Lifetime Guarantee (23 page)

Oh, dear friend, God’s grace
is
(not
will be
) sufficient for your situation.
He
wants to carry it all
for
you. Won’t you give up and let Him live through you? You don’t need to wait for one single thing to be added to who you already possess if you know Christ as Savior. Just celebrate a good funeral for the “old man,” and then celebrate the birth of the new, victorious you who arose in Christ by
beginning to act like who you are.

Testing times will come, but the one who is in charge of the “obstacle course” has designed it to motivate you to claim Him
as
your strength. He will not allow it to destroy you. The “course” is specifically designed to conform you to the image of your lovely older Brother. Relax in it. Keep your mind on this. Our moment-by-moment battle is to fix in our minds that we
are
resting in heaven in Christ while simultaneously setting our minds to move through our daily tasks, believing that Christ is meeting them through us.
We work at resting while we rest at working.

We will now apply the four-step sequence of truth, faith, works, and emotions from the previous chapter to develop a technique for walking in the Spirit rather than “according to the flesh.” I have a friend, Paul Burleson, who states, “Just as it is important for every Christian to know who he is in Christ, it is also important for him to know who he
was
prior to salvation if he is to understand ‘walking according to the flesh.” That’s true, and if you check the areas where you seem to have the most difficulty walking in the Spirit, you’ll discover it’s in those areas where your emotions seem to be stuck. You’ve probably verbalized it as “My emotions shoot up to 10 almost instantly.” In all probability, however, this is a misperception. Your emotions
began
their journey up from a base of 6 or 7 or even 9. It was but one short hop to the top for many of you.

We will take each step from the bear story illustration, recall how it applied to the bear and the cabin, and then make practical applications to the spiritual walk.

The truth is: 1. The believer is identified with Christ in His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension to the Father’s right hand. 2. Christ
is
now my life here on earth, and His will is to express His life through me. 3. I am resting
in
Him in His victory. The Bible states these truths in Romans 6, Colossians 3, and elsewhere. These verses
are
true, whether people accept them or not, because God said so. They are true of all who are born again. Thus:

You will recall that even though it was true that the man was safe in the cabin in the bear story, he could have died of a heart attack because he did not
know
he was safe. Similarly, there are millions of Christians who, due to a lack of understanding, will die and go to heaven this year having never benefited from the truths of these verses. They are not “heaven verses” but “earth verses” to be appropriated
here.
They
are
true. There’s an old saying: “What you don’t know won’t hurt you.” That may apply in some cases, but in the Christian faith, what you don’t know will destroy you.

I wonder if you have enough faith to make these steps work. Let’s run a quick test and see. Do you believe the Bible is the Word of God? You say, “Yes, I sure do.” You just passed the test. You’ve got all the faith you need.

Many well-meaning Bible teachers will tell you that the reason you have no victory is that you need to get more faith. But if you want an exercise in futility, try to generate more faith by tomorrow morning. Talk about sending someone on a guilt trip! You don’t need more faith. You need more knowledge of the Object of your faith (see Appendix F).

Suppose you enter a church and observe the pews. You conclude, “I believe that pew will support my weight,” and you sit down. Sure enough, it does. That’s faith. It’s not Christian faith; it’s pew faith. Let’s suppose, however, that the pew were to collapse. And suppose some well-meaning brother said, “You know, if you had more faith that would never have happened to you.” Now, I realize the guy means well, but his theology is wrong. Did your faith let you down? No, your faith was sufficient. It was the
object
of your faith (the pew) that let you down. The pew wasn’t worthy of the trust you placed in it.

God’s love and trustworthiness, on the other hand, are always dependable. You must put your faith in
Him,
the beautiful object of your faith. You don’t need great faith, but more understanding of the Object of your faith.

Remember, however, that the man in the cabin had faith, too. He believed he was safe, but he still could have died of a heart attack
with his faith,
because he failed to
act
like he believed it. Similarly, I have talked to people who tell me, “Oh, yes, the old truths of our crucifixion with Christ. I believe that. Why, I’ve known those truths for years. I did an extensive study on that and taught it to a Bible class.” But stay around these people and watch them operate. Anyone with a half-ounce of spiritual discernment can detect that they are neither resting in the Lord nor allowing Christ to express His gentle, loving life through them to others.

