Last month we talked about purity and maturity, crying for the Shepherd, overcoming the world, and spiritual dyarchy. I ended my comments by saying that some people have "enough of the love of Christ in their hearts to make them miserable." I think some of you were a little astonished by that so I must explain further.
If we do not allow Christ to enter into the very core of our beings and take over the control room of our lives, then His presence His presence in some parts of our lives, and not in others, creates a war between the opposing ideas of life and we live in a state of war. Let us therefore be perfectly blunt and honest -- Christ's ideas are often in conflict with our ideas, otherwise why would the Lord say: "...you are neither cold not hot. I wish you were either one or the other!" (Rev.3:15). So deeply embedded in our nature is self-centredness that we often think we are doing things for Christ's glory. However, when we stop and check, we see that we are really doing them for our own glory.
Last month I sent a letter to all of our members called, Mature Discipleship, in which I challenged you all to really examine yourselves honestly and uncover the gods in your lives. I myself have done much of this over the past month and have challenged several cherished assumptions about my own personal theology. One of the questions I asked myself was: Is my image and vision of Christ the result of my pulling Him down to my own personal level of knowledge or experience, or do I really perceive Him as transcendent of my own experience? Or in other words: is Christ even bigger than I have dared allow myself to think, notwithstanding all the fancy theological words we use like "all-knowing", "all-powerful", "almighty", and so on?
The result was that I not only gave myself quite a shock but also experienced a sweet inflowing of the Holy Spirit that brought me tremendous peace. Just by challenging my assumptions .. which may have been right or wrong (I still don't know), I allowed for the possibility of God taking over more of my life. Since I did that on the train coming home from work about three weeks ago, things have changed in my life.
If we are going to be hot -- and we need to be red-hot if Zion is going to come to pass -- then we have to humble ourselves more and give over the last remaining areas of self-dominion in our lives to the Lord. If you have inner tensions -- and I stress the word inner here, because our inner, spiritual life should be entirely independent of our outer circumstances if we are in Christ -- if we have inner tensions this may not always become apparent to the conscious mind, but it is certainly apparent to the unconscious mind.
One writer says, rather daringly you might think: "Either you must dismiss Christ entirely from your life and forget Him, and take over the entire control in your own hands, in which case you will be unified under the control of self; or you must make a complete surrender of every withheld area into the control of Christ, in which case the life will be Christ-controlled, and therefore unified."
Brethren and sisters, this man spoke the truth. The choice is stark. You must either choose Christ 100% and walk the narrow Way, the Truth, and the Life, or you must reject Him 100% -- and walk the broad way, the Lie, and the Death. That is why I advise you to be very careful about coming into this New Covenant Church of God, because we walk 100% of the way. And if you turn away from that, then there is only one other path to go, and I would not wish that on anyone. Those who have left us will, if they are honest, testify of how lonely and desolate the second way is when you have previously come to a knowledge of the truth.
Please, don't dismiss Christ from your lives! Take the second option -- to make a complete surrender of every withheld area into His control -- career, children, money, sex, cars, pets, marriage, hobbies, family, even Church and religion! -- absolutely everything must be surrendered. And what is pure, holy and right, He will return to you purer and more glorious than you ever experienced before.
My point is, brethren and sisters, that there can be no real happiness in the heart of someone who has reserved areas into which Christ is not invited. Duality cannot exist in the soul without disaster. Let us pray:
Father, I am thankful that You claim the whole of my heart and not just a part. Forgive me for not yielding every part of my heart to You, and for the inner struggles I have. Help me to surrender my heart in its entirety to You, and so grant me a clear vision of the truth. In Jesus' Name. Amen.

This page was created on 16 May 1998 Updated on 16 May 1998

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