SermonIndex Audio Sermons
SermonIndex - Promoting Revival to this Generation
Give To SermonIndex
Discussion Forum : Articles and Sermons : The Watchman at his finest ...

Print Thread (PDF)

PosterThread
Rahman
Member



Joined: 2004/3/24
Posts: 1374


 The Watchman at his finest ...


The Holy Ghost, thru Watchman Nee, expounds on some things out of the lives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob's that are so profound they'll intoxicate you ...

This info is a must know for every Christian who seriously desires a closer walk with, and a higher pleasing of our God ...

i'm so full of the Holy Ghost right now, from this Nee writing, i feel like i'm about to explode!

http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/nee/changedlikeness/chalikcont.htm

 2004/7/16 13:28Profile
Rahman
Member



Joined: 2004/3/24
Posts: 1374


 Re: The Watchman at his finest ...


my Gleanings from Nee's - Changed into His Likeness" ...


The foremost thing that sticks out in my mind is that (I) - upper case, am nothing, so i've asked the Holy Spirit to always convict me in my writing, and thinking, to from now on see myself as (i) - lower case ... It's not an easy task when one has capitalized (I) for so long ... Christ Jesus is everything - and His Church, We, Us, are far more important than (i) ... i capitalize We, and Us, not in comparison to Christ, for in that comparison (i), (we) and (us) are all in lower case ... but in comparison to ones self, (We) and (Us), as far as (i) am concerned, are due far more respect ... capital respect ... If we miss these two points then we miss it all ... If we totally understand that We are in Christ, and He in us, then we'll lovingly place our individual self, our (i), far below Him, and place the corporate We, Us, His Church, His Body of which we are all a part, way far above our self, our (i) ... In short, our self, our (i), is without thought a readily expendable sacrifice upon His altar, when the choice becomes what is best for (i) the individual, in juxtaposition to the will of the Father, or the welfare of our fellow man, and most assuredly that of our fellow individual believer, or the corporate Church ... (i) am nothing - God, His Church, and His commission, are light years ahead more important than (i) ... This is the lesson that the "Jacob" type Christian, and I dare say all Christians, must finally learn, via the discipline of the Holy Spirit ... It's not about me, me, me - it's about Him, Him, Him - and them, them, them ... this is the perfect peace of God which surpasses all understanding ... So if in my post an occasional (I) gets thru instead of (i) please chalk it up to the fact that it's my "old" man that's dead not my "natural" man, for God has only crippled him ... God still has use for our "natural" man, as long as he is no longer a wrestling hindrance to both His relationship with us, and His use of us.


God doesn't need/want my/our help, all He needs/wants is our reactive obedience to His Word of promise, and our passive acceptance, as heirs, of His Word of promise ... This is why Abraham and Isaac type saints have a less stressful life in the Lord, because they're not always trying to help God, or may i say even more precisely trying to help ourselves via God, well at least not as prolifically as we Jacob types have a tendency to do for even Abraham attempted such with Hagar ... After all these years it is finally clear to me His admonition of why we are not to think more highly of our selves than we ought ... God the Holy Ghost, our great spiritual optometrist, wants desperately to change our prescription from that of our ultra dark Raybans, to lets say that of a much lighter tint of gray ... On this plain we will never be without some tint to our spiritual glasses, oh for the day in glory when we'll see Him, and all, clearly without any glasses at all!


