June 21
“For the death that He died He died to sin, once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so, consider [or reckon] yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 6:10-11)
Continuing quoting from The Green Letters, we learn more of the importance of considering ourselves to be dead to sin and alive to God:
CONSECRATION (continued)
There is the all-important area of identification truth in Romans 6 and 7 that cannot be skipped over. Every hungry-hearted Christian yearns to be fully consecrated and conditioned for effective life and service. And from the outset, until hard experience teaches him otherwise, the well-meaning believer thinks that since he has the will to obey God and to be what He intends for him, he should attempt to carry it out through personal consecrated effort with His help. He seeks to struggle forward via the love motive, i.e. He did for me, so I must do for Him.
The following two thoughts by Andrew Murray will help here. “A superficial acquaintance with God’s plan leads to the view that while justification is God’s work, by faith in Christ, sanctification (growth) is our work, to be performed under the influence of the gratitude we feel for the deliverance we have experienced, and by the aid of the Holy Spirit. But the earnest Christian soon finds how little gratitude can supply the power. When he thinks that more prayer will supply it, he finds that, indispensable as prayer is, it is not enough. Often the believer struggles hopelessly for years, until he listens to the teaching of the Spirit, as He glorifies Christ again, and reveals Christ, our Sanctification, to be appropriated by faith alone.
“God works to will, and He is ready to work to do (Phil. 2:13), but alas! many Christians misunderstand this. They think because they have the will it is enough, and that now they are able to do. This is not so. The new will is a permanent gift, an attribute of the new nature. The power to do is not a permanent gift, but must be each moment received from the Holy Spirit. It is the man who is conscious of his own impotence as a believer who will learn that by the Holy Spirit he can live a holy life.”.… The love motive from which to live the Christian life and serve the Lord is good, it is high, but it is not adequate….
As growing Christians, it is time for us to see the necessity of going beyond the love motive to the life motive. “For to me to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21a). Our consecration, surrender, or commitment will never hold up if it is our responding to Him from any other motivation than the response of His life in us. Yielding to Him on any different basis will simply amount to our trying to live for Him in the self-life. And even if that were possible He could never accept it, since in that realm there dwells no good thing (Rom. 7:18); plus the fact that He has already taken the old life to the cross and crucified it (Rom. 6:6, Gal. 2:20, 2 Tim. 2:11, 1 Pe. 2:24).
We will finish up Consecration thoughts tomorrow and continue for a few more days quoting from the Green Letters.