October 11

“The only way out of an ‘I’ religion into a ‘not I’ religion, is by a death to self.  We must die that we may live.  Practically, this means that we are not to care what self gains or what becomes of self but only how God is treated and what brings gain and joy to Him.”  Hannah Whitall Smith, God is Enough, 9/27

I think this dying to self is one of the most misunderstood things in Christendom.  I was reading in Eugenia Price’s "Make Love Your Aim" last night where she wanted to correct the mistaken impression she gave in an earlier book.  In talking about being crucified with Christ (Galatians 2:20) many of her readers thought that meant to kill off self.  Now she was telling them this isn’t possible or desirable.  She went on to point out that we have already been crucified with Christ when we believe in Him.  This is what I’m finally learning.  When Hannah Whitall Smith speaks of dying to self she is saying in another way what Eugenia is saying--since self has already been crucified with Christ, we must forget about that self.  The reason we can do that, and still survive, is that Christ is looking after us now.  This is where we get confused often.  Some of us think that we have to continue to look after self and others of us think we have to kill self.  Both are wrong.  We don’t have to do anything to or for self--just forget about it.  A little praise song just came up in my mind that really speaks it all:  ^♫Just forget about yourself and come into His House and Praise the Lord.^♫  It’s in praising our Lord that we are enabled to forget about self.

“The LORD is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts; so I am helped, and my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him.”  Psalm 28:7

October 10

“A ‘not I’ religion....denies self not in the sense of making self miserable but in the sense of utterly refusing to recognize its claims, enthroning the Christ-life in its stead always and everywhere.”  Hannah Whitall Smith, God is Enough, 9/26

Too many people think God is out to spoil all their fun and make life a drudgery.  I’m sure they get this impression from watching Christians.  I’m sure my own children got this impression from watching me.  It wasn’t that I ever acted as though following Christ was a burden, but because I am a Christian they automatically judged my behavior based on that fact.  What they saw was a very serious, anxious person.  I was not someone who could easily quit her work to play.  I was even angry at times because of my frustration with their lack of obedience.  It would have been better, I think, if they didn’t know I was a Christian because I’m sure they thought being a Christian meant all the things they saw in me--all negative.  Because I’ve “grown up” quite a bit since they were little, I’ve made it my mission to correct their impressions.  I try to talk about those days, apologizing and explaining.   I’m hoping they will understand my humanness and how spiritual growth is so necessary.  We can’t just “get saved” one day and be done with it.  We must go on in our walk with God, being open to His work in us, bringing us to maturity in Him.  I’m using my past life as an example--yes--but as an example of how not to be. 

“But if when you do right and suffer for it you take it patiently, you have God’s approval. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.”  1 Peter 2:20b, 21

October 9

“The greatest truth in all of Scripture is this:  God is love.  Understanding this in its full dimensions will set you free to enjoy all that is yours as a Christian.”  H. Blackaby, Experiencing God Day-by-Day, 9/25

“Understanding this in its full dimensions” means we have to have a right understanding of what love is.  Just as we must understand what love is, we must understand what it is not.  It is not getting our own way and it is not having all the bumps in the road smoothed out before we get there.  If we don’t root out all the wrong beliefs about love, they will lie in wait ready to jump out in front of us to make us miserable at a time we most need to experience true love.  True love looks out for what is best for us.  This is why only God can truly love us because only He can know what is best for us.  He created us with the end in mind.  He knows what we need best to reach that end.  What it comes down to is letting God love us.  This means we must accept all that He allows into our lives believing He has a plan.  This is why it is so helpful to have an inkling of the “why” behind things.  But when we don’t, we mustn’t think God doesn’t have a “why”.  He does.  We must trust His love.  This is the only way we can receive His blessings in all things.

“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.  Now I know in part, then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.  So faith, hope, love abide, these three but the greatest of these is love.”  1 Corinthians 13:12, 13

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

October 7

“Discomfort and unrest in the spiritual life arise from strenuous but useless efforts to get up some satisfactory basis of confidence within ourselves.  The self looks for the ‘right kind of feelings,’ or the right amount of fervor or earnestness, or at least a sufficient degree of interest in spiritual matters.  Because none of these things are ever satisfactory (and never will be) it is impossible for the spiritual life to be anything but uncomfortable.”  Hannah Whitall Smith, Daily Secrets, 9/23

Hannah then went on to point out that our salvation, from beginning to end, depends on Jesus Christ and that should be sufficient enough for peace to “reign supreme”.  If that’s the case, then it does seem we children of God really make “much ado about nothing”.  Why is it, then, I never feel like I quite measure up?  Was this Eve’s problem?  Is this why she felt she was missing out on something by not eating of the fruit of the forbidden tree?  And that by doing so she would be wiser?  This lack of contentment for who God made us to be is perhaps at the root of our unrest.  We think we are striving to be better--more of what God intended.  But God keeps leading me back to the fact that He created me and gives me all I need.  I need not strive for anything. Everything I need has already been placed within me. I need only tend to the business at hand, living each day as it comes, trusting Him with confidence.  This is the only confidence I need--in Him.

“Through him you have confidence in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.”  1 Peter 1:21

October 6

“God is every minute yearning to fill us with Himself.  But He waits until we see our utter helplessness.  He waits for the time of our true hungering and thirsting after righteousness.”  Eugenia Price, S.P.S., 9/22

Why does He have to wait until then?  I’m trying to lose an extra 20 pounds that I do not need.  If I lose it, I will weigh what I weighed two years ago when I thought I was fat.  Now I don’t think I was so fat at that weight.  I think once I get there I’m going to be content with that weight.  In the meantime I’m dealing with the desire to eat when I’m not hungry.  Since I’m eating when I’m no longer hungry, there’s nothing to tell me to stop--like feeling full.  I think this principal applies to being filled with God Himself.  If my desire to be filled with God isn’t because I’m empty, the hunger is being caused by something else.  Only true emptiness of self causes us to hunger and thirst after God.  Just like my “grazing” when I’m bored and near the kitchen is an attempt to satisfy my boredom rather than any hunger, my ego’s hunger will never lead me to God because it does not want to be filled with God Himself.  It may want what God has to offer--peace, love, security--but never God Himself.  To do so would mean it could no longer sit on the throne of my life.  So as I seek to lose this extra weight, I will remind myself that it is in hungering and thirsting after righteousness--and not filling myself with junk food--that I will receive all that I could possibly need or want--God Himself.

“Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.’”  John 6:35

October 5

“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:48)....It is to be by his working in us, and not by our working in ourselves, that this purpose of God in our creation is to be accomplished; and if it should look to some of us as though we are too far removed from the image of Christ for such a transformation to be possible, we must remember that our Maker is not done with us yet.”  Hannah Whitall Smith, Daily Secrets, 9/21

At the Baby Shower for my second child I received a little plaque with these words printed on it: “Be patient with me, God isn’t done with me yet”.  At first I thought it referred to the baby that was growing inside me, but then I began to worry that my friend meant it for me.  I should have felt relief that my friend seemed to be saying she recognized she needed to be patient with me, but instead I felt mortified that she might think I wasn’t already perfect!  That was how caught up I was in perfectionism.  I was so driven to be perfect that even my thoughts had to be perfect!  Of course, this was all ego driven.  I can see that now.  That is why it disturbs me when I see someone trying to be perfect.  I know the inner turmoil they are experiencing.  I also know now it’s in experiencing freedom from Self, day-by-day, that I am being conformed to His image.  Those of us who strive to be perfect have the cart before the horse!

“For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren.”  Romans 8:29