It is without saying that God is THE GENIUS, and THE MASTER of hidden truth, which is why He's warned us up front that He is (ONLY) a rewarded of them that DILIGENTLY seek him ... But the problem with we Jacob types is that we seek hard after what's already been promised to us ... Somehow we feel we have to wrestle with God to obtain the blessing that Abraham types just obediently react to, and Isaac types just willingly accept ... We Jacob types, until our natural man is crippled by the necessary discipline of the Holy Ghost, cannot accept that the Father is our only source (not us), and that all is already provided for us in Christ, our death, resurrection, and being seated in heavenly places, and that our own individualistic strivings don't get us any closer, any quicker, to His promises, but do in fact hinder us ... Sadly it takes us longer to understand that it's our faith alone that qualifies us, not our works, for our own works are as filthy rags, but not so the works of Christ thru us ... God does not require that we work thru Him, but that He works thru us ... Our motive (heart) may not be the culprit but our execution (flesh) toward the motive is, thereby the need for divine adjustment ... The bottom line is we Jacob types are our own worst enemy and we can best believe that satan (representative of Laban to me) is always right there to compound our misguidedness, but even more so our Holy Ghost is always there to turn all our messings into blessings ... Thank God, that no matter what our personality, who can be against us (including ourselves) when He is for us, for we are His choice ... He is the God of Abraham (the reactive), Isaac (the passive), and thank you Jesus, Jacob (the aggressive) ...


The significance of this Nee writing, to me, is that God is the God of all types of human personalities, characters and flaws, as long as one meets His heart criteria ... The Holy Spirit's main points, thru Nee, is that all Christians initially are defined under one of these three patriarchal categories ... We're either "reactive" like Abraham at His calling, to abandon all that we've known and follow His leading to His promise, or we're "passive" like Isaac and just accept/inherit the calling to His promise (those usually brought up in the true admonition of the Lord), or we're like Jacob, the "aggressive" schemer, who although has the same promise of Abraham and Isaac, somehow feels that we have to "wrestle" with God for it's attainment ... Comparing from my own life experience I believe the Jacob syndrome is caused by some type of "rejection", or feeling of inferiority, in the natural realm (for Isaac favoured Esau), subsequently causing a feeling of needing to "shine", of being "first", of being "foremost", of being "pre-eminent", of "I'll show you/them", but more about this later ... The bottom line is initially all Christians fit into a category of being either an Abraham, Isaac or Jacob type saint, but subsequently the Holy Ghost says that we're to have represented in us not just traits from one, but of all three ... It is therefore His job, in each of us, to accentuate the positives of all three patriarchs while eliminating the negatives ...


Abraham, the readily "reactive" patriarch was initially a worldly idolater before God chose him ... Abraham prior had no idea of who God was, then wham!, out of the clear blue, God appears and tells him to forsake everything and everybody, and follow Him ... What did Abraham do? ... He did what a lot of new converts do, he attempted to go with God, but take elements of his former comfort, his family, with him ... Abraham had enough sense to know that his former gods were history, but surely he could still have his family ... So what happened? ... Abraham was slowed down by the dead weight of those who had not received God's call, he tarried in Haran until his dad Terah died, and then God had to tell him again ... leave! ... Abraham had not yet fully become the totally "obedient" servant, and friend of God, but by discipline of the Holy Ghost, via the consequences of not following God's edicts explicitly he would ... God is so good that he'll work thru our infirmities in total long suffering because He understands our human weaknesses ... Abraham may not have initially gone straight to Canaan, without the excess baggage of his family as God said, but at least he left! ... So again Abraham sets out, but still has with him Lot, who of course would cause him further problems down the road ... Also there would come negative consequences regarding his lying about Sarah not being his wife, and his major faux pas with Hagar and Ishmael ... Like Jacob, on this one point of promise, Abraham had a problem, like so many of us, with God's timing ... At age 85, when Abraham's "natural" man was still capable of producing a son of itself he attempted to help God, and we all know the consequences of this ... Interestingly enough it was some 15 years later, way after the incapability of Abraham's "natural" man to produce the promised heir, that God, the unquestionable Source, produces Isaac ... But all in all Abraham fared well, as do Abraham type saints, because he readily obeyed, had faith in, and quickly learned his lessons from God, and because of it he is forever known as "the friend of God" ...


