Disciple of Christ

If the things I do, I do for myself... then I am not in the

right frame of mind.

I struggle in so many areas of my walk,

and one of those areas is my motivation.

What I mean by that is...

Am I for example praying/reading Gods word

or seeking to spread His word

out of a true love for him or am I doing it

for some pharisaical reasons, thinking with

my self righteousness and "works" I can

save myself.

The word of God is crystal clear in the fact

that it is not about what "I Do" in the sense of

the "Things that I do", If "I Do" anything it should

be to choose to surrender myself.

The fact is any good that is inside me is Jesus Christ,

without Him I am NOTHING. We can't save ourselves and

no matter how many "Good deeds" we do, none of it matters

if we are not surrendering ourselves to Christ.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit."

Matthew 5:3

Beware of placing Our Lord as a Teacher first.

If Jesus Christ is a Teacher only,

then all He can do is to tantalize me by erecting a standard

I can not attain. What is the use of presenting me with an ideal

I cannot possibly come near? I am happier without knowing it.

What is the good of telling me to be what I never can be -

to be pure in heart, to do more than my duty, to be perfectly devoted

to God? I must know Jesus Christ as Saviour

before His teaching has any meaning for me other than that of an ideal which leads to despair.

But when I am born again of the Spirit of God, I know that Jesus Christ did not come to teach only: He came to make me what He teaches I should be. The Redemption means that Jesus Christ can put into any man the disposition that ruled His own life, and all the standards God gives are based on that disposition.

The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount produces despair in the natural man - the very thing Jesus means it to do. As long as we have a self-righteous, conceited notion that we can carry out Our Lord's teaching, God will allow us to go on until we break our ignorance over some obstacle, then we are willing to come to Him as paupers and receive from Him. "Blessed are the paupers in spirit," that is the first principle in the Kingdom of God. The bedrock in Jesus Christ's kingdom is poverty, not possession; not decisions for Jesus Christ, but a sense of absolute futility - I cannot begin to do it. Then Jesus says - Blessed are you. That is the entrance, and it does take us a long while to believe we are poor! The knowledge of our own poverty brings us to the moral frontier where Jesus Christ works.

"My Utmost For His Highest"

July 21st

What does Galatians 2:20 say?

"I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

"I do not set aside the grace of God;

for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain."

Galatians 2:20-21

Christ died because we couldn't live up to the law, Our calling

as disciples is not to live up to something we can't live up to,

because through Jesus Christ we can live up to it!

We need to stop living to our own "Ideals" stop riding

on our high horses and just die. It's not about what I DO...

IT'S ABOUT WHAT CHRIST DOES THROUGH ME!

If you keep living for yourself, keep trying to earn what

you never will be able to earn then you are hopeless.

GIVE everything you are to Jesus Christ, surrender yourself

to Him...and let Him guide your path.

"Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of

the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the

kingdom of heaven."

Matthew 5:20

The characteristic of a disciple is not that he does good things, but that he is good in motive because he has been made good by the super-natural grace of God. The only thing that exceeds right-doing is right-being. Jesus Christ came to put into any man who would let Him a new heredity which would exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. Jesus says - If you are My disciple you must be right not only in your living, but in your motives, in your dreams, in the recesses of your mind. You must be so pure in your motives that God Almighty can see nothing to censure. Who can stand in the Eternal Light of God and have nothing for God to censure? Only the Son of God, and Jesus Christ claims that by His Redemption He can put into any man His own disposition, and make him as unsullied and as simple as a child. The purity which God demands is impossible unless I can be remade within, and that is what Jesus has undertaken to do by His Redemption.

No man can make himself pure by obeying laws. Jesus Christ does not give us rules and regulations; His teachings are truths that can only be interpreted by the disposition He puts in. The great marvel of Jesus Christ's salvation is that He alters heredity. He does not alter human nature; He alters its mainspring.

My Utmost For His Highest

July 24th

"The steps of a good man

are order by the Lord,

and He delights in his way.

though he fall, he will not be utterly cast down

For the Lord upholds him with His hand."

Psalms 37:23-24

Paul Washer has a great sermon on "Dying to self"

and explains it far better then I can do.