x) Does it not seem to you that after the years of your Christianity you have accomplished nothing special or particular? Does it not seem that you are always the same, with the same problems and difficulties, with the same unfulfilled desires, unanswered prayers, etc? This semblance may be quite realistic. Thus, many Christians may unconsciously live in impatience, even in hopelessness, since they may have the sense that this process of Salvation, perfecting and the final victory lasts the “whole eternity”! Everything is dragging on as a snail and it has no end. Why is it so? Why can’t we walk by “leaps & bounds” and every month celebrate some great victory? Well, the Lord has for that a compelling reason and it is, I believe, sufficiently clearly shown in the Second Book of Moses (Ex. 23:29-33). Those pagan nations in the Promised Land represent the powers of darkness and evil in our soul since the Promised Land for Israel represents the Kingdom of Heaven for Christians, and it is in our soul (Lk. 17:21). The Lord did not allow Israel to expel all those nations and get rid of them somehow, before Israel became sufficiently strong and able to occupy all that territory of the Promised Land after their eradication. The same applies to us, as well. Our success and progress depends entirely on our spiritual capacity to occupy the territories of our soul from which we expelled and eradicated those powers of darkness and evil. That’s why our victory is progressive and depends on the progressive growth and development of our spirit.
The above applies similarly to the fact that in our human character, we want everything to be done “now and in a single stroke” and any prolonged process of spiritual growth is almost always highly discouraging and a great deterrent for our flesh. It is almost like to sit in the garden and watch how fast our newly planted spruce tree is growing. Well, it does grow, but to watch it, doesn’t work. Hence, our spiritual growth needs perseverance, stable and unbroken devotion, as if something always had to be done. This is able at the very least to discourage, sicken all lazy and comfortable believers or even bring them to a lunatic asylum, as it somehow seems that there is always far more before us than behind us. Even this is painful for our poor old soul. The fact is, and we have to submit to it and believe it, that the Lord will never give us any opportunity or excuse to be able to say one day: Well, everything is already finished, we can sit down and put our feet on the table. No, no, no. In fact, the more we approach the Coming of the Lord, the more it will seem to us that, as yet, almost nothing has been done in comparison with what must yet be done. This, of course, will not be painful nor dissuasive for the believers, which truly gave their lives to Christ and where their laziness, comfort, selfishness and self-analysis were crucified and destroyed.
y) There is yet another important fact, which is not realized by many Christians including its great significance. When Christ was resurrected, He DID NOT HAVE BLOOD, only flesh and bones (Lk. 24:39), but blood He did not have since He “poured His soul unto death“ (Is. 53:12 – life of natural soul in is blood – Num. 17:14/ Deut. 12:23). The same will happen to us. In Christ, our blood was similarly poured out unto death as His Blood was because when He died, we all died in Him (2Cor. 5:14). What is the impact of this fact? Enormous! You see, it is the power of the Cross and of our Salvation. We may also popularly say that after His death on the Cross, Jesus Christ took His Blood, which contained all the evil, all sins and iniquities of all mankind, since “He was made sin” (2Cor. 5:21) in drinking the cup, which the Father prepared for Him (Lk. 22:42). He also took all our blood and when He descended to Hell to preach to the spirits in the prison (1Pet. 3:19), He, as it were, put all that blood on Satan’s table and said: Here, this is your work and thus belongs to you; you may drink it all and keep it in yourself for ever and ever! Because when we are IN Christ, Satan has no ground of activity in our life. The Blood of Christ destroyed all the works of Satan and also of all that belong to Satan. Moreover, all our sinfulness, weakness and inability as well as all evil and its “virtues” exist only in our blood! Hence, when we have no blood any more, Satan has NOTHING in us!… as he had NOTHING in Christ (Jn. 14:30). And this fact will be shown clearly at the Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ for His Bride.
z) In the last point, we shall devote our time to a very practical and simultaneously a very important thing in our Christian life. This thing is a cause of many spiritual tragedies not only in the life of individuals, but the whole nations. Example? This thing was also the cause of the tragedy of Israel at Kadesh-Barnea when they came to the border of the Promised Land, but they refused to enter into it. Without any pardon, they were turned back to the wilderness where they were wandering for 40 years and there they also perished (Num. 32:8-13). Another example was before the crucifixion of Christ when He wept over Jerusalem and sentenced Israel to a 2,000 years long exile when He said: “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate” (Mt. 23:37,38). Two thousand years was Israel scattered into all the world where it was hated, persecuted, massacred and lived in a constant fear. What was the cause of these two national tragedies? UNBELIEF! When and why do we not believe? Firstly, when we don‘t see, we are blind OR don‘t want to see; when we don‘t hear, we are deaf OR don‘t want to hear, we don‘t understand anything because our heart is closed OR we don’t want to understand! We are spiritually limited having a marginal spiritual capacity. While we are children, it is logical, when we lived years of Christian life, it is not logical. What is the worst, we do not want to increase that spiritual capacity, we do not want to learn!… we are lazy or paralyzed or nobody is leading us to it.
Why do we send our children to schools? Are they going there to rest or learn the things that they already know for long time and which are for them very easy and simple? Do they come home and say: Well, the whole week I did not learn anything new, I knew everything and it was so easy that I was just drawing pictures into my notebook. I doubt that they are going to school for that. Even in mental education, there exists a rule or an unwritten law, which will always demand from us what is above our existing knowledge and abilities to know or solve. In other words, we learn what we do not know and cannot solve, what we never knew to solve before. And when we do not learn it, we cannot progress, but must even repeat the same class until we learn it. True?
Learning may also be compared to gaining LIGHT in which we are able to start seeing new things and their solutions, which we did not see before. The majority of students are also lazy to learn, few go to school to learn something new. And it is precisely the same in the spiritual sphere. Almost nobody is going to the church to learn new spiritual things; rather, he is going there to rest, perhaps even to take a nap. I do not want to scare you or discourage you from spiritual study, but the requirements upon us will grow. Our capacity to understand what the Lord is doing with us or where He is leading us, may be very limited. That is also the reason for our limited capacity to believe, trust or to execute our faith. Though our spirit may be willing, the flesh is weak (Mt. 26:41b).
However, the Lord’s Purpose for us is to increase our spiritual capacity, spiritual light, spiritual understanding, and it is not always easy. Nevertheless, what is important is that the increasing of our spiritual capacity is also the solution of many of our problems, and often it is the only way in which our problems may be resolved! Hence, if anything “unpleasant” happens to you, you throw up your hands and say: Not again? Well yes, it’s time to go to school and learn this lecture, which the Lord wanted to teach us for the past maybe even several years, and could not. He is trying again because He has tremendous patience and mercy with us. Perhaps, we shall learn it now? Otherwise, that problem will never be solved. And sometimes it actually may need only 2-3 extra “grams” of willingness from our side to pause… and admit that, in fact, it is a trifle and no rocket science. And from that time, this lecture will not have to appear in our life any more. We will enjoy peace.
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To be continued next week
brother Hanola
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