For Him and With Him

[WordSword]

As David’s men were withdrawn from all connections with Saul’s system by virtue of their association with him, so all those who are led by the Spirit to know their oneness with the rejected Lord Jesus, must feel themselves dissociated from present things here, by reason of that blessed oneness with Him. Hence, if you ask a heavenly man why he does not mix himself up with the plans and pursuits of this age, his reply will be, “Because the Lord Jesus is at the right hand of the Father, and I am identified with Him.” He has been cast out by this world and I take my place with Him, apart therefore from its objects and pursuits.

All who understand the true nature of the heavenly calling will walk in separation from the world; but those who do not, will just take their portion here and live as others. Many, alas, are satisfied with the mere knowledge of the forgiveness of sins, and never think of going further. They have passed through the Red Sea, it may be, but manifest no desire to cross the Jordon, and eat the mature corn of their heavenly position.

Just as it was in the day of David’s rejection many, though Israelites, did not cast their lot in rejection with him. It was one thing to be an Israelite. It was another thing to be with David in the hold. Even Jonathan was not there, he still adhered to the old system of things. Though loving David as his own soul he lived and died in companionship with Saul. True, he ventured to speak for David, and sought his company when he could. He had stripped himself to clothe David; yet he did not cast in his lot with him.

Consequently, when the names and deeds of David’s worthies are heralded by the Holy Spirit (Heb 11:32), we look in vain for the name of the affectionate Jonathan; when the devoted companions of David’s exile were mustered round his throne in the sunshine of his royal countenance, poor Jonathan was mingled with the dust, having ingloriously fallen on mount Gilboa by the hands of the uncircumcised Philistines!

Oh that all who profess to love the Lord Jesus in sincerity and truth may seek a more decided identification with Him in this time of His rejection! The citizens have sent a message after Him, saying, “We will not have this man to reign over us”; and shall we go and associate ourselves with these to forward their Christ-rejecting plans? God forbid! May our hearts be with Him where He is. May we know the hallowed fellowship of the cave of Adullam, where the Prophet, Priest and King are to be found, embodied in the beloved Person of Him who loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own Blood.

Oh that the Holy Spirit may kindle within us a flame of ardent love to the very Person of the Lord Jesus Christ—may He unfold to our souls more of the divine excellencies of His Person, that we may know Him to be the fairest among ten thousands, and altogether lovely, and be able to say with a true worthy, “Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord; for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but refuse, that I may win Christ” (Phil 3:8).

- C H Mackintosh

 

 

MJS devotional for Feb. 21:

“When the standard of the Christian life is low, the responsibility for growth is placed upon the believer. But when it is known that God’s standard for us is His Son, all expectation of maturity must be placed in Him—”for it is God which worketh in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13).”

http://www.abideabove.com/hungry-heart/

[frienduff thaylorde]

Onward in the LORD peoples ,  onward in the Lord.

When all affections , hopes and all are set above on Him.    it matters not what we lose in this life

and it matters not what we suffer,   all that matters is to KNOW HIM MORE

and from truly greatful hearts for having even BEEN SAVED we rejoice through it all and shall abound , even rejoice when found in prison , or on the run

the gain of KNOWING CHRIST is all that matters .    ONWARD through the fields and through the trenches ,  for a monster weapon is being formed

to come against the TRUE LAMBS.    and though it uses words like love , like peace and unity ,     HEED It not and have no part with the all inclusive interfaith lie

that leadeth by peace to the one who by PEACE shall destroy many.   fear not a thing that man can do.   REJIOCE in the LORD when persecuted

and Happy is the one who is persecuted for his name sake .   REJIOCE an LEAP in that day for great is your reward in heaven.  Forgive all who wrong us

but never conform to the ways of the world .    

[LightShinesInTheDarkness]

Being for the Lord is not merely a matter of not doing what we know is wrong, but also of doing what we know is right. 

A Christian can agree with Jesus' words and be united with Him in spirit, but still be against Him in practice, by not being a doer of the word and by going against the same. That kind of Christian will be an unfruitful Christian, and an un-Christlike Christian. God renews the minds of those who choose to do what He has commanded them and who also pursue what is pleasing to Him, and He works in and with them to do the same. Those who choose to do their own will and pursue what pleases their flesh will stay spiritually immature and be estranged from God, however long they have been in Christ, and regardless of how diligently they study the Bible---like a married couple who live in the same house but have little to do with each other, and little in common. (Remember the parable of the sower, and Peter's exhortation in the 1st chapter of 2 Peter.)

It's a nice thought that God does all the work of making us more like Himself after He saves us, while we go about life doing whatever we please; but that's all it is---a nice thought. It doesn't work that way, and Christians who believe in automatic sanctification are not being sanctified as they think they are. Practical sanctification is a joint work: We make choices (good or bad) and God responds to our choices.

