October 8

“The ‘not I’ religion forgets self in its absorption in God.  It expects nothing from self but everything from God; it demands nothing for self but seeks to lavish all on the Lord; it learns to recognize in God the same blessed attributes and begins to have an insight into His heart of self-forgetting love and tenderness.”     Hannah Whitall Smith, God is Enough, 9/24

The “I” religion, on the other hand, demands its rights and expects everyone to come up to its standards.  Hannah asserted there were religious leaders of the day that had the “I” religion.  Things haven’t changed.  But you don’t have to be a leader to have an “I” religion.  Every time I hear the Prodigal Son parable I squirm because I identify too closely with the older brother. He thought he had not been treated fairly by his father because he’d always been the good son and had never been rewarded for it.  What he couldn’t see was that everything was his already.  Hannah concludes that we must crucify Self each and every time it clamors for recognition.  This has been why I’ve not been successful.  I’ve not taken the need to crucify Self every time seriously.  I’ve let it slide because I have some good excuse ready to justify why this time it won’t matter if I let Self have it’s way.  As I seek to glorify God, however, in all things, Self won’t be able to convince me so easily.  I must always remember to be diligent, putting on the whole amour of God.

“Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the equipment of the gospel of peace; besides all these, taking the shield of faith, with which you can quench all the flaming darts of the evil one, And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”  Ephesians 6:13-17