Saturday, May 28, 2016

As Runner In This Race You Must Train, Strain and Refrain

My Utmost For His Highest
 
In that day you will ask Me nothing. —John 16:23
 
“When is “that day”? It is when the ascended Lord makes you one with the Father. “In that day” you will be one with the Father just as Jesus is, and He said, “In that day you will ask Me nothing.” Until the resurrection life of Jesus is fully exhibited in you, you have questions about many things. […] “In that day” there may be any number of things still hidden to your understanding, but they will not come between your heart and God. “In that day you will ask Me nothing”— you will not need to ask, because you will be certain that God will reveal things in accordance with His will. The faith and peace of John 14:1 has become the real attitude of your heart, and there are no more questions to be asked. If anything is a mystery to you and is coming between you and God, never look for the explanation in your mind, but look for it in your spirit, your true inner nature— that is where the problem is. Once your inner spiritual nature is willing to submit to the life of Jesus, your understanding will be perfectly clear, and you will come to the place where there is no distance between the Father and you, His child, because the Lord has made you one.” CHAMBERS
 
Our questions .. our worries … our doubts … whatever troubles us in this life’s journey on earth is a result of disharmony with God.  It’s not that there is something wrong with us, but rather that there is something that is not completely “right”. Being “one” with the Father means being in complete agreement, harmony, united in purpose, thought and desire .. having the mind of Christ. (1 Corinthians 2:13-16) “This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.”  Rather than a here-and-now reality, the “fruit” of that truth may seem in your mind and experience, just out of reach.  And it is if you are trying to live it out through your own determination and effort. The spiritual transformation that leads us to being “one as Jesus is one” is accomplished through a spiritual process not a natural one. (John 17: 20-23) “I [Jesus] pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”
 
We must pursue our faith.  Prepare our minds like an athlete prepares for a race.  They don’t just show up on race day.  They train, they strain, and they refrain.  They live a disciplined life in order to accomplish their purpose.  So we too, under the lordship of Jesus, the leadership of the Spirit and the instruction of the Word, must prepare ourselves.  The result will be that we are transformed to be like Jesus.  (Hebrews 12:1-3) “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”  CHARLEY

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