A relationship with God must be pursued and cultivated by the Christian in order for us to know Him better, and thus, to be more like Him by living according to what He reveals to us about Himself and what is pleasing to Him as we walk with Him; and obedience to Jesus is fundamental to the cultivation of a closer walk with Jesus, and the maintenance of the same.

If we're choosing not to keep in step with the Spirit, and we're not being doers of the word, we are against Christ practically, even if we are united with Him spiritually, and regardless of how much we say we love Him. (This may sound harsh to say, but think about it from the perspective of the Scriptures and you will see that it cannot be otherwise.)

If we push Jesus away and distance ourselves from Him in order to have our own way long enough, and keep choosing "Me" when we have the choice between us and Him, eventually He may just give us what we have proven to Him that we really want, by our actions (not what we say we want with our lips), and leave us alone to be our own master again and enjoy living for ourselves, without Him.

Jesus is not an accessory to a self-centered life: He is the life, and the center of the new life---and more and more abundantly of the single-minded man or woman who dies to him or herself daily to keep in step with Him and who seeks after the knowledge of Him with a desire to please Him.

Choose you this day whom you will serve. And tomorrow (God granting), choose; and the day after that, choose. The more you choose Christ, the more you will love Him, the better you will know Him and be of like mind with Him, and the greater your zeal for Him and your desire to do what pleases Him will be; and vice versa. (You don't have to believe this, but the truth proves itself.)

Either Christ is all or we are all, but we cannot serve two masters. If you're choosing you when you know you should be choosing Him, you are against Christ. God does not accept divided hearts or leftover scraps. If we do not love Him with all, we do not love Him at all. There is no other way to love God: God did not give us an alternative way to love Him besides with all, and we should not be foolish to think that anything less than all is acceptable to Him. (Remember what He had to say to the church in Ephesus in Revelation chapter 2, and to the lukewarm church in Laodicea.)

None of us is perfect, but it is the daily choices we make, and what we do when we sin, that shows what kind of Christian we are, and determines whether we will go forward with Christ and remain close to Him, or stay where we are and slide backwards, away from Him: Do we pursue the knowledge of God and spiritual things and what is pleasing to the Lord, or do we pursue and preoccupy ourselves with the same worldly pursuits and pleasures that the unsaved pursue? Do we justify or rationalize our sin and our faults, or try to hide from God and His conviction about these, or do we humble ourselves and repent and keep going, learn from our mistakes, and try to do better?

[simplejeff]

12 minutes ago, LightShinesInTheDarkness said:

None of us is perfect

Did you ever see parents in a restaurant or family gathering or other situation

fawning over their little baby ?    "OH<  she's so PERFECT ! "  And the like ?  In their eyes their baby (and other's babies can be) are PERFECT!  and they have no hesitation SAYING SO OUT LOUD !

Is YHVH our FATHER ?

Did Jesus say to the "little ones" you must be PERFECT, because your FATHER in heaven is PERFECT  !?

And the faithful ekklesia believed/believe Him.  

[LightShinesInTheDarkness]

31 minutes ago, simplejeff said:

Did you ever see parents in a restaurant or family gathering or other situation

fawning over their little baby ?    "OH<  she's so PERFECT ! "  And the like ?  In their eyes their baby (and other's babies can be) are PERFECT!  and they have no hesitation SAYING SO OUT LOUD !

Is YHVH our FATHER ?

Did Jesus say to the "little ones" you must be PERFECT, because your FATHER in heaven is PERFECT  !?

And the faithful ekklesia believed/believe Him.  

By perfect I meant sinless. All Christians sin sometimes. That's what 1 John 1 :9 is for.

[simplejeff]

2 hours ago, LightShinesInTheDarkness said:

By perfect I meant sinless. All Christians sin sometimes. That's what 1 John 1 :9 is for.

Do you think Jesus meant "sinless" !?  When Jesus told the APOSTLES and disciples they must be perfect because their Father in heaven is perfect ?

[LightShinesInTheDarkness]

1 hour ago, simplejeff said:

Do you think Jesus meant "sinless" !?  When Jesus told the APOSTLES and disciples they must be perfect because their Father in heaven is perfect ?

We can know that sinless perfection (the teaching that Christians can become sinless in this life, and/or that "true" Christians never sin) is a false teaching by being honest, first of all, and secondly by reading the Scriptures in their entirety and in context and comparing Scripture with Scripture.

Jesus is the only man who was ever sinless or ever could be. God is sinless; Christians cannot be while in this natural body, and God knows this.

We should try not to sin, but it is inevitable that we will make mistakes because we do not have perfect faith, as Jesus had, and because we have the sinful nature, which Jesus did not/does not have. Hence 1 John 1:9, as I mentioned already. 

What Jesus said about being perfect had to do with our being imitators of God, that as He is in His ways we should also be in our ways. He was not saying that we should be sinless, as He knows that that is humanly impossible, for the reasons already mentioned. 

