The Secret of Victory, Part 3 (Conclusion)
The Secret of Victory, Part 3 (Conclusion)
By Dr. J. Charles Stern
September 24, 2001
God is Love, and so the third means of receiving His Resources is:
John makes this clear in his epistle, I John 4:16: "God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." I John 3:24: "He that keepeth His commandments dwelleth in Him and He in him." I John 5:2: "By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep His commandments." In other words, a sweet affection for the Lord Jesus Christ, fostered and maintained by love for others through Christ, means that His love dwells in us and triumphs, causing us to live the life of obedience. Love is maintained in us by Christ. He uses us as a medium of love and begets His own love through us as we depend upon Him for this. Is there lack of love to any one? There need not be. Just now He can cleanse and replace by His own love.
But we must turn briefly to a consideration of:
III. The Results of Such Reception and Reliance in a Victorious Life
The first result will be:
The Life of Christ lived in us and through us here.
John 14:19: "because I live ye shall live also." I Peter 2:9: "But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of Him Who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light."
Walking down a Glasgow street one day, a gentleman was attracted by a crowd standing at a shop door. There he discovered a man selling a beautiful picture. He was describing the merits of the picture to the people before him, pointing them to this corner and to that corner and showing them this that and the other thing, and all the time he was speaking of the picture he was not seen. He was behind the picture, and only the picture in its beauty was visible to the people.
And so with us. Jesus will live His own life of victory, we simply being the showcases to display His glory. "Not I, but Christ" -- the hidden source and the constant resource of the life of Victory.
Again it means the:
Cf. John 8:12: "Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world; he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." And Romans 12:2: "Be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind."
We are imperfect vessels, but as we depend upon Him it will mean that we shall have His own mind upon the problems of life and grow more and more to His thought.
The Love of Christ will again be manifested in all our life. Romans 5:5: "Because the Love of God is shed abroad in our hearts." 2 Corinthians 5:14: "The Love of Christ constraineth us." How we have longed to display this love. And ho often we have failed. Have our resources failed? They have if they are our resources. But Christ Jesus has never failed and He Himself is the final and adequate Resource of the Victorious Life.
Now what does all this mean? It means that you and I can safely and assuredly enter into a life of Victory. The Life of Christ is realized in us by the Holy Spirit, but have we abandoned ourselves to Him completely, that our Lord Jesus Christ may constitute Himself our Life?
Dr. Griffith Thomas once explained Christian responsibility as "our response to His ability." Now let me ask: for the sake of a helpless, Godless humanity, for the sake of a struggling and oft-times weakened Church, for the sake of our young people, and, above all, for the sake of our living, loving Lord, will you not now yield to Him, withholding nothing that from this hour the complete will of Christ may be done in each one of us by our recognizing Christ Jesus as the Resource of the Victorious Life, that His Life may be lived in us henceforth for His own glory?
S. D. Gordon in one of his books tells the story of Theodore Monod. He was an earnest, eloquent man. The realization came to him that he was to yield fully to Christ. In much of his life self was ruling. He came to the parting of the ways and the battle was a fierce one, for self dies hard, but finally by the Spirit of God, he gained the Victory -- as you may, as we all may. It was Theodore Monod who described his own battle and victory in that great hymn: "O the bitter shame and sorrow. . ." with its triumphant conclusion -- "None of self and all of Thee."
And now as I close, who will dare to trust the Lord Jesus Christ fully to meet every need for a life of Victory? Will you do it, and, having yielded quietly to Him that He may crucify self, will you rise up to say, "For me to live is Christ"?
Hidden far from agitation,
Rests my soul in quiet peace;
Held by grace through full salvation
In the place where self doth cease.
Rest in ceasing from self's clamour;
Joy in leaving all to Him.
Earth has no such place of favour,
Far from earthly strife and din.
Secret of the blessed Spirit,
Known to those who yield their all;
Heaven won through Jesus' merit,
Eden rescued from the Fall.
Come, my soul into this refuge,
Rest from self in Jesus there;
Cease from thine own work and striving,
Rest on Him your every care.
Dr. J. Charles Stern.
--
September 24, 2001 issue, Vol. 4, #38
Originally published by European Christian Mission, Lancs., England (Heightside Press).
Scripture quotations: K.J.V.
Text: British spellings
Edited by John Woodward, B.A., M.Div.
Director of Counseling and Training, Grace Fellowship Int'l
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