Keys for Spiritual Victory
Dr. Dave Beckwith 1. I admit to God that I am powerless to change my sin nature, and its destructive, deceitful, and arrogant ways. “How infinite are the forms in which self appears. Some are occupied with good self. They pride themselves on their excellencies. Others are just as much occupied with bad self. They are forever groaning over their imperfections and struggling with the flesh as if they hoped in time to improve it. When shall we be convinced it is so utterly bad that it is beyond all recovery?” (Evan Hopkins, p. 59). “When believers get sick and tired of spinning year after year in a spiritual squirrel cage—sinning, confessing, but then sinning again—they will be ready for God’s answer to the source of sin, which is death to self, brought forth from the completed work of the cross” (p. 70-71). 2. I acknowledge my bitter experiences of spiritual frustration and failure with the realization that these are primary tools God uses to bring me to the end of myself. “One of God’s most effective means in the process is failure. Many believers are simply frantic over the fact of failure in their lives, and they will go to all lengths in trying to hide it, ignore it, or rationalize about it. … Failure where self is concerned in our Christian life and service is allowed and often engineered by God in order to turn us completely from ourselves to His source for our life—Christ Jesus, who never fails” (p. 24). “It is more than comforting to realize that it is those who have plumbed the depths of failure to whom God invariably gives the call to shepherd others. This is not a call given to the gifted, the highly trained, or the polished as such. … Without a bitter experience of their own inadequacy and poverty they are quite unfitted to bear the burden of spiritual ministry. It takes a man who has discovered something of the measures of his own weakness to be patient with the foibles of others” (J.C. Metcalfe, p. 28-29). John Darby said, “It is God’s way to set people aside after their first start, that self-confidence may die down. … We must get to know ourselves and that we have no strength. Thus, we must learn, and then leaning on the Lord we can with more maturity, and more experientially deal with souls” (p. 11). 3. I consent to being loved while unworthy and realize I am accepted in Christ and not on probation. “When all is going well and God seems to be blessing, then it is that they feel He loves and accepts them. But when they are stumbling and everything seems dry and hard, then they feel that He does not love and accept them. How can this be? There is nothing about us to commend us to God, our acceptance being in Christ, plus the fact that most of our true spiritual development comes through the dry and hard times” (p. 19). 4. I realize the sin nature cannot be controlled, reformed, or improved by the most noble efforts of human will power. The sin nature can only produce more of itself. “When you fight to get the victory, then you have lost the battle at the very outset. … Your first instinct is to prepare yourself for a big battle and then pray to God to give you the victory in it. But if you do so defeat is sure, for you have given up the ground that is yours in Christ” (Watchman Nee, p. 37). God-dependence begins only when self-dependence comes to an end. “And self-dependence only comes to its end, with some of us, when sorrow, suffering, affliction, broken plans and hopes bring us to that place of self-helplessness and defeat” (James McConkey, p. 9). 5. I accept as fact that because I am in Christ, I am crucified with Him on the cross and risen with Him in newness of life. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses me of my sin, but the cross puts the sin factory, my old self, out of operation. I recognize that all resurrection life rises from death, or it would not be resurrection life. “This learning by heart-breaking experience of the utter sinfulness and reigning power of self in the everyday Christian life is the means whereby we come to know the Lord Jesus beyond the birth phase—as our Saviour; on to the growth phase—as our Lord and Life. “To me to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21). No believer will truly come to know the Lord Jesus as his life until he knows by experience the deadly self-life deep within for what it is.” (p. 56). “He begins to know something of the experience which Paul so graphically describes: ‘What I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I’ (Rom. 7:15). … Little does he know how healthy his condition is, and that this shattering discovery is but the prelude to a magnificent series of further discoveries of things which God has expressly designed for his eternal enrichment” (p. 57). 6. I accept as fact that my old self was crucified with Christ on the cross. “Man’s way is to try to suppress sin by seeking to overcome it; God’s way is to remove the sinner” (Watchman Nee, p. 91). Reckon or picture yourself dead with Christ. See yourself lying in the casket, and then imagine the temptation that comes. The dead person does not fight the temptation. The dead person doesn’t even bother to respond. You are factually dead with Christ. “We often come across Christians who are bright and clever, and strong and righteous; in fact, a little too bright, and a little too clever—there seems to much of self in their strength, and their righteousness is severe and critical. They have everything to make them saints, except … crucifixion, which would mold them into a supernatural tenderness and limitless charity for others” (p. 79). 7. I am learning to live with a daily awareness that I am crucified with Christ and risen with Him. “I live to die and die to live. The more I die, the more I live, and the more I live, the more I die.” I am a dead man on furlough. The person who has already died is not threatened by death. “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; 8 we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. 11 For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 12 So death works in us, but life in you” (2 Cor. 4:7-12 nasb). “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me” (Gal. 2:20 nasb).
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