Faith in the reality: 'I'm the Lord's free man'

(working on travelogue update and will post tomorrow evening)

“When Paul says ‘suffer,’ that word doesn’t necessarily mean that you experience pain; the word can simply mean 'to allow.’ Jesus Christ, for example, said, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me.'

“You get all the way to II Timothy 3:12 before Paul says, ‘Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.’

“Now, in II Timothy 2:9 he’s talking about himself suffering persecution, so you know that’s what the context is: [9] Wherein I suffer trouble, as an evil doer, even unto bonds; but the word of God is not bound.

"Paul writes in Romans 8: [17] And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

"If I allow the life of Christ, and that godly edification now to live in me, then there is a reigning that I’ll be a part of; there’s a promise of the life to come in that future out there that I’ll be a part of. To the measure that I don’t allow Christ to do it then I lose out. So the issue there is the Judgment Seat of Christ and the life that is to come.

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“Spiritual growth is a process of paying more and more attention to God’s righteousness and less and less attention to your own.

“Preachers spend time trying to get people to do more and more--to try harder, live radically for God, change your life, etc.—and the result is really stunted spiritual growth because you fix your eyes on yourself and you can’t do it. It’s not going to be you. And when you’re in those moments where it’s you, and you come to the conclusion, ‘I can’t do it,’ that’s good! Because you know where to go to the One who can.

“Most of the thinking about Christian living and sanctification is really just terribly narcissistic. It’s thinking about, ‘How are we doing? How are we growing? Am I doing it right? Am I not doing it right?’

“We ponder our spiritual failures and we brood over our spiritual successes and it’s all about us. The more you focus on your need to be better, the worse you really get. You wind up becoming neurotic and self-absorbed and all of life’s about you.

“When you’re possessed with your performance, instead of Christ’s performance; when you spend your time thinking about what you’re doing, instead of what He’s doing, well, then, what are you going to do but get worse? That hinders your spiritual growth because it makes you increasingly self-centered.

“Sanctification, set-apart living, is forgetting about yourself: ‘It’s not me! It’s Christ!’ The grace of God works--is manifested, put on display--in your minuses, not your pluses.

“It’s in your weaknesses, not your strengths. Now that’s the opposite of religion. Religion says, ‘YOU got to make it, YOU got to create it, or you’re going to fail.’

“If you’re always uprooting, checking on growth (‘How am I doing?’), that’s not going to get it. It’s Christ who’s the issue. He’s the cornerstone; the point of reference in all of our life and where all of our growth originates from. Spiritual growth and deliverance is by God’s design and God’s timing.

“God’s made you a part of something that before the foundation of the world He planned to do. He’s already formed it and fitted you into it. It’s His design and you grow in that. If you’re going to bring that design into the reality of your experience, you appropriate it by FAITH. The reality is that’s the reality!

“He came to live His life fully in you and Paul says, ‘Wake up, dudes, don’t you know that?!’  You’re bought with a price. You ought to live in the reality of who God has made you. If God came to dwell in you, how should you live?! Wake up! If you’ve got an asset like THAT, what should you do?! USE IT!

“God’s in you to live His life. Now, in I Corinthians 6, that’s talking about you as an individual. His purpose in you personally is to make your life a vehicle, a vessel; that is, a living manifestation of the One who inhabits you.

“I have a friend who doesn’t like how a song says, ‘He set me free.’ He said you need to sing it, ‘He made me free.’ That’s a technicality, but he’s right. God doesn’t just set you free; He MADE you something you weren’t before. You’re free. You’re the Lord’s ‘free man.’ That’s the reality and faith can believe that.”