Goodbye Elijah

From “My Utmost for His Highest”:

August 11th.

THIS EXPERIENCE MUST COME

"And he saw him no more." 2 Kings 2:12

"It is not wrong to depend upon Elijah as long as God gives him to you, but remember the time will come when he will have to go; when he stands no more to you as your guide and leader, because God does not intend he should. You say - "I cannot go on without Elijah." God says you must.

Alone at your Jordan. v.14. Jordan is the type of separation where there is no fellowship with anyone else, and where no one can take the responsibility for you. You have to put to the test now what you learned when you were with your Elijah. You have been to Jordan over and over again with Elijah, but now you are up against it alone. It is no use saying you cannot go; this experience has come, and you must go. If you want to know whether God is the God you have faith to believe Him to be, then go through your Jordan alone.

Alone at your Jericho. v.15. Jericho is the place where you have seen your Elijah do great things. When you come to your Jericho you have a strong disinclination to take the initiative and trust in God, you want someone else to take it for you. If you remain true to what you learned with Elijah, you will get the sign that God is with you.

Alone at your Bethel. v.23. At your Bethel you will find yourself at your wits' end and at the beginning of God's wisdom. When you get to your wits' end and feel inclined to succumb to panic, don't; stand true to God and He will bring His truth out in a way that will make your life a sacrament. Put into practice what you learned with your Elijah, use his cloak and pray. Determine to trust in God and do not look for Elijah any more."


What good is repentance? Of what benefit is it to me? Why change my mind and why change who I am?

These are logical questions to ask regarding righteousness. They are the wrong questions.

God commands repentance at salvation. He commands it throughout life. But why? Should I be sorry for being a sinner? At salvation I indeed was a sinner. Utterly depraved. My heart was desperately wicked and deceitful. I could not know it. I could not help my sin nature and could not help but live in sin each day of my life before Jesus. As an unregenerate sinner, I had no idea how wicked I was.

The Jesus saved me and I turned from my wicked ways and God healed me. God’s Holy Spirit filled me for the very first time. I was sealed in His love and salvation forever. Jesus saved me from my sins and delivered me from my sin. Then He commanded me to go and sin no more.

He told me to reckon myself dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God through Jesus. He told me to awake unto righteousness and sin not.

Yet here I am. In sin again. Feeling like the days before salvation. Feeling no better, no different than the sinner I was for eighteen years.

The years between were sometimes blessed with the presence of an Elijah in my life. These were men who led me, taught me, buffered me, listened to me, and most of the time, put up with me. Then they were gone. Each time I reached the banks of the Jordan, they were gone. I had to cross alone. I am disappointed in myself for how many times I have had to cross over, only to be thrown back and try again. Instead of God’s dry path across, the waters rose up and thrust me back upon the bank. Like an Egyptian in the Red Sea pursuing Moses, I was crushed by the furies of the water. Yet I noticed that this water was somehow different.

It was the water of the Word of God. Instead of killing me, it cut me like a sharp, two-edged sword. Instead of drowning me in its filthy mud, it washed me clean by its purity.

I lie on the shore panting, now raging. Beaten. Tired. Wondering. Why do you keep doing this to me God? Why can’t I cross and move on? Why doesn’t Elijah come back and help me?

God’s heavy hand pushes me deeper into the warm sand of the shore. It turns once more into a desert. “Come with Me and learn some more.” Like Paul, I spend a few more years in the desert, learning at the feet of Jesus. Elijah is not there, but Jesus is.

Why should I repent Lord? Why should I change my mind if I won’t get any better? What do I repent of if it will just happen again and again and again?

“You don’t get any better. Repentance is not turning from sin. It is turning from self. It is not a change of mind about sin, to see it as I do. You cannot. Your heart is too wicked, too deceitful, unable to fathom the very depths of sin. I do not want you to be overcome by that.”

Indeed I am not crushed by anything other than my own pride. The root. That is something God can show me and that I can understand.

From “My Utmost for His Highest”:

March 8th.

