Self-will vs Maturity....

[Not me]

Self-will vs Maturity

Once we become saved we become His. Now starts the growing process...Which is the growing of a new creature in Christ...The growing of this new creation in us starts at the moment of salvation. With the promise to each one of us, of growing this new creation into a full grown man in Christ...

Each believer is given the same hope, the same help, the same grace. What a believer chooses to do with this grace that is freely given to them, is the choice of the believer’s heart....They can choose to allow this grace to grow them into a full grown man in Christ. Or they can choose to not grow, or grow just a little, but to remain mostly as they are, which scripture describes as a babe, child or young man in Christ.... Saved, with a degree of joy, and a degree of victory. And than other times, joyless, even to the extent of being a severe judge of those that would choose to grow and not remain as they are...

Scripture says that if we would be disciples of His, (people that would follow after Christ), the one thing we must do is deny self...For this is the one thing that keeps a believer back from following Christ fully. Their love of their own lives, their love of their own will...For self cannot be made to follow Christ....Self or own will is just that, that life in us that demands its own way...This is why, as scripture says, it must be given up, denied or reckon dead...For it can not but want what it wants, for it is a life onto itself, it’s own will, it’s own life...

The reason that own will is evil, is because own will is that will that doesn’t care about what is right, but only what it wants in any and every situation...What looks good to it or gives it an advantage...Doing what is right in the situation takes second place to what it wants... Therefore must this will be given up....For having to live and walk in self will is what we are saved from...This will that can not walk in righteousness, but demands to be lifted up above righteousness, that it might have the pre-eminence ....

For righteousness, which is doing right in each and every set of circumstances, is that thing that is right in that set of circumstances... It is doing the right thing, that is the only thing that God can bless with joy, peace, growth, increase and all good things....

Self or own will is that thing that stands against righteousness. Therefore self will is that thing that stands against us growing in this grace that comes from God.... For the grace is always there for the receiving. For Christ has died and been given to mankind, now by faith we can choose to grab unto this Gift of God or not... We can choose to turn to Him with our whole heart or only to a degree and keep some back to the fantasies we find in our mind...

For self, thinking it sees, thinking it knows, thinking it is something different or something special... It is that that builds the kingdom of self and own will. For it deceives itself, it thinks that which it sees as right and wrong is what righteousness is, not knowing that God’s righteousness is that which is free from all disorder...Which is impossible for man to walk in on his own. 

This is the gift of righteousness to man that man can not walk in but by faith.....By trusting in the operation of God in them, can and will self-will be set aside, therefore by faith will they come from under its power....Which is all done by faith in the operation of God in the heart...

For God is God and He is good and He loves and has His heart set on manifesting His righteousness, which is His salvation, in us in the time of this life... The choice of allowing Him, is the choice each believer’s heart makes... The fruit of that decision will be seen in the believers life...For nothing can manifest God but God Himself...

For Christ or self is the choice set before man..

Be blessed in the moment by moment choosing, Not me 

 

[Val Glover]

I liked your post and wished to reply...

I can understand where you’re coming from but I have realized your thoughts on “self-willed” and the believers heart is off. The Bible shows many examples of how a creatures will doesn’t hold a candle to the will of God. Self-will equals “I know what is best more so than God” which is sin. I like the phrase “all sin has I in the middle of it”, but another word that fits that description is “pride”. Jonah thought to assert his will against God’s will and was swallowed up for his trouble until he repented. Satan was cast out of Heaven for trying to make his will dominant over God’s. Less known would be my own testimony to show how man’s will amounts to nothing when confronting God. So, anyone claiming to believe and maintains their own will contrary to God’s will may not be truly saved.

Paul Washer gave a sermon where he illustrated  a very good analogy of why man’s will can’t stand in the face of God. The short version of the story is would you believe me or a friend if we told you while crossing a highway we got ran over by an 18 wheeler traveling 100mph but we’re totally fine afterwards? Of course the answer would be no...you would think we’re either lying or madmen. Then...ask yourself this question? Which is “bigger”...the truck or God?? I hope this shows how futile it would be to think anyone can maintain their will against the saving grace of our Lord and Savior.?

Edited April 3, 2020 by Val Glover

[Not me]

@Val Glover

Hello, thank you for taking the time to read my post. I would be most blessed if you would show me in my post where I missed the mark concerning self-will and the heart of man..For to see a greater light to walk in would be a blessing from one servant of His to another...

