Do You Walk In White?

Today is an anniversary of sorts for me. In 1998, when I was first reading through My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers, the devotional for Jan 15 hit me hard. (Honestly, many of devotional's entries hit me hard, but none quite like this one). On that morning 15 years ago, the Spirit helped me realize that I had not really died to myself. I was still trying to "do Christianity" instead of dying and letting what Jesus had already done be simply given to me. So, through Oswald Chambers, in the quiet of my kitchen, I had my "white funeral".

Below is a copy of my blog entry from Jan 15, 2011. In it there are a few references to the devotional itself, which I pray God may us to bring others to their last day.

To God Alone be the Glory

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Thirteen years ago when I read today's (Jan 15) My Utmost for His Highest entry by Oswald Chambers, I was cut to the heart. (full devotional here) I had been a Christian for 7 years, had served in various capacities and had even been to a few Promise Keeper events. Yet the challenge and conviction of what Chambers wrote haunted me.

You must agree with God and stop being the intensely striving kind of Christian you have been. We avoid the cemetery and continually refuse our own death.

Has there been a point in your life which you now mark as your last day? Is there a place in your life to which you go back in memory with humility and overwhelming gratitude, so that you can honestly proclaim, “Yes, it was then, at my ’white funeral,’ that I made an agreement with God.”

So, by God's grace on Jan 15, 1998, I had my "white funeral". That was not the day of my conversion, but it was the day that through the Spirit I came to the end of my self. Is there effort involved in living the Christian life? Absolutely. But any effort I expend that further's the kingdom of Christ and brings glory to God is borne not by me but by the Holy Spirit.

Paul puts it in the form of a rhetorical question in Gal 3:3 "Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" The implied answer is No!

Let end with two more quotes from Chambers:

No one experiences complete sanctification without going through a “white funeral”-the burial of the old life. If there has never been this crucial moment of change through death, sanctification will never be more than an elusive dream.

Are you willing to experience that “white funeral” now? Will you agree with Him that this is your last day on earth? The moment of agreement depends on you. 

To God Alone be the Glory.

The Spirit of Life

In reading Acts 2 in combination with a Martyn Lloyd-Jones devotional, I was struck today by my overwhelming debt and need of the Holy Spirit. Without exaggeration, everything in my spiritual life and my walk with Christ is dependent upon and was given by God through the Spirit. Here is a short, non-exhaustive list:

- a recognition of my sin and need for a Savior
- the willingness and ability to turn from my sin and to Jesus
- a certainty that God hears and answers my prayers
- the confidence that all of God's promises are "Yes" in Jesus
- a complete assurance that nothing can separate me from the love of God in Christ
- a full realization that because of Jesus I am not condemned but loved, adopted and redeemed
- the knowledge that whatever I've been given by God, I've been given to share
- a growing sense that the same Spirit that walked with Jesus is walking with me
- the conviction that any use of the grace gifts without the Spirit is an empty exercise

I could go on, but the ache of my heart is first to say to God, and to the Spirit in particular, I am sorry for relegating you to second class status, for trying to do things on my own that were never meant to be done on my own and for slipping into a mind set that you are some kind of force. You are in fact the third person of the Trinity and deserve the respect, worship and glory of God.

My second ache is to ask myself, and any who may read this post, what am I doing in operating on my own strength? There is no point, no purpose and no lasting effect in anything I do on my own. It is botched from the start, since it has my glory as its goal, plus it is limited in its scope because it has my vision as its guide and once it is done it is incomplete since it has my power as its source.

So today and, I pray, every day, I'm seeking to think and speak, act and react, in the power of the Holy Spirit, third person of the Trinity, for the glory of God.

To God Alone Be The Glory