Others May, You Cannot

Others May, You Cannot

By G.D. Watson

If God has called you to be really like Jesus He will draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility. God’s call will put such demands of obedience on you that you will not be able to follow other people, or measure yourself by other Christians. At times, He will let other people do things which He will not let you do.

Other Christians who seem very religious will push themselves, pull wires, and work schemes to carry out their plans. You cannot, and if you attempt it, you will meet with failure and rebuke from the Lord.

Others may boast of themselves, of their work, of their successes, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing, and if you begin it, He will lead you to despise yourself and all your good works.

Others may be allowed to succeed in making money, or may have a legacy left to them, but it is likely God will keep you poor. God wants you to have something far better than gold, namely, a helpless dependence upon Him, that He may demonstrate His faithful love for you in supplying your needs day by day.

God may let others be honored and put forward, and keep you hidden in obscurity in order to produce some fragrant fruit for His coming glory which can only be produced in the shade. He may let others be great, but keep you small. He may let others do a work for Him and get the credit for it now. The reward for your work is held in the hands of Jesus and you will not see it until He comes.

The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch over you with a jealous love. He will rebuke you for the little words and feelings or for wasting your time. So make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign, and has a right to do as He pleases with His own. He does not owe you an explanation of these mysteries. But if you give yourself to be His child, He will wrap you up in a jealous love, and give you the precious blessings for those who belong, heart and soul, to Him.

Settle it forever, then, that you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit. It is His option to tie your tongue, or chain your hand, or close your eyes in ways that He does not seem to use with others. And when you are so possessed by the living God that your heart delights over this peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit over your life, you will have found the vestibule of Heaven.

This essay was originally written as a tract by G.D. Watson (lived 1845-1924). 

Reading List (November 2013)

I finished all 3 books I was reading/started last month, and I read 2 more short ones and have started on the next ones! :-D  My goal now is about one book a week, although I tend to read multiple books at once! However, I am reminding myself not to neglect my Bible reading (or do a little less because I’m reading other things). Bible first!!! Also, this month I am doing a 30-day devotional from the back of Nancy Leigh DeMoss’ book Choosing Gratitude. Very appropriate for November! 

Recently Finished:

The Power of Prayer in a Believer’s Life by C.H. Spurgeon.

Excellent! Very convicting. J I love reading Spurgeon, I am so inspired by his passion! Favorite quote:  “If you would reach to something higher than ordinary experience, look to the Rock that is higher than you, and look with the eye of faith through the windows of importunate prayer. To grow in experience, there must be much prayer.”

The Gospel Call & True Conversion by Paul Washer.

A very solid Biblical exploration of conversion and what the life of a true believer should look like. Really thorough explanations on what it means to believe, receive Christ, and receiving Him as Savior AND Lord, what regeneration is (chapter 9), and the whole book is packed with God’s promises to complete His work that He began in us.

Favorite quote: “The goal of the Christian life is the pursuit of an intimate knowledge of God that leads to a greater estimation of His worth, a greater satisfaction and joy in His person, and a greater giving of oneself for His glory. As the old catechism states, ‘Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever’.” p. 16-17

When People Are Big and God is Small by Edward T. Welch.

This is a really helpful, practical book! This was my 2^nd time reading this one! It’s a great resource for helping you see God as greater than yourself and your feelings, as well as other people, trials and circumstances. I highly recommend it!

Favorite quote: “To look to Christ to meet our perceived psychological needs is to Christianize our lusts. We are asking God to give us what we want so we can feel better about ourselves, or so we can have more happiness, not holiness, in our lives.”

The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness by Tim Keller.*

Short little book, but excellent! I SO need to think about myself less!

Favorite quote:  “The essence of Gospel-humility is not thinking more of myself or thinking less of myself, it is thinking of myself less.”

Trusting the Shepherd – Insights from Psalm 23 by Haddon Robinson*

Another short book – a really insightful exploration of the 23^rd Psalm.

Favorite quote: “We don’t need courage to fight our own spiritual battles. We have an enemy not made of blood and flesh, an enemy we cannot see or touch. He is an enemy who would destroy us if he could. What kind of courage does a Christian need? We need courage to trust the Shepherd. If we know that He is nearby, we simply trust ourselves to Him and go back to grazing again. And that takes courage!” (p. 70)

Currently Reading:

The Hobbit by J.R. Tolkien*

A Gospel Primer by Milton Vincent*

Are Miraculous Gifts For Today? – Four Views by Wayne Grudem

Addictions – A Banquet in the Grave by Edward T. Welch* (I’m reading this as a study with a friend, so it may take longer to get through.)

