Lifetime Guarantee (30 page)

The number of broken people in the Bible who learned to walk in dependency upon God is so obvious.
Only a broken person is fit for leadership in the Kingdom of God.
You can bank on it. Show me an unbroken Christian, and I’ll show you a person who is leaning on the arm of his own flesh to accomplish the task. Show me an unbroken Christian, and
I’ll show you a person who is milking his need for acceptance and self-acceptance out of his work.
He
needs
the work. Take it away from him and he’ll get depressed. You see, Jesus wasn’t the source from whom he was drawing his esteem; it was the work.

Paul’s work was removed from him the last few years of his life. His goal for evangelizing Spain was gone. He was a hard charger, but he didn’t get depressed over the lost goal. He wrote his most encouraging letters from prison, a place of “nonachievement.” He was able to do it because he wasn’t milking his need out of the achieving of
tangible
goals. His major goal was “that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection” (Philippians 3:10). He drew even
closer
to his goal while experiencing the
in
activity of prison life. Again, I challenge you, Christian. What is the source of your acceptance of yourself? How are you getting
your
needs met? What or who is the source of your purpose in life? How much can the Lord remove from you and you’ll continue to praise Him and rest in the acceptance that’s yours in Christ?

Why are you here? Some say it’s to “work for God.” Consider what my friend Tom Grady says, “Is that the reason you and your spouse had kids? So they could shoulder part of the work around the house? I imagine you planned for children so you could experience the joy of loving them and receiving love from them. To delight in them and in their victories, and to comfort them in their defeats. In short, to develop an intimate relationship with them.”

The notion that God recreated you in Christ to get more work out of you is such a faulty view of our Father. God wants you to adopt Paul’s life verse: “that I may know Him” (Philippians 3:10). As you pursue that goal, spiritual fruit will begin to drop off all about you to the glory of Christ. Men asked, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” Jesus answered, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent” (John 6:28,29).

The devil accuses Christians before the Father day and night (see Revelation 12:10). If you are born from above, you are the topic of many of those discussions.

Allow me to take the liberty, through Job’s, Peter’s, and other biblical characters’ experiences, to speculate on how such a conversation could go. The Lord might say, “Have you considered My servant, (your name)? I’m so proud of that child. If I only had more like (your name), you would see a different church on planet earth!”

Whereupon the accuser might respond, “Oh, yes? Let me tell you what
I
know about (your name)! The only reason he continues to praise You is that it pays off. So long as he ‘pays his dues,’ You keep his life running smoothly. You let me touch that darling spot, that thing he feels he couldn’t live without, that thing that
You have given him,
that came from Your hand. Let me attack it, and I’ll prove to You what (your name) is made of! He’ll reject You!”

This is the timing the Father has planned. It is time to move you a step “
from
glory
to
glory.” The one with the nail-scarred hand inserts the key into the lock to the protective hedge and says, “You may do thus and so, but you may not do this and that.” He gives the Evil One permission to
attack the flesh.
God allows him to undermine the “righteousness” (acceptance) in which you formerly trusted so that you can learn to opt for the righteousness from above based on faith in Jesus Christ.

Please do not recoil from this teaching. Don’t sell out to today’s popular “prosperity gospel.” That is such error. It falls so far short of the true riches that God has for all who are in Christ. Don’t kick against your loving Father’s refining process. He is allowing your circumstances to chip away all your dependence on your own flesh and instead opt for your identity in Christ. You are so beautiful as the new person you truly are in Christ! See it! Get the vision of it from God’s Word to you. Believe it and appropriate it as your own. As my friend Jack Taylor says, “Don’t be afraid. When you see who you actually
are
down deep in your heart as a new creation in Christ—you will like what you see!” And as you allow Christ to express His life through you, you will attain a self-esteem that will be unsinkable.

Godspeed, dear friend. I don’t know you. I have never seen you, but I’m proud with a godly joy that you are my relative in Christ. I’m praying for you as you read this book. I pray you will experience great victory in this life to the glory of our lovely Jesus. I want our eyes to meet at the Judgment Seat of Christ as we both hear our Lord say, “Well done.” There will be tears of joy in my eyes for you as I see Christ honor you as they do the young people who stand erect on the champions’ podium at the Olympics. I’ll be so proud of you if you have appropriated Him as your life to glorify Him. “If one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it” (1 Corinthians 12:26). I’m pulling for you! Keep pressing on! By
His
grace You can do it. God is faithful. “And stand [you]
will,
for the Lord is able to
make
[you] stand” (Romans 14:4b, emphasis added).

Look at the “Death/Life Certificate”. My prayer is that you will sign it as an indication of the intent of your heart. God bless you.