THE RELINQUISHED LIFE

"I am crucified with Christ." Galatians 2:20

"No one is ever united with Jesus Christ until he is willing to relinquish not sin only, but his whole way of looking at things. To be born from above of the Spirit of God means that we must let go before we lay hold, and in the first stages it is the relinquishing of all pretence. What Our Lord wants us to present to Him is not goodness, nor honesty, nor endeavour, but real solid sin; that is all He can take from us. And what does He give in exchange for our sin? Real solid righteousness. But we must relinquish all pretence of being any thing, all claim of being worthy of God's consideration.

Then the Spirit of God will show us what further there is to relinquish. There will have to be the relinquishing of my claim to my right to myself in every phase. Am I willing to relinquish my hold on all I possess, my hold on my affections, and on everything, and to be identified with the death of Jesus Christ?
There is always a sharp painful disillusionment to go through before we do relinquish. When a man really sees himself as the Lord sees him, it is not the abominable sins of the flesh that shock him, but the awful nature of the pride of his own heart against Jesus Christ. When he sees himself in the light of the Lord, the shame and the horror and the desperate conviction come home.

If you are up against the question of relinquishing, go through the crisis, relinquish all, and God will make you fit for all that He requires of you."

“Your heart, the world, and the wicked one, these will tell you that you will get better. That life with Me makes you progressively more like me and less like yourself. It’s a lie. It’s a masterful deception. Your prideful heart craves it. It is the sin nature which so desperately wants it to be true. As it is, it makes you a god, constantly telling you that you have neither need nor want of Me. This is the thing to repent of. That thing which from the very beginning set mankind against his Creator.”

It’s all really that simple. Everything else will roar in disagreement. Try to do better. Feel bad about your sin. God will forgive you. He’ll make you feel better.

Oh yeah? Them why am I so miserable? God took away my Elijah. He threw me back time after time. He put me in the desert. You call that feeling better? Was Job the righteous about feeling better? Though He slay me, yet will I praise Him. Whether He slay me or I die at my own hand, the Lord is working a good, loving, and at this time, a heavy-handed work. A Father chastises the son whom He loves. It is good for me to be afflicted that I might learn to love and obey you. It is good that God works all things together for my good that I might learn to seek Him with my whole heart. There is no misery when we are One.

I sense that I am near the time when I can go on and not look back for Elijah anymore. He has transferred his cloak to me. He has taught me to pray. He has led me in wisdom. Though my heart may stray again, and surely it will, I will be on the other side of Jordan. Jericho will be in ruins behind me. I will abide in Bethel, the city of God, and dwell there forever. I will behold the beauty of the Lord there and inquire continuously in His temple.

God's Heavy Hand

As I reported a few days ago, one of my goals for writing "The Remnant" is to live the story first, then write about it. I now know that this is definitely a God-goal. This story is all about what the Church Body of Jesus Christ is to be doing in these last days. God wove a bunch of threads together with a heavy hand this week.

I bought the book "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie. I bought it for my son. Like me as a youth, he is shy and introverted. I knew about this book since I was a kid but never read it. As a Christian I avoided it for what seemed like obvious reasons gleaned from the title alone. On Wednesday morning I read chapter one. The point - never criticize or complain. Many of the stories hit home with me as God brought to mind many incidents of such behavior on my part. But that was not heavy enough.

I kept thinking about them the next two days. I bit my tongue raw to keep my mouth shut. More reminders at work and home flooded into my mind. Though I didn't speak a word of complaint or criticism that last two days, mind mind was equally raw with trying, not as successfully, to think such thoughts.

At lunchtime I read the internetmonk. This post was another of God's heavy handed blows from out of nowhere. Now I understand why brother Jeff has been having as tough, if not a tougher time of it than me since we met last May at a writer's conference.

This afternoon I had to make a side-trip to the grocery store on the way home from work. As I entered the store I recognized a friend from church. Ernie (not his real name) is an older man I have known for many years. He works where I work - as a janitor. He is a sweet Christian man. He is kind of slow in speech and you never know what he will talk about when you meet him. His eyes sparkle with gentleness. His hands are massive and when you expect a crushing handshake, he instead is soft but firm.