Next books I want to read:

Jefferson Lies – exposing the myths you’ve always believed about Thomas Jefferson by David Barton

Hole in Our Holiness by Kevin DeYoung

The Bookends of the Christian Life by Jerry Bridges

Accidental Pharisees – Avoiding Pride, Exclusivity, and Other Dangers of Overzealous Faith by Larry Osborne

*an addition from last month’s log.

What I’ve Learned or Observed From Strange Fire

Regarding John MacArthur’s Strange Fire conference, there have been some things I’ve learned and observed over the last few weeks. I’m going to do my best to write this without entirely “hanging out the flag” of my particular theological beliefs… so here it goes:

1. John MacArthur has a very loyal following. Now, I really like John MacArthur. I have been very blessed through many of his books and he’s a great expositor. I’m just saying it was amazing to me how many people were defensive of John MacArthur simply because he is John MacArthur. God forbid he could be wrong! There’s a joke that he’s the “evangelical pope” but unfortunately that is actually true among some people.
2. He’s not the only one… there are some pretty loyal Mark Driscoll fans too that stood by him even though he exaggerated the truth (i.e. “lied”). I’ll go out on a limb here and admit that I actually like Driscoll too (to an extent), but he’s still got some growing-up to do. And those who applauded him for making a scene have some maturing to do too.
3. I was reminded that no one is right. That is, no one person or group is completely accurate in their theology or actions. Mark Driscoll shouldn’t have “crashed the party”, Grace-To-You could have done the conference a whole lot better (narrower focus? more unifying? more grace?), many those reacting to the conference could have been more gracious (although there’s a number who have done a good job at this), and many those on both sides should have done more homework/stayed more within Scripture context and not been so led by their presuppositions, etc.
4. Fire causes sparks… and they can potentially start more fires. Grace-to-You was attempting contain the true fire into one and smother the false ones, but in the process I think they actually sparked more fires. If their goal was to bring more people into believing cessationism (which it appears it was) I think they failed. If someone has really studied what they believe this conference will be very unlikely to convince them to change their position. The only people who are going to become cessationist through this are those who, 1) were already riding the middle line, 2) were in a really bad/false church.
5. Fire also causes a lot of smoke…. This one sure did! But if truth is supposed to bring unity and love among believers, why didn’t this conference do that?
6. Who has responded the best to this whole escapade? My vote is John Piper. I think it’s really interesting that he has not responded AT ALL to the Strange Fire conference (at least not publicly as of yet... although I would imagine he will at some point). Perhaps he realizes MacArthur respects him and is being careful not to cause more division? I think many people could learn from this lesson though… sometimes it’s better to just keep your mouth shut (although there are times to speak, hence this blog post).
7. The Church as a whole is still lacking in unity. Apparently we still can’t figure out or agree on what are essentials and what are non-essentials. At the very least if they have or do many seem to still be focusing too much on the non-essentials. We need to pray for more unity in the Church today!

To end I’ll throw in this really interesting, thought-provoking quote by Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: (I didn't say I AGREE with it, I just found it rather fascinating!)

“There is nothing, I am convinced, that so ‘quenches’ the Spirit as the teaching which identifies the baptism of the Holy Ghost with regeneration. But it is a very commonly held teaching today, indeed it has been the popular view for many years. It is said that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is ‘nonexperimental’, that it happens to every one at regeneration. So we say, ‘Ah well, I am already baptized with the Spirit; it happened when I was born again, at my conversion; there is nothing for me to seek, I have got it all’. Got it all? Well, if you have ‘got it all’, I simply ask in the Name of God, why are you as you are? If you have ‘got it all’, why are you so unlike the Apostles, why are you so unlike the New Testament Christians? The teaching that I have just mentioned is false. The apostles were regenerate before the day of Pentecost. The baptism of the Holy Ghost is not identical with regeneration; it is something separate. It matters not how long the interval between the two may be, there is a difference; there is an interval, they are not identical. But if you say that they are identical, you do not expect anything further. And if you do not believe that it is possible for you to experience the Spirit of God bearing direct witness with your own spirit that you are a child of God, obviously you are quenching the Spirit. That is why so many Christian people are miserable and unhappy; they do not know anything about crying out, ‘Abba, Father’; or about ‘the Spirit of adoption’. God is a Being away in the far distance; they do not know Him as a loving Father; they do not know that they are His children. They may believe it intellectually, theoretically; but Paul says, ‘You have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear’. We are not to go about groaning and wondering whether we are Christians or not. We were in that state under the law; then we were wretched and we cried out, ‘O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me?’ But no longer! ‘We have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry’—and it is an elemental cry that comes from the depth of the personality—‘Abba, Father’.”    