Answers in “Answers to Questions for Further Study”.

It would be an excellent and beneficial summary to return to the questions at the end of each chapter, reviewing them and your answers. The truths in this book will only become yours through study, prayer, and repetition as you trust the Lord to teach you.

To taste of the grace of God is one thing; to be established in it and manifest it in character, habit, and regular life, is another.

—M
ILES
S
TANFORD

(See Chapter 4)

Jesus said, “Greater works than these shall he do” (John 14:12). Christ is the Vine, we are the branches. There is no qualitative difference in the life of the vine and the life of the branch. It is not “vine life” and “branch life,” but
the
life. It’s not the duty of the branch to try its hardest to produce fruit. Branches simply abide in the vine, and the fruit-bearing takes place as a normal process. Which can produce the greater works: a vine alone with one branch or that same vine with millions of branches abiding in the vine? You see, it’s not greater
quality
Christ made reference to, but greater
quantity
.

(See Chapter 5)

God exempts small children from being responsible for their condition as Adam’s heirs. He considers them innocent. Jesus makes their condition very clear in Matthew 18:10: “I say to you, that their [small children’s] angels in heaven continually behold the face of My Father who is in heaven.” Do you know of any biblical teaching that indicates lost people have a personal angel? No, children belong to God until such time as they become responsible for their condition; then they become lost.

Jesus goes on to say that they’ll “fall into sin,” and He warns those who lead them into sin that they are accountable for misleading them. Then He tells the parable of the lost sheep. This is a portrayal of the Holy Spirit’s searching for someone who is lost. Tell me, what is the definition of “lost”? It means “I
used
to own it, but I lost it.”

Do you see it? All little children belong to God initially, then subsequently through the maturation process
get
lost, then they have the opportunity to
get
saved as a choice of their will by accepting Jesus’ atonement.

(See Chapter 5)

Many of you reading this book have already accepted Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. If you haven’t, it is my sincere prayer that you will very soon. For those of you who have, as you journeyed along on your Main Street, one day you came to the building marked “S” (for salvation) and accepted Christ as your Savior. As previously stated, this didn’t surprise God, since He saw your whole street before the world began. True, you made the choice with your will to accept Christ, but it didn’t surprise God when you did it. He’s omniscient and not limited to the time dimension like you. He knows the future.

This in no way means that certain lost people have no option to get saved. That’s confusing the issue by attempting to mix the helicopter view with the Main Street view. You can’t consider time and non-time simultaneously. It seems to me we must reflect on but one of these views at a time in our human state or we’ll end up with fatalism, believing that we have no choice; that if your number is not on God’s list it’s tough luck for you. I don’t see that in the Word. God doesn’t manipulate us against our will. To do so would make us robots and give Him no pleasure.

(See Chapter 6)

The Bible teaches that the believer battles against an inner power called
sin
: “But I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members” (Romans 7:23). Notice this power is not in the believer’s
mind
where his thoughts are generated, but in his
body.
The verse says your mind wars against this power.

This power called
sin
entered the world at the fall (Romans 5:12). You inherited it through your dad, originally from Adam, not Eve. (You’ll notice that Jesus had no earthly dad because if He had, sin would have indwelt Him. He is the only person in Scripture spoken of as “seed of woman.”)

Every war must have at least two opponents. In your inner battle, the power of sin sides with Satan. Since Romans 7:23 says your mind fights against this power, whose side does your mind
have
to support? God’s, else there would be no inner war. Your mind fights the power of sin because you have the law of God written on your mind (see Hebrews 10:16). God says, “I will put My Spirit within you and
cause
you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances” (Ezekiel 36:27, emphasis added). That describes you, brother and sister. You have a deep inner longing to obey God. That’s God’s law which is written on your heart.

However, perhaps you have believed that your war within is a
civil
war. If so, you interpret verses which speak of your inner struggle as an “evil you” warring against a “good you.” Small wonder you lose so many battles. You fire your weapons at the wrong enemy.

Years ago, God showed me that the power of sin uses two techniques to “war against” your mind. One: It presents thoughts to your mind using first person singular pronouns (I, me, my, myself, etc.). Second: It uses your old flesh patterns as a channel through which to present thoughts to your mind. Is this biblical? Let’s check it out.

A Ph.D. from a well-known evangelical seminary once said to me, “Bill, you are personifying sin by stating that the believer has a foreign power in his body which gives thoughts to him, seeking to influence him to do evil. To my knowledge, this has never been taught by the church.” I tactfully responded that
Paul
taught it to the church, but because many ceased to teach it we now see defeated, impotent believers—a far cry from the first-century church.