…All my springs are in you.
—Psalm 87:7
{CHAMBERS} “Our Lord never “patches up” our natural virtues, that
is, our natural traits, qualities, or characteristics. He completely remakes a
person on the inside— “…put on the new man…” (Ephesians 4:24). In other words,
see that your natural human life is putting on all that is in keeping with the
new life. The life God places within us develops its own new virtues, not the
virtues of the seed of Adam, but of Jesus Christ. Once God has begun the
process of sanctification in your life, watch and see how God causes your
confidence in your own natural virtues and power to wither away. […] We want to
cling to our natural virtues, while all the time God is trying to get us in
contact with the life of Jesus Christ— a life that can never be described in
terms of natural virtues. […] …depending
solely on what they have by virtue of heredity. God does not take our natural
virtues and transform them[…] No natural love, no natural patience, no natural
purity can ever come up to His demands. But as we bring every part of our
natural bodily life into harmony with the new life God has placed within us, He
will exhibit in us the virtues that were characteristic of the Lord Jesus.”
{ELGIN} I was watching a documentary of sorts on PBS the other evening. It was about people going back to the country
of their ancestors. They wanted to
recapture the culture and the religious practices of that country. To restore what was lost. To cling to the “seed of Adam” as if somehow
that would make them right with the world and satisfy a void in their life.
Blaise Pascal, the French mathematician and philosopher wrote “There is a God
shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created
thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus” Along the same vein, C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere
Christianity: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world
can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another
world.” To quote a famous "poet of our time" - Mick Jagger - "I can't get no satisfaction!"
(2 Corinthians 5:17) says that if we are “in Christ” – redeemed –
save – reborn by the Spirit – we are new, the old has passed away and all
things are becoming new – living the sanctified life. Sanctified – set apart – consecrated for a
holy purpose. In their struggle to satisfy
the yearning that God has put in each of us, the natural man turns to natural
things … possession .. heritage … but never finds it. That is because only God can satisfy it
through Jesus Christ. The other solutions
seem reasonable … but then God’s ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not
our thoughts … (1 Corinthians 1:18-25)
“For the message of the cross is
foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is
the power of God. For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” Where is the wise
person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age?
Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of
God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the
foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand signs
and Greeks look for wisdom, but we
preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,
but to those whom God has called,
both Jews and Greeks, Christ the
power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser
than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.”
My encouragement to you is to
keep this fresh in your mind. To have a
spiritual perspective on what is going on around you. That your natural inclination is to try to
satisfy through the things of this world … but your supernatural life only finds
satisfaction in Jesus. And if it doesn’t,
well – Houston we have a problem! We are
beginning a new year, perhaps it is a good time to spiritually recalibrate your
heart and mind. To shake off the old and
fully embrace the new. It requires discipline
and the pursuing the things of God through His Word, prayer and worship. That is my hope for you in 2018. But
then again, that has always been my hope.
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