-Dr. David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Christian Warfare: An Exposition of Ephesians 6:10-13, p. 280 (Edinburgh; Carlisle, PA, Banner of Truth Trust, 1976).

Reading List (October 2013)

So at the beginning of each month I’m going to start posting what I read, am reading and what I want to read next, because quite frankly, I have a lot of books that I want to read and I need to read them! So here’s October 2013:

Recently Finished:

A Hunger For God by John Piper - It was very good, something I really needed.

Currently Reading:

The Power of Prayer in a Believer’s Life by C.H. Spurgeon

The Gospel Call & True Conversion by Paul Washer

When People Are Big and God is Small by Edward T. Welch (this is my 2^nd time reading this one)

Next books I want to read:

Jefferson Lies – exposing the myths you’ve always believed about Thomas Jefferson by David Barton

Trusting the Shepherd – Insights from Psalm 23 by Haddon Robinson

The Bookends of the Christian Life  by Jerry Bridges

Are Miraculous Gifts For Today? – Four Views by Wayne Grudem

Though You Slay Me (Shane&Shane)

What an encouragement this song has been to my heart this past week! May it be the song of your heart as well! He truly is the One who's all we need!
"Though You Slay Me..." by Shane & Shane
For video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyUPz6_TciY&feature=youtu.be

I come, God, I come
I return to the Lord
The one who's broken
The one who's torn me apart
You struck down to bind me up
You say You do it all in love
That I might know You in Your suffering

Though You slay me
Yet I will praise You
Though You take from me
I will bless Your name
Though You ruin me
Still I will worship
Sing a song to the one who's all I need

My heart and flesh may fail
The earth below give way
But with my eyes, with my eyes I'll see the Lord
Lifted high on that day
Behold, the Lamb that was slain
And I'll know every tear was worth it all

Though You slay me
Yet I will praise You
Though You take from me
I will bless Your name
Though You ruin me
Still I will worship
Sing a song to the one who's all I need

Though tonight I'm crying out
Let this cup pass from me now
You're still all that I need
You're enough for me
You're enough for me

Though You slay me
Yet I will praise You
Though You take from me
I will bless Your name
Though You ruin me
Still I will worship
Sing a song to the one who's all I need
Sing a song to the one who's all I need

Confessions of a Sinner turned Saint – part 6

(For parts 1-5 see previous posts)

“The whole principle of the Christian life is that we go beyond what is “right” to do that which is well pleasing to Him.” – Watchman Nee

“Discernment is not simply a matter of telling the difference between what is right and wrong; rather it is the difference between right and almost right.” -Charles Spurgeon

When I first read the last quote above, sometime in the last 2 years, I began praying for this. The Lord is so patient, so gentle to lead us in the way we should go. It’s strange the ways the Lord leads us, the ways that He directs us or allows us to go in order to teach us what we need to learn. But He is utterly faithful to complete His work in us, to bring good out of all things… from the blessings and the trials.

The Lord gives many good gifts, but sometimes you can only keep them for a season, and then you have to give them up. There was a season of ministry I entered into 2 ½ years ago. At that time I had to make a decision whether or not to submit to the advice of a few respected leaders in my life or reject it and walk in the path that I thought God had for me. The Lord used this time to bring me to a place of full surrender, of laying down my dreams and desires and trusting that He knew what was best. This, I believe, is a crucial process. Our surrender to the Lord needs to be tested through fire. Often He will take from us, but although He may, it is for our good and His glory.

“If my life is surrendered to God, all is well. Let me not grab it back, as though it were in peril in His hand but would be safer in mine!” - Elisabeth Elliot

In this particular case though, instead of keeping my sacrifice, the Lord graciously gave it back to me and confirmed my calling to serve with this ministry through my parents and a few others. In the next few years, the Lord has tested my surrender over and over. I am still learning to discern between spiritual warfare and the Spirit’s conviction. I have had to wrestle over concern I had of man’s opinion and approval of me, feelings of uncertainty and doubt and learn to seek HIM and trust that He would be faithful to lead and direct me.

“You do not know what you are going to do; the only thing you know is that God knows what He’s doing.” – Oswald Chambers

I don’t know what the future holds, but I do know the One who does, and He is faithful, O so faithful to carry it on to completion! My life verse is John 3:30: “He must increase, I must decrease.” Let it be dear Lord, let it be!

This has been my favorite quote ever since I first found it. For years now it has been my prayer and deepest desire:

Perhaps some future day Lord,

Thy strong hand will lead me to a place where I must stand

Utterly alone.

