No way - it's May!!!!
And more than that, it's Tuesday - I'm late for my weekly update (notice that I'm having fun with rhymes? :-) )
News: Oodles! (which is a very fun word :-) ) We went to the Elliotts' for the weekend and had a great time! While there, we went to the worship night together (which was great) and watched a movie, Come What May, which I enjoyed. Although it shared the weakness of every Christian movie I've seen (I would tell you what it is, but it would give away the ending), it was good overall-and it was about debate, which may recommend it to some of you :-). Today I took my math test, and recieved what Mom would call a "very encouraging" score :-). Also, we had our dress rehearsal for worship dance, which went well, though it exhausted me-whenever I wasn't dancing, I was running! (Aah: forgot ___! Aah: forgot ___! It's my song! It's our song! Get in line! No, the other lines! Quiet! Quiet! Hurry! Change! Run! Dance! Dance! Dance! (repeat 100x) :-) )
In lieu of my favorite nugget, I will give you a quote from The Normal Christian Life (Watchman Nee) that has been running through my thoughts a lot lately. [brackets] are my insertions: summaries and/or explanations.
"I remember one day in Shanghai I was talking with a brother who was very exercised [worried is the best synonym I can come up with] about his spiritual state. He said, 'So many are living beautiful, saintly lives. [I am not.] I want to know this crucified life, this resurrected life, but I do not know it, and I see no way of getting there.' [I encouraged him that God had already given him everything.] 'He hasn't,' the man replied, 'for I still fail constantly. I must pray more.' 'Well, do you get what you pray for?' 'I am sorry to say I don't get anything.' We tried to point out that just as he had done nothing for his justification, so he need do nothing* for his sanctification.
Just then, a brother much used of the Lord, came and joined us. There was a thermos flask on the table, and this brother picked it up and said, 'What is this?' 'A thermos flask.' 'Well, just imagine for a moment that this thermos flask can pray, and that it starts praying like this:
"Lord, I want very much to be a thermos flask. Wilt thou make me to be a thermos flask? Lord, give me grace to become a thermos flask. Do please make me one!" What will you say?' 'I do not think even a thermos flask would be so silly! It is nonsense to pray like that; it is a thermos flask!' 'You are doing the same thing! God in times past has already included you in Christ. When he died, you died; when he lived, you lived. Now you cannot say, "I want to die, I want resurrection life." All your praying is just as absurd as that of the thermos flask. You do not need to pray for anything; you merely need your eyes opened to see that he has done it all.'"
Anything we need - it is already ours!
Everything we desire to be - we already are!
Now we just must "reckon" it (see Romans 6): claim its truth and apply it to our lives.
May we, Lord!
*Nee doesn't mean that we ought to just sit on our couches all day long and "be" sanctified-Scripture is clear that we must flee and pursue and put off and put on and desire and hate and... but in some strange way it's really God who does it - in us. And therefore, we don't have to "do" anything(???).
Actually, I can't really describe what Nee means! Words, at least mine, are sooo inadequate. Just read the book :-).
1 comment:
Praise the Lord who mercifully help us every time in our weakness!
As for the way "we don't really do anything", I like the way Wayne Grudem says it:
"...It is incorrect to reason that if we know the "natural" cause of something, then God did not cause it. Rather, if it rains, we should thank Him. If crops grow we should thank Him. In all of these events, it is not as though the event was partly caused by God and partly by the factors in the created world. If that were the case, then we would always be looking for some small feature of an event that we could not explain and attribute that(say, one percent of the cause) to God. But surely this is not a correct view. Rather, these passages affirm that such events are caused entirely by God. Yet we know that(in another sense) they are entirely cause by factors in the creation as well. The doctrine of concurrence affirms that God directs, and works through, the distinctive properties of each created thing, so that these things themselves bring about the results that we see. In this way it is possible to affirm that in one sense events are fully(100%) caused by God and fully(100%) caused by the creature as well. However, divine and creaturely causes work in different ways. The divine cause of each event works as an invisible, behind-the-scenes, directing cause and therefore could be called the "primary cause" that plans and initiates everything that happens. ...The creaturely factors and properties can therefore be called the "secondary" causes of everything that happens, even though they are the causes that are evident to us by observation." --Systematic Theology
And that is true! We can do nothing good without God working in us, and so any good that we do must be attributed to God, even though we are the ones who are seen doing the good deed. "When he died, you died; when he lived, you lived. Now you cannot say, "I want to die, I want resurrection life."" As you said, Cara, we do not "sit on our couches", but we actively pursue righteousness! But it is this very pursuit of righteousness that is God's work alone, and he has already accomplished it in us through His death on the cross. So we need "do nothing", for Christ does it all through us! Praise the Lord!
--Josiah C.
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