Death to Self

Nothing is more important and vital to the Christian walk than death to self, and yet few people really search the Lord out for this valuable experience, which can only happen over a period of years ... and with much pain and suffering.

As Madame Jeanne Guyon said:

It is only by a total death to self that we can experience the state of Divine union, and be lost in God.

The scriptures also teach "He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." Matthew 10:39

We must go beyond the objective and finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross, whereby we were buried with Him in death. That must be then embraced in a subjective way, having it worked our practically in our walk with the Lord.

The end of all of this, as in the eternal purpose of God, is that He may be all in all. That requires a deep and devastating work of the cross on our self. We must lose our lives in order to find Him deep within our spirit, where He dwells.

If not, we will live an endless life of frustration and ineffectiveness, or even deception, whereby we believe we're living for God, when in fact we're living from ourselves.

This requires experience, which results in the ability to discern what is of God and what is not of God.

The more you pursue Christ in order to get close to Him, the more of your self you'll have dealt with, as the closer you get to the center of your spirit where Christ dwells, the less of your self can survive.

Remember, the end of the purpose of God is to be all in all. That leaves none of self left.

That doesn't mean we lose our personhood, as in our patience we retain our souls. What it means is we lose our self. Our self lives and being a person are two different things.

The bottom line is we're to be alive unto God in Christ. We no longer live, but Christ lives in us.

A Worshipful Life in Christ

What Jesus brought in through the cross is extraordinary in its discontinuity with the past, the old creation, and the outwardly religious world, forever.

Remember this scripture?

"Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall ye worship the Father... But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth: for such doth the Father seek to be his worshippers. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth." (John 4:20,21,23,24).

I like how Jeanne Guyon expresses it:

Man erects his inward temple with much industry and care; and he is obliged to do it with such materials as he has. All this structure and superstructure is a new-modelling and building up of the old Adam. But all of this is removed and destroyed when God comes into the soul, and build a new and Divine temple not made with hands, and of materials which endure for ever.

It must be understood when Guyon said what she did above, it was in reference to those with true hearts for the Lord Jesus Christ. She assumes the desire and willingness for this to be done inwardly by those she describes.

And T. Austin-Sparks:

The beginning of everything is worship, in relation to God. That is, God having the central and supreme place of recognition, acknowledgment, of government. In our complete obedience, surrender, in every part and phase of our being, God having supreme right. Worship begins there. It is a relationship, not only an exercise. It is not something that we do in specified ways and methods. It is some attitude of the life, some place which God has in the entire consciousness. That is worship.

These comments were the result of great revelation and suffering for the sake of that which was eternal in Christ Jesus by those above, and of course, Christ Himself.

It is such a controversy because it's the core of our faith in Christ, and will be attacked the most by our spiritual enemy because of it.

To see only Christ and live a life from, for, through and in Him, is the essence of the eternal purpose, that ultimately God may be all in all; the goal of that purpose.

Commenting on outward, institutional, formal, religious Christianity, Sparks concluded:

We who are in Christ, in the sight of God, are wearing garments of beauty and glory and holiness. Why, then, perpetuate a system? The Lord Jesus put all that away in His Cross, it is all gone. That is what He means by worshipping in spirit and in truth.

Throughout the centuries, believers such as Guyon, Sparks, and a relatively small handful of others, have seen the magnificent revelation of Jesus Christ, and all other things not only pale in light of His person, but everything used as a continuation of types and shadows is rejected and battled against by them.

Everything is cast aside other than Christ. That is what is meant by the type of worshippers God seeks. That is the living water coming forth from our innermost being. That is where our focus must be: Christ in us.