If you believe that the Scriptures teach sinless perfection, you misunderstand them.

That's all I have to say about the subject. 

Edited February 23, 2018 by LightShinesInTheDarkness

[simplejeff]

12 minutes ago, LightShinesInTheDarkness said:

What Jesus said about being perfect had to do with our being imitators of God, that as He is in His ways we should also be in our ways. He was not saying that we should be sinless, as He knows that that is humanly impossible, for the reasons already mentioned. 

No matter how a person 'acts',  they could not be perfect, which Jesus and YHVH said is necessary.

How then did YHVH bridge the gap,  so people could approach Him, since He says it is necessary ?

He provides he answer Himself !

(OT and NT) Here's the NT:

Our involvement with God’s revelation doesn’t put us right with God. What it does is force us to face our complicity in everyone else’s sin.
God Has Set Things Right

21-24 But in our time something new has been added. What Moses and the prophets witnessed to all those years has happened. The God-setting-things-right that we read about has become Jesus-setting-things-right for us. And not only for us, but for everyone who believes in him. For there is no difference between us and them in this. Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.

------------------

God has done this to demonstrate his righteousness both by the wiping out of the sins of the past (the time when he withheld his hand), and by showing in the present time that he is a just God and that he justifies every man who has faith in Jesus Christ.
J.B. Phillips New Testament (PHILLIPS)

The New Testament in Modern English by J.B Phillips copyright © 1960, 1972 J. B. Phillips. Administered by The Archbishops’ Council of the Church of England. Used by Permission

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 Romans 3:19-26 J.B. Phillips New Testament (PHILLIPS)

19-20 We know what the message of the Law is, to those who live under it—that every excuse may die on the lips of him who makes it and no living man may think himself beyond the judgment of God. No man can justify himself before God by a perfect performance of the Law’s demands—indeed it is the straight-edge of the Law that shows us how crooked we are.
God’s new plan—righteousness by faith, not through the Law

21-26 But now we are seeing the righteousness of God declared quite apart from the Law (though amply testified to by both Law and Prophets)—it is a righteousness imparted to, and operating in, all who have faith in Jesus Christ.

"A young child may be the perfect image of his father. There may be a great difference in age, in stature, in power, and yet the resemblance may be so striking that every one notices it. And so a child of God, though infinitely less, may yet bear the image of the Father so markedly, may have such a striking likeness to his Father, that in his creaturely life he will be perfect ,as the Father is in His Divine life. This is possible. It is what Jesus here commands. It is what each one should aim at. “Perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect,” must become one of the first articles of our creed, one of the guiding lights of our Christian life.

Wherein this perfection of the Father consists is evident from the context: “Love your enemies, that you may be sons of your Father which is in heaven; for He makes His sun to shine on the evil and the good: Be therefore perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Or as it is in Luke 6: 36: “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.” The perfection of God is His love; His will to communicate His own blessedness to all around Him. His compassion and mercy are the glory of His being. He created us in His image and after His likeness, to find our glory in a life of love and mercy and beneficence. It is in love we are to be perfect, even as our Father is perfect.

The thought that comes up at once, and that ever returns again, is this: But is it possible? And if so, how? Certainly not as a fruit of man’s efforts. But the words themselves contain the answer: “perfect as your Father is perfect.” It is because the little child has received his life from his father, and because the father watches over his training and development, that there can be such a striking and ever-increasing resemblance between him in his feebleness and his father in his strength. It is because the sons of God are partakers of the Divine nature, have God’s life, and spirit, and love within them, that the command is reasonable, and its obedience in ever-increasing measure possible: Be perfect, as your Father is. The perfection is our Father’s: we have its seed in us; He delights to give the increase. The words that first appear to cast us down in utter helplessness now become our hope and strength. Be perfect, as your Father is perfect. Claim your child’s heritage; give up yourself to be wholly a son of God; yield yourself to the Father to do in you all He is able.

And then, remember too, who it is gives this message from the Father. It is the Son, who Himself was, by the Father, perfected through suffering; who learned obedience and was made perfect; and who has perfected us forever. The message, “Be perfect,” comes to us from Him, our elder Brother, as a promise of infinite hope. What Jesus asks of us, the Father gives. What Jesus speaks, He does. To “present every man perfect in Christ Jesus,” is the one aim of Christ and His gospel. Let us accept the command from Him; in yielding ourselves to obey it, let us yield ourselves to Him: let our expectation be from Him in whom we have been perfected. Through faith in Him we receive the Holy Ghost, by whom the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts. Through faith in Him, that love becomes in us a fountain of love springing up without ceasing.

In union with Him, the love of God is perfected in us, and we are perfected in love.

Let us not fear to accept and obey the command, “Be perfect, as your Father is perfect.” "