, even Bible reading or prayer times can be a substitute for really letting God do what He sees fit in our lives and very hearts. Our old nature can even get proud of all these things. Therefore God must empty us and take it all away until we have learned to simply trust His unpredictable guidance. Having lost the way is a ‘feeling’ that I have known too. Not only once I wondered about God’s ‘strange’ dealings with me. 😉
Love to you too 😙⛱😍
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Susanne, as I am sure you know that I can really relate to your reply to Louise. Being unplugged by God from all the “God stuff” we used to do in our religious ways, including ready responses from the scriptures as needed can become very unnerving. This is especially true when you feel that people you know and love are depending on you to preform. I can only imagine what pastors go through every Sunday morning knowing that hundreds of people are coming to see them preform and meet their expectations.
It is interesting that Jesus did not let the expectations of people move Him and would often let them down… things like Him not coming to heal Lazarus when He was bidden or not overthrowing the Romans and making visible Israel His kingdom on earth. I hate to disappoint the people I love, but it is inevitable when we obey God rather than mam. I think that resting in the Father is when we only do the works we see Him doing and only speak those things we hear Him saying. We will never find rest as long as we seek to meet the expectations of those around us instead of the leading of the Spirit.
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Yes and amen again, Michael. I have nothing to add here, no leading, that is. 😉
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Good point Sue–A lot of our problems in our understandings of the mediations of Christ on our behalf is the result of our thinking in an analytical tradition and this causes a problem–why?–its a dichotouious form which causes detachment—Instead of dualistic thinking we should be thinking in an onto-relatedness which equalls unified experiences of reality–You have hit the nail right on the head!
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Well said, Ken. ⭐ Thanks for your your encouraging words, dear brother.
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Ken, your reply to Susanne reminds me of something that Alan Greenspan once said, “I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.” Maybe you could break it down in smaller words for me. 🙂
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You’re funny, Michael. XD
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Yes, “… Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.” It’s the difference between being in Christ and Christ in us over against “believing” things about Him! Thanks for your post.
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You are very welcome, dear sister. 🙂
What you pointed out is indeed THE difference. Well put, Yvonne! ⭐
Love to you ❤
Susanne
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Considering these turbulent times, Christians can use a reminder that doctrine and dogma are no substitute for the authentic experience of Christ. Whatever good works He calls on us to do should be inspired by love. Not appearance or compulsion.
I enjoy apologetics, and recently caught a lecture by John Lennox on YouTube. Lennox is an elderly Oxford professor whose manner is warm and engaging. His arguments in defense of faith are compelling. But, above all, I found the lecture informed by Lennox’s own faith.
For me, the strongest argument in favor of God’s existence is the fact that I know Him. He is not some vague idea, a theoretical being. I concede that I am not — as a finite being — able to grasp the fullness of an infinite God. But He is definitely the One who invented me. Not the reverse.
There are countless blogs and caustic comments by atheists online. I am not often though tempted to poke holes in the logic put forward. I find myself saddened at the thought of their authors’ ultimate destiny.
Thank you for another refreshing lesson, Susanne!
With love,
A. ❤
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You are most welcome, dear Anna. ❤
Ha! You see, John Lennox’s apologetics could only be enjoyed by you because there was LIFE in them. I had similar experiences too as I listened to (a handful of) theology professors who had genuine faith.
Grasping the fullness of God is indeed not ours to do. I recall it was Augustine of Hippo who had to finally give up on trying to understand God. But oh, how long it needs to get there!! At least for me… 😉
With love,
Susanne
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This thread puts me in mind of Paul, writing in Philippians:
Php 3:7 But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.
8 Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,
9 And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:
10 That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;
11 If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. (KJV)
Especially this morning, I hear “that I may know him…” Yes, Lord, that we may know him, and you! Thank you for removing us from our dung heaps! Thank you for revealing to us our self-righteousness and removing it! Please continue your work, for we confess that we are not perfected yet. We need you every moment of every day, thank you for being there.
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Amen to your prayer, Louise!! ⭐ Actually, I have had several parts of the Scripture you shared on my mind too. Esp. the parts about knowing Him and the power of His resurrection plus the fellowship of His sufferings, the ‘dung’ part, and the longing to rest in His perfect righteousness.
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Very helpful as I have been really wanting to do something for the Lord but don’t know what. Also the closer I get to GOD the less I like my job in technology. I feel like I do not belong here and I am not enjoying it any more. I feel like my job takes away from my time with GOD so I get distracted at work. Not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. Makes it worse that I am needing to get more education which I can not do during work hours which I will admit has upset me. I thought about quiting my job and going on some mission or be apart of some mission.
Any way because I have been going to church lately I asked the pastor and interestedly enough he is not actually in disagreement with what you have mentioned above. So I have not quite my job as I was thinking about doing.
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Fred, I knew people who quit their job because they thought they had to spend more time with Him and it turned out the wrong choice later as they got in big financial and spiritual troubles. One of Satan’s lies is that we automatically spend more with God if we have more free time. If God does not directly call you out of this job into another one, you will have to bear the negative consequences.
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So far all the people I have talked to about this is saying I should not quite my job. Actually one person said I can worship GOD at work. Which actually helped me greatly today.
There is a passage that got me thinking I should do this though so not sure what to make of it. Luke 14:25-35 I think it is.
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I am glad you got this confirmed through others too, Fred. Worship in the Spirit is something we can do everywhere and at any time as soon as God has opened the eyes of our heart. So we need to wait on His revelation on how to do THIS.
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