“TO LIVE IS CHRIST”

  I sit here in the living room enjoying more than ever the company of my husband. During our week apart, while he was teaching in Colorado, the Spirit of God started teaching me about "oneness",obedience,love and the parallel of our earthly marriage to His. I know He is not yet finished, so I'm thrilled when He begins to speak more to me this morning.

  Turning to today's reading in My Utmost For His Highest I discover the following: 

   "Our Lord never insists upon obedience; he tells us very emphatically we ought to, but He never means to make us do it. We have to obey him out of oneness of Spirit."

  I'm stirred by the phrase “oneness of Spirit” because I realize the Lord is about to reach deeper into my heart for what he began in there last week and poke pinholes of truth through which I will discover more of His heart.

  As I read on, the point of the lesson becomes clearer to me. If my relationship to God is that of LOVE, I will do what he says without any hesitation. If I hesitate though, it's because I love someone else in competition with Him, i.e.... myself.   At this time, the Lord begins poking away at me, like I thought he would and here's what I came away with...

   The truth about the cost of oneness is that we must die to ourselves and become a new creation. Therefore, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. Similarly in marriage, the two have become one flesh and so I mustn't love or exalt myself above him.

   It’s awful and wonderful what the light of truth reveals in us. It's something I love and also fear, for it often produces both joy and pain in me when it shines.Today it did both. There was joy in discovering how to have oneness of Spirit with Christ but pain because I saw ways that I've put me in the center, unwilling to be made "new". Still, I am grateful for them both because today by the grace of Christ's Revelation through the joy and pain I have gained a richer and more meaningful understanding that "to live is Christ and to die is gain" (Galations 2:20). In this life I must be willing to be made completely new. The only consequence is that if I will lose my life, I will find it in Him.

   My prayer is that we all will walk in obedience out of our love for Christ and His love for us.That He will be exalted upon the throne of our hearts in such a way that we consider it pure joy to give the entirety of ourselves for His pleasure and good purposes.

                                             Amen