Moment by Moment Cross Pt 1

Michael begins this section by sharing his indebtedness to Andrew Murray, Jessie Penn-Lewis, Watchman Nee, and F. J. Huegel for their teachings which the Holy Spirit used to make real the teachings of Romans 6 to Michael.

…Ask the Holy Spirit to open the eyes of your heart that He would make the foolishness of the cross not understandable teaching, but revelation, for with revelation comes faith and power to experience what is taught.

…Watchman Nee uses an appropriate analogy when he asks the question, “Am I a Nee because I was born a Nee, or am I a Nee because of my behavior?”…Nee concludes, “I am a sinner because I am born in Adam.  It is a matter not of my behavior but of my heredity, my parentage.”

…There is no way out unless we can somehow change our parentage or line of existence!

God’s solution to the person with faith is complete removal of that life that was with Adam and is cut off from God, that life controlled by sin.  He replaces it with Christ’s life!  As Jessie Penn-Lewis (a great teacher of Cross truths) so often points out in her writings, there is only one way out of Adam, and since we came in by birth, we must go out by death.  Bondage to sin came by birth; deliverance from sin comes by death.  And now just as in Adam we received everything that is true of him, in Christ we receive everything that is true of Christ…

What glorious news that the “old me” I have worked so hard to change was put to death on the cross with Christ…It happened the day I came to Christ!

Those are great words, aren’t they: “not understandable teaching, but revelation, for with revelation comes faith and power to experiencewhat is taught.”  Wow!

It may be that in wanting to “abide” we have neglected the power of the Cross to free us from sin that keeps us at least thinking we are defeated instead of overcomers.  And if we accept that, then how are we going to “abide” in such a way as to experience Christ’s life?  God has told us that we are to take His word “precept upon precept, line upon line.”  Getting things out of order leads to trouble down the line.

What I hear Michael telling us is to:

    Reckon ourselves “dead to sin& possessing Christ’s

           resurrectionlife.”

    AppropriateChrist’s “death to sin & resurrection life”

          to THE sins in our life, and see His power take them away.

Of course we have to know what “reckon” and “appropriate” mean…

Well, amen.