Alone, O gracious Love

But for Thee;

I shall be satisfied if I can see – Jesus only.

I do not know Thy plans for years to come

My spirit finds its perfect home sufficiency.

Lord, all my desire is before Thee now

Lead on, no matter where, no matter what – I trust in Thee.

-Elisabeth Elliot

P.S. This is the end of this series. I hope you were blessed by hearing my spiritual journey and I pray that the Lord will in His own time and in His own way grow and sanctify you in the truth! God does His work in everyone differently and yet He has the same end in mind. Your experiences may be different than mine, but His goal is still the same. “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.”  - 1 Thes 5:23-24 (NKJV)

Confessions of a Sinner turned Saint – part 5

(For parts 1-4 see previous posts)

Here is the whole final message of the New Testament: through the atonement in Jesus’ blood sinful men may now become one with God. Deity indwelling men! That is Christianity in its fullest effectuation…” - A.W. Tozer

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus…  - Eph 2:4-6 (NKJV)

“Everything you entrust to Christ you will never regret.” – Eric Ludy

Over the next year, the Lord centered me more and more on Himself and taught me what it was to truly seek Him. In the spring of 2010 I met Eric & Leslie Ludy at our state Homeschool convention. I had read most of their books and had been very impacted by them so I volunteered (or rather demanded!) to be in charge of their book table and so also got to talk to them a bit. Little did I know what God was doing and what this first meeting would lead to! Over the next month my parents and I prayed about me attending their newly founded discipleship school in Colorado and that October I flew out for 10 weeks. I had a sense going that the Lord was going to do a work in my life through this time and prayed for His wisdom and enabling grace to be obedient to His leading. There were things I knew I needed to surrender, a depth of relationship with God that I was being called to pursue. Over the past few years I had had brief thoughts that maybe I should be baptized again, knowing that I didn’t understand the meaning of it when I was 11, but shrugged it off. Part of it was that I still a bit confused about when I had gotten saved, and the other part was that there was a depth in regard to the meaning of baptism that I still didn’t quite understand. I knew I needed to understand, believe and surrender more.

 “In walking with God, a man will go just as far as he believes, and no further. His life will always be proportional to his faith.”        -J.C. Ryle

One morning as we were in class, one of the staff members began to talk about baptism and the truth that it symbolized. Like a light bulb turning on I finally grasped the truth that I really (really!) had died with Christ to sin and been raised to new life in Him – I didn’t just belong to Christ, He wasn’t just in me, I was IN HIM! Here was a depth and a reality that I just hadn’t really grasped before. The truths in Romans 6 that I had read over and over finally were made real and practical to me…

Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. - Romans 6:4-6, NKJV

I knew right away that I should be baptized. I knew needed to testify of what Christ had done, that I was in Him and He was in me, and I knew that I hadn’t understood that when I was baptized the first time. The first time it was something I did, and this time I was testifying of what God had done in me! It was a beautiful fall day, but quite cold and very windy out on that little lake in northern Colorado; it was a sacred time, one that I praise the Lord for!

There’s a lie going around in modern Christianity that you can have the benefits of Christianity, but without the sacrifices, without giving up the things in the world that you don’t want to be without. Then there are many it seems who are surrendered to walk in holiness – but only up to a certain point. After all, we’re free as Christians… aren’t we? We aren’t bound by the law to not do certain things.  True, but we also are not our own, we are bought with a great price! God has not called us to walk the fence between the Christ-life and the world, He has called us out to be separate from the world and set-apart to His service. The Bible warns us to “work-out” our salvation, although in the next verse we are reminded that it is God who works in us according to His will (Phil 2:12-13 – there’s that 100% sovereignty and 100% responsibility again!). The Christian life is not to be taken lightly, we are called to live for Christ and die to ourselves!

Then (Jesus) said to them all, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. - Luke 9:23, NKJV

It’s those who persevere to the end that are saved. It’s those who run the race and finish! Living out the truth of the Gospel is not easy. And it doesn’t necessarily get “easier”. With the revelation of truth comes greater responsibility, greater warfare, and greater struggle against the flesh that still lingers. The world, the flesh and the Devil will not give up their fight to rule my life. Over and over I am learning that. I still struggle. I confess I sometimes still give in to my “old man” desires. There are more confessions to be made; daily repentance of sins, God is not done with me yet. I am not perfect and will not be this side of heaven, but I have Christ. In Him, before God, I am perfect, and He is faithful to keep building me more and more into the likeness of Christ. Amen, dear Lord, let it be!

(still to be continued)