Lost Spontaneity versus Saved Spontaneity by Brian Coatney

The original can be read here


God means for us to see that the pot (vessel) indwelled by Satan is the “old man” that Paul describes. This old man cannot be reformed but must die, meaning be crucified with Christ. The holdup on humanity’s end is the deception related to the law. Lost people think they can keep it, and carnal Christians think they should be like Jesus, which is the same thing. Mired up in deception at first, we think that God gives the Law so we will keep it, or at least get a passing grade, or perhaps God will grade on the curve.

However, only a perfect score passes. That’s shattering. It conditions us, however. God never EVER thought we could keep the Law. He’s laughing His head off and has been continually over what non-Christians and Christians alike think about the Law. He’s laughing, thinking, “They think they can keep it! Let’s pour it on, commandment after commandment, even though they never seem to wear down.

God must convince us of our need so that He can save us. Non-Christians and Christians battle the law, and God means us to because the law awakens us from our self-satisfied view of ourselves. Now even Paul’s testimony says, “I was alive without the Law once” (Rom. 7:9). But was he really alive? No, of course not. He felt good because things were going his way in his deceived state of thinking that he was keeping the law.

Dan Stone often told about the spontaneity of lost people—a spontaneity he enjoyed in his carefree days before the law. He then became a Christian but spent years trying to be like Christ, all the while secretly jealous of the non-Christians who still lived life spontaneously. After years of wearing down under the Law, Dan discovered that a Christian can live spontaneously by trusting Christ within to keep His own law. Dan saw that God uses the law to condition us away from self-effort and into Christ’s life in us as our supply. So there is a spontaneous version of the spontaneous life for a Christian.

Yes I Am 22 - One Yet Two - A Paradox

Yes I Am by Norman Grubb
Chapter 22

ONE, YET TWO - A PARADOX

But even then, as I’ve described, when it came to the down-to-earth issue of saying "I am crucified with Christ" with true faith in my heart, there was a five-hour battle. How did I do it? I find that there is one central obedience in the Bible. It is mentioned in the last verse but one of the Roman letter – "the obedience of faith." We have been far more used to hearing about works-obedience: "You’ll get there by Bible reading, by prayer, by church attendance, by varied activities"; and so we’ve missed out on this one, central "obedience of faith." But acceed to it and all the other obediences will fit in and follow naturally. And this is the easy one. It is simply saying what the Spirit through the Word tells us to accept as facts about Christ, and believing them.

A battle it was... believing and saying that I am what He says I am. Faith is a battle for one basic reason - because we have been so used to believing the common delusion about ourselves: so weak, so wayward, so temptable, yet supposedly I am responsible to improve myself. Therefore this faith-obedience means replacing those old negative-believings by His new positive word. So that I do.

Probably my main believing is first on the death side of my identification with Him, because of my negative ideas about myself. That was why I drew a tombstone rather than a picture of resurrection! I had first to see that my old self was really out of its old sin-Satan relationship and dependence, despite human appearances - even though it was joined to Christ more in His death than in His resurrection.

However, the death side of our relationship must not remain in the foreground. The cross is the gateway to "the life," which is the living Christ Himself. "Take my life, and let it be a hidden cross revealing Thee," wrote C. T. Studd. To find and be in a faith-relationship to the death of Christ is a total necessity, but is only the background to "the life." For "the life" is meant to be in the foreground.

My first emphasis has to be on knowing that I really died with Him, because of my years of false condemnation of myself while being apparently alive in the flesh. Even Jesus remained three days in the grave - so it may take us each a little time to realize that "I am in that tomb with Him," so far as my self being enslaved to sin and self-effort is concerned. But it is important to have it clear that when I say "I am crucified with Christ" I do not mean that I as a self have died to being a self - which is an absurdity. Yet preachers often mistakenly use the phrase "death to self." I cannot die to self, for I am eternally a self! I only die in the sense that my self has changed masters. I have "died" to having a job in a steel firm, if I’ve crossed over and joined a cotton firm. That is the sense in which I have died in Christ.

There are also teachers who put such a strong emphasis on this death reality of the Romans 6 "death to sin" that they leave folks tossing about in a death-mindedness. It is necessary for a time, but then out we come from the tomb!