Thank you for the increase of light that I might walk in, Not me 

[Val Glover]

Earlier you posted this portion:

Each believer is given the same hope, the same help, the same grace. What a believer chooses to do with this grace that is freely given to them, is the choice of the believer’s heart....They can choose to allow this grace to grow them into a full grown man in Christ. Or they can choose to not grow, or grow just a little, but to remain mostly as they are, which scripture describes as a babe, child or young man in Christ.... 

This is part of what I thought was off. I don’t believe a disciple has a choice on what to do with the given grace of God. Scripture never portrays the Creator as someone who freely offers grace and hopes they make the right choice on how to use it. Hence, my analogy with Washer’s example of the truck vs. Jesus and which is bigger? When God calls you don’t get to put Him on hold until  you’re ready. Jesus also made several statements of followers who turn back not being worthy of Him. It sounds pretty all or nothing to me when He would state such things: hands on plow but turns back, let the dead bury their dead, not willing to deny themselves, etc. None of this sounds like a call of “whenever you’re ready to forgo all the world has to offer give me a call”. So, like the truck would permanently alter you physically at 100 mph, our Lord will permanently alter you spiritually, with His Spirit, over time. For me it took time to get where I currently am but there were little changes immediately when His Spirit convicted my soul. Small steps for sure with occasional backsliding but, as Shai Linne says in his song “Penelope Judd”, the Dove was there to pick me up whenever I slipped. So my backsliding became less and less and I began to detest my sins more and more. I didn’t have a choice in my changes because as I grew in my faith and love for God, I grew to hate all that our God hates and that included my own sins.

Sorry...I didn’t mean to continue on like that but I hope I made some sense to you. I think the real question to ask you to consider is whether you are a “drowning in the ocean until God threw you a rope” or a “dead at the bottom of the sea” kind of guy in regards to salvation?

Soli Deo Gloria ?

[Not me]

@Val Glover

Thank you for your explanation as how God has brought you along in Him, it did make sense. For I see the grace of God in your writings.. 

But if I might speak;

Scripture does put forth that God’s Grace is freely given to us all, for the direct purpose of growing us in Christ...

For are you not yourself the proof of this?

For as you yourself stated, it was God, (which is true), that brought you along.....When you slipped or sinned, did not that put God on hold?   Than did not God wait for you to return, and when you did, did not God pick you up and dust you off?  Did not God continued to draw you along at the speed you were willing to go?  When you went back to play with the dead things, did not God chase after you? When you took your hands off the plow, did not God draw you back to Himself, so that you might put your hands back on, to the end that you might continue to grow in Him..When you didn’t deny self, did not  God chastise you and continued to draw you... For the distinct purpose that you might learn to listen.... As you yourself stated, it took time for God to grow you in Him....Yes, at the moment of receiving the new birth, the Divine nature, there is an immediate change, but that change needs to grow and mature....Did not God wait till you were ready, to bring forth that growth in you?  Are there not times you wish you would have listened sooner, more or deeper? 

Scripture does put forth that God will “teach you with His eye on you”, meaning that each teaching, growing and learning is different in each believer, but with the same goal in mind...A mature man in Christ...

Some will reach this goal  and some never will, but God’s heart is that we all will... Paul admonishes us to continue to press into God that one might get a full reward, meaning that a reward the believer will get, but not necessarily a full one..We are again admonished to work out our own salvation, meaning that it is up to us how much we grow or work out or how much of Christ has been formed in us..,

But as to a believer growing in the grace of God....Scripture puts forth that we can remain as babes, children, young man or go on to become fathers. Paul even says, “by now you should have become mature Christians but I had to still feed you with milk”..... Meaning that Paul was blaming the Christians themselves for their lack of growth...For yes God gives the increase but according to what a man’s heart is ready to hear...For God is no respecter of persons... He has given Christ to mankind, mankind can have as much or as little of Him as that man’s heart is willing to embrace.....For the offices in God are different but the close personal intimate relationship with Christ is open to all equally...And as scripture puts forth, God makes His rain to fall on the just and the unjust, both get the same rain (grace) one uses it to the good the other not so much..

But as to a believer’s  walk and growing in God as long as their heart stays willing and even if it doesn’t, as you put forth as with Jonah, God is and will continue to draw the believer to Himself...One can, as with all believers go willingly where one will grow in the grace and knowledge of God or one can be stubborn where God will continually have to chasten to keep bringing them back to Himself.... Which itself is a growing process that we all have gone or are going through...

So I thank you for  your thoughts and your explanation and the light you have put forth...May God continue to grow us both in Him that we might become full grown men in Christ..

A fellow believer, Not me