Jesus answered him,
"Where I am going you cannot follow Me now, but you shall follow Me
afterward." —John 13:36
{CHAMBERS} “And when He had spoken this, He said to him, ‘Follow Me’
” (John 21:19). Three years earlier Jesus had said, “Follow Me” (Matthew 4:19),
and Peter followed with no hesitation. The irresistible attraction of Jesus was
upon him and he did not need the Holy Spirit to help him do it. Later he came
to the place where he denied Jesus, and his heart broke. Then he received the
Holy Spirit and Jesus said again, “Follow Me” (John 21:19). Now no one is in
front of Peter except the Lord Jesus Christ. […] Jesus is now asking for an
internal sacrifice and yielding (see John 21:18).[…] There was no part of
himself he would ever rely on again. […] No matter what changes God has
performed in you, never rely on them. Build only on a Person, the Lord Jesus
Christ, and on the Spirit He gives. All our promises and resolutions end in
denial because we have no power to accomplish them. […] There is now only One
who directs the course of your life, the Lord Jesus Christ.”
{ELGIN} We have several bank accounts. One is for our personal business, one is for
the ministry, and another is a temporary account we set up in Texas while we
are here serving on mission. We use each
account depending upon what the source of the money we receive is or what the expense
is. That is much the same that most
Christians live their lives. They have a
spiritual account and a carnal account.
Oh “carnal” is such a harsh word isn’t it? Maybe I should have used something softer. Something that suggests that what’s been
deposited in that account is not all bad.
That maybe true by the world’s definition of good and bad, but not God’s. Sorry, had a squirrel moment! Back
on point …. Our new life in Christ is transformational, “the old is gone, the
new has come” and demands that we always deposit to and draw from our spiritual
bank account for everything. But we don’t
do that do we? Instead we live the best
we can and if we have to we get out our spiritual “checkbook’. If this analogy or parable is too obtuse, let
me be plain.
From observation and personal
experience, I have come to inescapable conclusion that most of us trust in our
flesh and our culture more than God. We believe
that we can live two lives. Our natural
one and our spiritual one. Our natural
one for most things and our spiritual one for special occasions. In fact … that is heretical thinking. In fact, we are supposed to crucify our
natural one and live fully by our new, spiritual nature. (Galatians
2:20) The reason, I believe, that we have this problem is that we are not disciplined
in our pursuit of a deep relationship with the Father. We don’t spend much time
each day focused on the spiritual. One
of my favorite verses is (Joshua 1:8-9)
“Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night,
so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be
prosperous and successful. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous.
Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you
wherever you go.”
In computer programming we would call that an “if-then”
statement. If you do this .. then this will
happen. For most of us .. if … is a big
word for only having two letters! And
that is where most of us fail. If you
don’t do the “if” then you won’t experience the “then”. It’s up to each one of
us. I can only encourage you … and you
can only encourage others. Actually “only”
is a poor choice of words because we are admonished to encourage each other. (Hebrews
3:12-13) “See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful,
unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one
another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be
hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.” Maybe it’s time to close one of your accounts
for good … you only need one after all … your new one.
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