True Spiritual Power

“Too many Christians today are seeking to live for the Lord on the basis of the principle of love. Their thinking is this, ‘He loved me and gave Himself for me, therefore the least I can do is love Him and give myself for Him.’ Such a motivation is good, high, and altruistic; but it is neither the best nor the highest, nor is it spiritual. Our love is far too weak and vacillating for such an undertaking. Self will see to that! ‘For to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not…for I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members…bringing me into captivity to the law of sin’ (Rom. 7:18, 22, 23)

There is only one true and adequate motivating power for living the Christian life, and that is the very life of the Lord Jesus – ministered within by the Spirit of Life Himself. This is not a motivation of love, but the empowerment of life. ‘For to me to live is Christ’ (Phil. 1:21) It is not, ‘Only what is done for Christ will last,’ but rather, ‘Only what is done by Christ will last.’”

– Miles J. Stanford, The Complete Green Letters (p. 215)

How true it is that our natural tendency, even as Christians, is to live from our own power! We strive to act the way we know God commands us to, despairing when our own efforts fail. How long will it take for us to understand the truth declared above and in Romans 8:7-8, that “The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s low, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God”? Every time we attempt to do spiritual work with fleshly strength, it will not be pleasing to the Lord. It will be sin. As Paul writes later in Romans, “everything that does not come from faith is a sin.” (14:23) To live for God out of a sense of duty may be a high and noble human aspiration, but that is all it is; human. An earthy, fleshly thing, and as such it will never be pleasing to God.

We are commanded to stop our striving and working and instead trust that God will be the one to work. This goes against all of our human instincts, doesn’t it? Every fiber of our being hears the Law and cries, “Do! Do!” and yet God, in His infinite wisdom, has told us simply to rest in Christ. This, in my experience, is one of the most difficult things of the Christian faith to grasp. In opposition to all our training and experience, God chooses “the things that are not – to nullify the things that are.” (1 Cor. 1:28) Why? “So that no one may boast before Him.”

So, my brothers and sisters in Christ, stop depending on the strength of your fleshly will to live a righteous life. Do not weary yourself with striving though your motivation be the most noble  in all the earth. Instead, step back from your pride and allow the Spirit to work with all the power of God within your members. Only Christ, by His spirit and His blood, can crush the flesh that is left writhing within us. If we trust Him to do the work He has promised to do, it will be done in a way that stands as a monument to His glory for all eternity.