I hurried past him with a smile and quick "hello" and quickly gathered the few things I needed. I had plans for this afternoon with my son and did not want to be late.

We've had a lot of snow where I live this year. Eight inches fell Monday night. Folks around here don't know how to drive in the snow anymore and that just drives me nuts. I can complain up a storm bigger than the blizzard when I get stuck behind a slowpoke who doesn't understand the physics of driving on ice.

I pulled out of my parking spot at the grocery and headed for the exit. Not so fast. With nowhere to get around him, I was stuck behind another putz. That's when God's heavy hand sunk me down deep in my seat.

What if it's some old person? What if they really are scared? So what if they shouldn't be out here. They are. That's reality. Maybe it was an emergency and they needed medicine? It could be anything. The point was, I had no idea. God was just putting me in the other person's shoes. Would you like to be the recipient, that driver in front of you, and hear what just came out of your mouth? I'm sure Ernie wouldn't. Sure enough, it was him. Poor, slow, can't help it Ernie. My friend.

God is reaching out to me asking for repentance. Not just sorry for the complaints and criticism, but true repentance. A change of mind.

Chapter two of the book is all about that - offering praise. Nothing less. Stop thinking about yourself and think about the other guy. Encourage him. Build him up. Help him feel important. Lots more examples about raising kids brought more memories of just how bad I have screwed up so far.

I have forty-nine years of screw-up to repent from. Please Jesus. I want to be that new man, no more an Ebenezer Scrooge but the man who woke up to a new morning and knew without a doubt he was different, filled with the spirit every day of the year. Please Jesus. Please.

What's Next?

If you stuck with me through the thirty chapters of Christian Mythology, then thank God. I know it was tough. Sin is not an easy subject. It's personal. Whether it left you cold and indifferent or sensitive and awake, one with God perhaps for the first time since salvation, then thank God. It affected you. I know. I lived every one of those thirty chapters and more. For years. But there's more.

Thirty myths of sin certainly don't cover the full spectrum. The flesh and the devil are far too clever to limit the number. But the good news is that I will leave it alone. The point has been made. It's time to move on.

Shortly after I completed the first draft of Christian Mythology I started into its sequel, The Remnant. Now that draft has sat on the shelves for a few years waiting. It is waiting for me to live it. Once lived, then I shall edit that life into the story. The living is the thing and I'm right in the middle of it. I'd like to share a bit with you.

Life is a struggle. For Christians, it is a struggle between good and evil, sin and righteousness, death and life. I find that struggle played out dramatically between two groups of people on the internet monk: the works righteousness group and the grace group.

I think the monks in the grace group think I'm a works righteousness guy. They fight vehemently against works righteousness. Their favorite target is John Macarthur. I love his preaching so I guess I really am in that camp. I listened to one of his messages about the conscience last week at 11am on WFIL. By the end of the half-hour, I could see why the grace camp doesn't like Macarthur's message. Ironic that his show is called Grace to You. It was all about sin and repentance.

The next day I read a post from Jeff Dunn, a regular monk contributor. He was fed up with the works righteousness crew and wanted to let us know it. Grace, grace, GRACE was his message strong and clear. So strong in fact that like Macarthur, he left something out. The begged question and its answer.

Macarthur preached so strongly on repentance (a work of righteousness) that he included nothing about grace to balance it out. Dunn preached so strongly on grace that someone asked in the comments, "What? Then anything goes?" Hardly. But Dunn failed to balance his message. Seems like these guys always say you'll have to come back for more.

And that is what is happening with all of us. If you read the Christian Mythology series, then you didn't get the rest of the story. Not yet anyway. It's in the next book, The Remnant. There is the balance. But I'm not there yet because although the words are there, the story is not. I have to live it first. I'm right in the middle. It is a grand adventure with Jesus. I hope you will come along.

Because whether you endured Christian Mythology or not, whether you're willing to wait for The Remnant or not, I encourage you to do one thing in the meantime, walk with Jesus. He will show you the truth better than I, Jeff Dunn, or John Macarthur ever could.