If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. – 2 Corinthians 5:17 What idea have you of the salvation of your soul? The experience of salvation means that in your actual life things are really altered, you no longer look at things as you used to; your desires are new, old things have lost their power. One of the touchstones of experience is-Has God altered the thing that matters? If you still hanker after the old things, it is absurd to talk about being born from above, you are juggling with yourself. If you are born again, the Spirit of God makes the alteration manifest in your actual life and reasoning, and when the crisis comes you are the most amazed person on earth at the wonderful difference there is in you. There is no possibility of imagining that you did it. It is this complete and amazing alteration that is the evidence that you are a saved soul.
What difference has my salvation and sanctification made? For instance, can I stand in the light of 1 Corinthians 13, or do I have to shuffle? The salvation that is worked out in me by the Holy Ghost emancipates me entirely, and as long as I walk in the light as God is in the light, He sees nothing to censure, because His life is working out in every particular, not to my consciousness, but deeper than my consciousness.
2 thoughts on “The Transfigured Life”
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Umm. So you have no problem with something you know to be sin, and yet still have a devil of a time controlling it?
If so, you gotta get the word out. 27 years since my prayer to receive Christ. 27 years since waking the next day to the scary wonderful realization that “something” had changed. 27 years of trying to figure out why I still desired the same sex. 27 years of a slogging, terrifying wonderment at how this could be?
Oh, I get it. It’s just because my faith isn’t real. If it were, I would have no such desire for the old things.
Oh, I get it. Of course, now where does that leave me?
There’s no hell -on earth- like having your eyes opened to the truth, knowing in a way that can never be denied that Jesus is the Way, Truth, the Life, and that no one can come to the Father but through Him, and still finding yourself able to act out on homosexual desires.
Please don’t try to respond with words of counsel. You can say nothing I haven’t heard. It’s just that I wished you knew, in your ecstasy of obedience, how your words are heard by someone like me. Somehow, YOU got it, and are happily enjoying your deliverance from desiring the old things. Do you think you could ever teach that, or are you just content to think that it must be God who has given us such disparate experiences?
I’ve come to this understanding. A homosexual who asks Christ into his heart has only one option and that is abstinence. Whence comes the understanding and strength for that? If one doesn’t find oneself in possession of understanding and strength, am I only able to conclude that I was never of the faith? Even though I seek my solace and deliverance in no one other than Jesus?
Were the words on you blog yours, or a quote from someone?
I took the promise of freedom from sin and death as seriously as anyone else. It just didn’t work itself out that way for me. Thanks for making me realize something I’d never thought of before. Oh! It must be because I am “juggling with myself”. My faith, my hope in Christ, is, in all likelihood, not real.
All posts that say “My Utmost for His Hightest” and are filed uder the category “Daily Devotional” are quoted from the book “My Utmost for His Highest” by Oswald Chambers.
We all deal with temptation. We all deal with desires that are contratry to God’s will. You deal with Homosexual desires, others deal with temptation towards other vices. I agree with you that the only option is abstinence, and I understand that is difficult, and sometimes seems impossible. I am engaged to be married and fight the temptation to indulge in sex with my fiancee all the time. Sometimes it is extrememly difficult, but we manage. We will not violate God’s will by robbing him of the joy he only intends to give us once we are wed. I have no magical answer for you, save that which you’ve probably heard thousands of times in your 27 years. I could give suggestions, but it sounds as though you are uninterested, so I’ll say only that you should work it out with your Saviour. Don’t trust your heart, it is deceitfully wicked (Jer. 17:9).