The Wednesday Word
The
Gospel Truth about Faith, part
III
by
D.G.
Miles McKee
Popular
as they are in some quarters, the believer has no need to be taught
techniques of self-surrender and self-crucifixion.
Self-crucifixion is both spiritually and physically impossible!
Try physical crucifixion and see for yourself. You can hammer
the nails into your feet and then maybe, just maybe, into one of your
hands, but you can’t hammer the last nail into the remaining hand.
This is also true of self-imposed spiritual crucifixion … it is a
myth!
With gospel faith, such techniques are done away
with because, as a result of the gospel, we are reduced to our proper
place of brokenness and dependency.
Jesus
taught that true discipleship was to deny self, take up our cross and
follow Him. This is exactly what happens when we receive
salvation by faith alone. Faith fully agrees with God’s
verdict that we, in ourselves, are nothing and that we stand in total
need of the Saviour. In that way, we are broken; self is
denied; the cross is taken up and we follow Christ. Faith sees
that the true believer is already crucified with Christ and that He,
Jesus Christ alone, is his life. Christ is all and in all (Colossians
3:11).
Gospel
Faith will cause us to give up our exhausting and useless efforts to
do or feel something good in order to coax God to love us.
Have you ever felt that, at times, you need to make that
extra special effort at godliness to squeeze acceptance
from the Heavenly Father? I've been there, done that and have
many tee-shirts to prove it! However, to think like that is to
walk in unbelief. The opposite of unbelief is faith and
faith rests upon Christ alone to gain us approval and acceptance
before the Father!
By faith, the scripture, "Having
nothing, and yet possessing all things" (2
Corinthians 6:10) becomes
a reality. The unsaved person, seeing the apparent
contradiction, may ask how we Christians have nothing, yet have all
things. Perhaps a statement addressing this apparent
contradiction, made more than one hundred years ago by the English
preacher J.C. Philpot, can help us to understand this. He
said,
“It means, having nothing in self, possessing all
things in Christ. My own beggary leads me out of self into His
riches. My own unrighteousness leads me out of self into
Christ's righteousness. My own defilement leads me out of self
into Christ's sanctification. My own weakness leads me out of
self into Christ's strength. My own misery leads me out of self
into Christ's mercy. "Having
nothing-and yet possessing all things".
These two branches of divine truth, so far from clashing with each
other-sweetly, gloriously, and blessedly harmonize.” -J.
C. Philpot: "Spiritual
Poverty and Heavenly Riches.”
And
that’s the Gospel Truth!
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