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proudpapa
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Joined: 2012/5/13
Posts: 2936


 R.A. Torrey



II. HOW CAN WE WALK AS JESUS WALKED ?

It is a very practical question, and the all-sufficient answer to it is in our text: "He that saith he abideth in Him, ought himself also to walk even as He walked." It is clear from this that there is only one way by which we can walk as He walked, and that is by abiding in Him. But what does that mean? Our Lord Himself has explained this in John 15:1-5. In these verses He tells us that He is the vine and we are the branches, and that if we would have fruitage and power in prayer, and joy, we must abide in Him, just as the branch that bears fruit must abide in the vine. That is to say, abiding in Him is maintaining the same relation to Him that a fruitful branch of a grapevine bears to the vine ; it has no life of its own, all its life is the inflow of the life of the vine, its buds and leaves and blossoms and fruit are not its own, but simply the outcome of the life of the vine flowing into it and bearing fruitage through it, so that if we are to abide in Him and bear fruit we must seek to have no life of our own, we must renounce all our self-efforts after righteousness, not simply renounce our sins, but renounce our own thoughts, our own ambitions, our own purposes, our own strength, our own everything, and cast ourselves in utter depend ence upon the Lord Jesus for Him to think His thoughts in us, to will His purpose in us, to choose His choice through us, to work out His own glorious perfection of character in us. Many try to be like Christ by imitating Christ. It is absolutely impossible for us to imitate Christ in our own strength. The most discouraging thing that any earnest-minded man can attempt is to imitate Christ. Nothing else will plunge a man in deeper despair than to try to imitate Christ in his own strength. Instead of imitating Him we should open our hearts wide for Him to come in and live His own life out through us. Christ in us is the secret of a Christian life. The only Christ that many professed Christians know is the historic Christ, that is the Christ who lived nineteen centuries ago on this earth and died on the cross of Calvary, an atoning sacrifice for sin. They only know the Christ who died for us on the cross. Oh, we need to know something further than that if we are to be like Him; we need to know a living Christ to-day, a Christ who not only arose and ascended to the right hand of the Father, but a Christ who has come down and "dwells in us, the hope of glory" (Col. 1:27). From the bottom of my heart I praise God for Christ for us on the cross. All my hope of acceptance before God is built upon Him bearing my sins in His own body on the cross, and I do praise God for Christ for us. But, oh, how I praise God, not only for Christ for me on the cross, but for Christ in me, a living, personal Christ in me to-day, living His life out through me, and causing me to walk even as Jesus walked. How we may thus have Christ in us Paul tells us in Gal. 2:20, A.R.V. He says, "I have been crucified with Christ," i.e., when Christ was crucified on the cross He was crucified as our representative and we were crucified in Him, and we must see ourselves where God put us on the cross in the place of death and the curse, and thus cease to live in our own strength. Then he goes on to say, "It is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me;" i.e., as he had been crucified with Christ he counted himself what he really was in his standing before God, dead, and as a dead man, no longer sought to live his own life, but let Jesus Christ live His life out through him. And then he goes on still further to say, "That life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." The whole secret of being like Christ is found in these words. We must count self dead; we must give up our self-efforts after likeness to Christ; we must distrust our own strength as much as we distrust our own weakness and our own sin, and instead of striving to live like Christ, let Christ live in us, as He longs to do. Of course we cannot thus have Christ in us until we know Christ for us, making a full atonement for our sins on the cross. Paul explains the whole secret of it in another way in Eph. 3 : 16-20. Here he prays for the believers in Ephesus that they "may be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith." The thought is, it is the work of the Holy Spirit to form an indwelling Christ within us, and the way to know Christ in us is to let the Holy Spirit form Him within us.

Are you walking as Jesus walked? Do you wish to walk as Jesus walked, cost whatever it may? Well then, realize that you have not been walking as Jesus walked, and that the reason you have not walked as Jesus walked is because you have been trying to do it yourself, and give up your own attempts to do it and just look up to the Risen Christ, through, whose death on the cross you have found pardon and justification, and let Him come and dwell in you and live His life out through you ; to have His perfect will in you, and just trust the Holy Spirit to form this indwelling Christ in your heart.

 2017/1/28 18:38Profile
proudpapa
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Joined: 2012/5/13
Posts: 2936


 Re: David Wilkerson

"..So, you see, holiness is not something we do, or attain, or work up. Rather, it is something we believe! God accepts us as holy only as we have faith in Christ and abide in him. The path to holiness is not through human ability, but through faith!

This is God's wonderful answer to the anxious cries of multitudes of Christians, who thirst for an understanding of how to be holy. We are holy only as we rest in Christ's holiness! Our holiness is his holiness - flowing to us, the branches, from the root.

Yet, at times, this biblical doctrine of holiness hasn't always been the practice of the church. Often holiness has been thought of only in terms of outward behavior.

My preacher grandfather is an example of this. He was a Nazarene minister in the early holiness movement, and he didn't allow Christians to wear feathers in their hats. He kept a little pair of gold scissors in his pocket - and whenever someone came to the altar and bowed her head, he would snip off any feathers!

Yet my grandfather chewed tobacco, because there was no "holiness prohibition" against it. He even kept a spittoon near him on the pulpit, so he could chew while he preached. He would turn his head and spit out the juice - all while preaching against women who wore lipstick!

I have heard holiness preachers rail for hours against women's makeup, certain types of dress, length of hair and other things, calling them matters of holiness. Yet these same men were the worst gossipers ever!

Beloved, God's message to us about holiness isn't about outward things. It is about faith - and he makes it very clear and simple! Yes, the Holy Spirit will deal with the outward man, teaching us to be adorned in simplicity and decency. But he does it through conviction - in his time and in his way."

 2017/1/28 20:42Profile









 proudpapa

proudpapa - Can you send me your email address to my email address that is listed in my profile?

I have a question for you.

 2017/1/29 6:20
proudpapa
Member



Joined: 2012/5/13
Posts: 2936


 Re: proudpapa

I would but I don't email.

 2017/1/29 9:30Profile





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