So much gets in the way, so much comes up, in fellowship with the Lord. It is too easy in seeing the Lord to pursue after Him apart from Him. . . to hunger for Him in a genuine way from the heart but then follow Him apart. So much anxiety and lost peace. . . what stress and strain there is. . . what feelings of disconnection from Him - even when the desire is for Him - when the pursuit of Christ is done apart from Him. The harder the effort often seems to put one further away. In the spirit, such turmoil and twisting, with no place, no solid place to stand. What frustration and failure!
Fellowship with Christ. . . union with Christ. . . is never meant to be pursued apart from resurrection. There is a “law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus”. . . there are principles given by the Lord that mean life – the presence of Christ - to those who live accordingly. The negative side to this is that apart from these there is no life in Christ. No matter how sincere the desire for the Lord, the result is frustration when He is pursued apart from the way He Himself has made manifest.
In each of the gospels, Jesus makes this invitation: “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow Me.” The Lord calls for denial of oneself if there is to be a following of Him. In another place, the Lord puts it in the negative, “. . . any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be My disciple.” (Luke 14) “If anyone would. . . let him” and “anyone who does not. . . cannot”. . . there is a force to Jesus’ words, it is an invitation with an imperative. “All that he has” - all that one is - is the utter denial in view here. There is nothing that is not touched here. . . no aspect or feature of what we are that is not touched upon. Everything we are apart from Christ is what is to be given up. . . it is meant to put off and let go and fall away. There is meant to be a release of all that if there is to be freedom in Christ.
And yet in that place where all which is apart from Christ is denied and renounced and given up, there is life. . . Christ in a living way is present. Where all inner resource has come to an end. . . when there is no way forward on my own. . . when no prospect for going on is seen. . . Christ is the way and Christ is the life. And it is at the end of all hope and resource in what we are that Christ is seen and known in a living way.
Paul says in Philippians, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord,” and in Romans, “ …I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.” And yet how easy it is to hold onto that in ourselves that the Lord says to deny. . . to clutch and grasp onto even a shred and refuse to let it go and find life. So much inside clamors for this. . . how easy to be deceived.
Psalm 46 says “Be still and know that I am God...” There is a stillness that is alive. . . there is a place of rest in Christ that is not emptiness and passiveness but a place of union with the Lord who is life, where union means life and refreshing and renewal. In stillness there is a going on in the Lord, and in rest one finds purpose.
Is it not the living presence of the Lord Himself that is the answer to all the frustrations and failure, all the emptiness and longing of the heart? Is it not the Lord Himself who is rest to the soul and the answer to all searching? How much opens up to us when we are in Him? How peace fills, how hope encourages, what strength going on, when Christ is all.
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