It isn’t enough just to “have faith.” You have to add something to your faith if you would walk in the Spirit. You have to
act
as if you have faith. Remember at the beginning of the chapter how I had to get off my knees and act as though Christ is living through me? Well, so do you. You must step out on your faith. “Faith, if it has no works, is dead” (James 2:17).

Here is the step where most Christians miss the mark. The flesh wants to skip over Step 3 and move directly to Step 4, Feelings. The flesh loves to
feel
something happen as “proof” that things are now different, that “it has worked.” The flesh always “seeks for a sign” so it can hang its hat on the sign instead of on the Word of God.
It wants to use the sign as the object of its faith rather than the Word that God has spoken.
Many believers walk by this motto: “A sign a day proves the devil’s away.”

This is no longer
your
way, however, it’s the way of your flesh. The way of the Spirit is now your way: “However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit” (Romans 8:9). But even though it is no longer your way, it certainly
is
your “old ways,” and indwelling sin will continually bug you with first-person-singular-pronoun logic that his way is the true way (see Appendix G).

You may ask, “But Bill, if I were to
act
like Christ is living through me but be unable to
feel
Him doing it, wouldn’t this make me a phony?” No. Remember God’s definition of a hypocrite:
pretending to be what you are not.
When you act like Christ is expressing His life through you, you are simply acting out reality,
acting like who you are.
You’re being obedient.

The dictionary defines failure as “not succeeding” and customarily refers to the performance of a task. Christians have been deceived into believing that we should be able to design and build an improved computer, be a perfect mother with perfect kids, or install a new electrical outlet in the kitchen for the wife’s food blender, as “I can do all things through Him” (Philippians 4:13). Well-meaning disciplers cite this verse to struggling believers as “proof” that they should be able to handle
any
performance task successfully. This is not true. Neither this passage nor the rest of Scripture teaches that.

Instead, this oft-quoted passage (Philippians 4:11-13) refers to our being able to maintain a
stability of mind
as we experience all circumstances, resting in Christ as we do so. This is the “secret” spoken of in verse 12:

You see, it never implies the perfect results the flesh craves. It implies perfect
method,
resting in the Lord and His sufficiency to supply all my need. We can praise the Lord whether we’re eating peanut butter or steak. He’s got everything under control.

We’ll use a simple performance task to illustrate the biblical method of how to “turn it over to the Lord.” There is this woman whose husband likes his eggs cooked over easy for breakfast. If she accidentally breaks a yolk, he has been known to storm away from the table and leave for work without any breakfast, making her feel terribly guilty. He’s a real doll.

Each day she carries the same burden at 6:45 a.m.—eggs to be cooked. We’ll construct a grid to help us organize the events of her experience so we can apply biblical methodology in analyzing whether she is walking in the Spirit or walking according to the flesh in doing this job.

Now, how will she solve the problem? She will use the method found in the “Self-Help” section of the local psychotherapy clinic library. Her method is, “I must do this myself.” Her thinking is,
I can’t bother the Lord with such trivial matters as egg-cooking. After all, I’m perfectly capable of doing this myself. God expects me to carry my end.

Her method, in other words, is
independence.
God despises independence. He loves dependence. He desires that believers depend upon Him and His ability to supply all their needs, remember? Independence says, “I can supply my own needs. In fact,
I am my own supply.
I don’t need You, God, except for the things I can’t do alone, such as take myself to heaven. So go help the weaker ones, Lord, who, unlike me, are not able to help themselves. Thank You, God, for making me so strong” (see Appendix H).

Next step: “Now, Lord, I really would like perfect eggs to be cooked this morning. I’m going to do the best I can, but You know, Lord, sometimes they break in spite of all I can do. I would appreciate it if You’d just take up the slack and help me a bit if the eggs are in danger of breaking.” Under this method, you see, the better she can do things alone, the less she needs to depend on the Lord and His strength. She is living as if her unstated goal is to become so skilled at handling life that the only thing she needs Christ for is to take her to heaven when she dies! So we add this to the grid.