So Paul continues, in his famous Galatians 2:20 statement, with "…nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me," and we continue in our faith affirmation along with him. We say categorically, and with no ifs or buts, "I am crucified with Christ" - cut off, dead to sin, dead as the old self which was Satan’s dwelling place, dead to the world system in which I outwardly live. Dead, dead, dead, in His death. That I have to say before I can move on. But then I say, "…nevertheless I live" - meaning, of course, by His resurrection out from the tomb.

But here comes the vital spot. Paul does not stop there one moment in his saying "…nevertheless I live." He does not leave us time to dwell on this fact of being risen, alive in Christ. He straightway corrects himself - contradicts himself - and says, "No, not I, but Christ lives in me." Now this is revolutionary, radical, because though he says it is Christ living in me, he is not saying "side by side with me." He is saying Christ has replaced me at my center: "...yet not I" Or as some have translated it, "…yet no longer I." And that is why I use the word replacement as a key word.

Now this brings us to the very center of our Total Truth. Paul is obviously really saying, "The real ‘I’ in me is not my Paul ‘I,’ but Christ. I am really Christ in His ‘Paul’ form." Yet I am that self-form, for Paul goes on to say in this same scripture, "...and the life which I now live in the flesh…" He is still there, the redeemed "Paul-I."

This is the spot where we sometimes meet with controversy. Paul is not here making the point that we are two - Christ and I. No, he is saying right out that the real "I" is Christ, and my "I" merely His agent, vessel, branch. And he states it so boldly when he puts it, "I live, no not I, but Christ lives in me."

Certainly I remain, and (as we shall see later) come right back into the foreground. For Paul speaks of the self in that great Galatians 2:20 statement on three levels. I call it moving from old self ("I am crucified") to no self ("I live; yet not I, but Christ") to new self ("the life which I now live in the flesh"); so back we have come to our own selves. But we will look at that new self later. At this crisis moment we center our faith-attention on this middle no self - for this is the crux.

We do not find ourselves as the liberated, spontaneous new selves until we have first disappeared to reappear! We have to know ourselves - of course, by the inner knowing of the Spirit - as replaced I’s. It is I, yet not I, it is He! It really is He in place of me, and yet here I still am! What a paradox! I turn up again all right, but only on the other side of a fixed, conscious replacement. And it is the coming short of this replacement realization - or indeed, opposition to it - that blocks us right the way through from that total "seeing through" which goes on to seeing Him only, not only in the personal, but in the universal.

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The Three Stages of Self

Merrill Thompson - Facebook - Yesterday at 14:43
We have , in fact, to pass through three phases in our attitude towards and understanding of ourselves. We start life by a false attempt at self- appreciation. We try to make out we are all right. "going about to establish our own righteousness", the bible calls it. That finishes when we become honest about ourselves in the sight of God, and our repentance toward God and faith toward toward our Lord Jesus Christ is an end to our false self-appreciation.



This is followed by often a long period of self-depreciation.



As new-born Christians, we are making the discovery that it is not in redeemed self, any more than it was in unredeemed self, to be what we should be. So we are much more conscious of our failings, our inadequate human selves, than we are of Christ in us.



We condemn ourselves, we stress our weaknesses, we speak of our hunger and need, our inadequate love for God, our sins. We say that if God does anything with our lives, it is in spite of us (where in fact it is because of us), and so forth. This is the phase of temporary self-depreciation, necessary for us to learn the truth about ourselves, but only temporary.
The Three Stages of Self..by..Norman Grubb

THE THIRD AND FINAL PHASE IS RIGHTFUL SELF-APPRECIATION.

From false self-appreciation, through tempory self- depreciation, to true self- appreciation.

That is when in the union we have found forever we are only we the vessels that contain God: but we are vessels, and more, we are vessel who are really persons; and our humanity is now the self-expression of the Living God. We are the light of the world. We are eternal love in action. The center of our inner consciousness has moved over from self-depreciation to God- appreciation and thus to self-appreciation. It is a signproof that we have not life yet in gear, we have yet to come full circle, when our normal responses in situations are to emphasize our weakness rather than our ability. "I can do all things," said Paul. "We are more than conquerors, " said Paul again. We are well able to overcome it," said Caleb. "I am full of power," said Micah. But in each case they added that it was "through Christ" , or "by the Spirit of the Lord", or some such statement. However, the primary emphasis was not on Him in them, but on themselves, and they "able ministers of the new covenant"-through Him. Their emphasis was not on their weakness but on their strength-by Him. THIS IS THE TRUE SELF-AFFIRMATION...taken from The Spontaneous You by Norman Grubb