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December 9, 2007
THE OFFENCE OF THE NATURAL
And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with
the affections and lusts.
Galatians 5:2
http://www.SearchGodsWord.org/desk/?query=ga+5:2&sr=1
The natural life is not sinful; we must be apostatized from sin, have
nothing to do with sin in any shape or form. Sin belongs to hell and
the devil; I, as a child of God, belong to heaven and God. It is not
a question of giving up sin, but of giving up my right to myself, my
natural independence and self-assertiveness, and this is where the
battle has to be fought. It is the things that are right and noble
and good from the natural stand point that keep us back from God's
best. To discern that natural virtues antagonize surrender to God, is
to bring our soul into the centre of its greatest battle. Very few of
us debate with the sordid and evil and wrong, but we do debate with
the good. It is the good that hates the best, and the higher up you
get in the scale of the natural virtues, the more intense is the
opposition to Jesus Christ. "They that are Christ's have crucified
the flesh" - it is going to cost the natural in you everything, not
something. Jesus said - "If any man will be My disciple, let him deny
himself," i.e., his right to himself, and a man has to realize Who
Jesus Christ is before he will do it. Beware of refusing to go to the
funeral of your own independence.
The natural life is not spiritual, and it can only be made spiritual
by sacrifice. If we do not resolutely sacrifice the natural, the
supernatural can never become natural in us. There is no royal road
there; each of us has it entirely in his own bands. It is not a
question of praying, but of performing.
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MY UTMOST FOR HIS HIGHEST - by Oswald Chambers /\/\
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