You Must be Born Again

 I realize that I take for granted that anyone who could profit from the idea of learning to depend on God alone, the subject of my previous post, would be born again, would already be saved and have the Holy Spirit given by God gto those who have believed on Him for salvation.  Nobody else could possible live that way, so it needs to be said.

And I've had in mind for soe time wriging on the subject of being born again, which needs to be revived as atopic at least now and then because otherwise people who think they are Christians because they go to Church and known something of the Bible and like the Biblical moral teachings and so on but do not have the Spirit of God, will only deceive themselves further.  YOu have to get saved first, you have to get born again first or you can't possible live the Christian life.    Anyone who does not have the Holy Spirit is "none of HIs" says Paul.

But I'm jas so often happens these days, too tired to write a owhole post on this subject.  I just have to get that much said and hope to come back to it soon.  

Learning to depend on God

 I love this kind of story.  Ron Daley, a sixtyfive year old man who lies in Fresno, Califoria, went o a huting trip he planned for half a day, got lost and then stranded and when nobody came to find him after twetnty days he walked for nine hours until he met some hunters who rescued him.   But here's the real sotry.  He's a believer and prayed a lot while he was in that situation.  I thik the first thing we ay wonder is why on earth did the Lotf let him suffer so long, surely he could have rescued him a lot sooner.

But no, first his struck broke down and while he had enough food for a couple of weeks that started runing out too.  When he finally started walkeing he hadn't eaten in almost a week.   Although he'd been praying and praying it wasn't until he was at the end of all his resources that the Lord finally led him to safety.

And that, I believe, is gthe real sotory here.  Another acount of how GBod goes to great extremes sometimes in His efforts to teach us to depend on Him alone instead of on our own resources.  Sure He could have rescued Ron a lot sooner but He didn't do it until Ron was out of, well, everythig.  In fact, it was at the point of exhaustion, after walkeing for hours, that he scalled on the Lord sayig he had no more energy to walk any further and please help me now.  And when he looked up from his prayer, there was the truck with its headlights on just ahead of him o the road.  It was at the exact omet that Ron ran out of absolutely every bit of his own resources, down to the last gasp of his phyiscal energy, that the Lord acted.

So what am I saying?  Well, the Lord engineered this whole drama from beginning to end and the whole point of it was to teach Ron to depend on Him alone instead of on what the Biblce called "th arm of flesh" meaning our human strengths and resources.   It's a lesson the Lord tries to teach all of us but we often hardly notice His acting on our lives for this purpose, some of us never get the message and some of us gett it only late in life, which is a shoe that fits me.  And I still haven't learned it.

It's what Andrew Murray wrote about in his book, Absolute Surrender, it's what all the best Christian writers and teachers present as the problem of learning how to deny ourselves as the LOrd commands us to do, deny yourself, take uip your cross ajnd follow Me.  And if you won't deny yourself "you canot be My disciple."    Give it u, give it ALL usp.  And He gies us time to learn it, but we're awfully obtuse about it, and keep ascriging things to human and worledly causes that are really arranged by the Lord for our good if only we knew how to read the signs.  And een then, alas, even when we sort of get the message, as I have many times over, we still fail the test.  It's a ery hard less to learn.

Happy is Ron Daley if he gets it.

*****

More thoughts on tghe same subject.  

It happens to be a subject I've rebeen reading about a lot over the last few weeks, so of course the timing is great for this story to appear in the news when I'm able to make this connection.   As I said it'as a ery hard lesson to learn.  I'm disappointed in myslef at how obious it is what the Lord has done from time timo time throughout my life and I fought Him because I didn't see His hand at work in it, and even after I knew intellectually that this is how He works in our lives I still didn't see it until after the fact, and I still don't know if I've learned very a small gbit of the practical lessons H wants me to learn.  I'm grateful that hHe's given me a long life and tht He might continue it for a while longer so maybe I still have a chance to learn it.  

As my reasding has been making clear this is a very important lesson to learn because the Lord can't work with our fleshly soulish strengths, He wants to work with the renewed Spirit He has put within us and that has to become the power we must learn to edepend on and learn to put our own strengths aside.  I know this theortetically far better than I know it in any practical sense at all, alsas, alas.   

fThe letter kills, but the spirit is life.  Adam was a living souls but Christ a life giving Spirit.  Walik by the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh,.   He who would sae his soul will lose it, but he who would die for My sake will lie to eternal life.  I'm getting the words wrong but I think I got the gist of it.  

Watchman Nee's book, The Release of the SPirit, is oje of my current sources for this teaching.  For the Lord to be able to use us for His own work, to do His will, we must give up our own will, our own ideas, our own methods, and wait entirely on Him for the guidance and the strength to do what He wants us to do.  Often our Spoirit is "buried" beneath our flesh and we must learn to release it for it to become useful to us for the Lord's purposes.  

I think it helps a lot if ewe at least grasp that giving up our own ways is something we should do  even if we keep failing to actually do it.  At least we have the right idea, which is a lot better than the usual habitual way of living where we just do whatever we want to do or what we thing is right.  

I't s a very hard lesson to learn.  I ope the Lord will make me learn it because I reall y do want to be useful for His kingsomdom.  The world wo so desperately needs spiritually guided CHristians right now.  If we just do what we thihk makes sense we won't really accomplish the spiritual blessings this world needs, at best we might teach a few truths, but god wants to be able to use us in spiritual power to effedt real lasting change in this benighted world.  

Again, I really do hope Ron Daley gets even a smidgen of the message I think is written all over his harrowing experience lost in the woods.  Wrecked truck,  No cell phone service.  Heavy snow adds to the idifficulties.  Running out of food and finally runs completely out.  Rationinst it nut by nut finally before it runs out.  Finally the Lord tells him to start walking, but He doesn't help him until he's finally so exhausted he can't walk another step an prays accordingly.   The Lord takes anway everything before He gives us the spiritual resources He wants us to have.  

Die to self.  Take up your cross.  Deny yourself.  Lose hyour life for His sake and you will gain it for eternity.  Lose, give up , die,  that's the message of the cross we all need to learn and so few of us learn it, just fight it all the time in favor of self preservation which seenms so natural to us, well, it IS natural to us, it's the natural that has to go if the spiritual is to thrive.  

May I get it.

And again, if Ron Daley gets it even a little, blessed is he.