We Jacob type Christians, because of the above mentioned mistakes of Abraham can somewhat identify with him, but Isaac, well Isaac as Nee states is a case all to himself, as there is not much written about him ... Abraham had to leave everything to obtain the promise of God, but old Isaac all he had to do was inherit the promise, he was already there, born into Canaan ... But Isaac also had to do something, something so huge but mainly overlooked by so many, Isaac was "passively" willing to be a sacrifice, and is therefore in direct representation of a Christ-like attitude... Isaac reminds me of so many preachers children who were brought up in Christ, never to experience the world, not fighting their sacrificial status, but readily embracing it, simply inheriting the promise ... This makes me wonder why Jacob wasn't affected in the same way ... Why was Isaac so readily accepting of the promise in "passivity", and his son Jacob one to attempt it's wresting with deceitful aggression? ... i think that perhaps the reason was that Isaac did not promote the same nurturing relationship with Jacob that Abraham had with him ...


Love, as God's Word attest, plays a major part in everything, especially in the forming of the character and personality of a child ... Thank God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit that They love us all equally, not showing character blighting favouritism ... There are so many assets and/or deficits that each of us carry that stems from either a good or bad relationship with our fathers (and/or our mothers as the case may be - i use "father" to stay in context with the scriptural reference) ... Of the deficits a child, even into adulthood, will be haunted by what is perceived as parental "rejection", until God's own love, God's own parenting, eliminates that ache... Jacob apparently had such an ache, as do i believe many Jacob type Christians, in that scripture says that Isaac favoured Esau ... Jacob knew of God, but had apparently not been familiarized of God in the same regard as Abraham had done with Isaac, for protocol dictated it was not naturally Jacob's birth position to be prepared in such a manner ... Jacob was only second best, and Isaac apparently projected that sentiment, but thank God that in Him the last shall become first, not because of our aspiring to such a position, but because our heavenly Father, truly our only Parent that counts, supernaturally promotes us there! ... Psychologist will tell you that such rejection will manifest itself in a child as either over or under achievement, both instances being birthed of a sense of learned inferiority ... It is my take that Jacob, as in my own life, felt pushed toward over achievement with God ... i earnestly hope and pray, as has just recently happened with me, that there comes a blessed time in every Jacob type Christian's life where the approval of our heavenly Father far surpasses and erases the "rejection" of our earthly ... Now to my own life in this example ...


i was raised by a very religious father, who had nothing but praise for me as long as i operated in the parameters of his religion ... My dad was a Jehovah's Witness, but our Lord's choosing of me to Himself, which i had no idea of at the time, showed me at age 14 that their take on the 144,000 in the book of Revelation was dead wrong, and so i began to question ... My questioning not only eventually got me rejection from my dad, but also from the only religious group i'd ever known ... i was ostracised, and told that i couldn't possibly obtain Jehovah's promise ... That hurt, but deep down i knew i was right, and therein was planted the seed of "i'll show you", instead of "God'll show you", and my subsequent wrestling with God, as it would do me no good to wrestle with my detractors ... Well the same thing happened to me even after i got saved and was compounded even more, when once again i began to question the status quo in Christ's Church ... Ever since then, up until just recent, i was on a mission of "showing them", and an even greater mission of showing myself that i could obtain God's blessing ... Rejection, at my calling, was my primary motivation for attempting to do great things for God, not my love or understanding of Him, it wasn't about Him as much as it was about me ... i knew of God but like Abraham i didn't know Him as my only source, and like Isaac i certainly didn't know Him as my only provision, i was my only source, my only provision ... So like Jacob, by hook or crook, i set out to bargaining and wrestling with God for His blessing, to put all of my rejecters to shame ... But little did i know, as all Jacob type Christians are, that i was chosen of God for such rejection, for such rejection makes one an outsider content only after contending with Him face to face ... Yes He knows His purpose for us, but we can't possibly until He Himself disconnects us from our painful past with just His touch ... It's after that He's got a powerful vessel to His own use! ...


God isn't angry with us that we grapple, in fact we are chosen because He knows we will, He knows that no matter what we'll not give up striving with Him until He personally confronts - grapples with - and cripples us to His special use ...


If you've not already, may i invite you to study what Nee say's about Jacob type Christians in;



CHAPTER 13 - HIS OWN MEDICINE

http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/nee/changedlikeness/cha13.htm
























 2004/7/19 12:02Profile





©2002-2024 SermonIndex.net
Promoting Revival to this Generation.
Privacy Policy