"I"

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"If any man thinks he is something when he is nothing, he is deceived."

"I am naught, I can do naught, I have naught, and I desire naught but Jesus and His love."



Religion tries to clean up the old man, Adam, and make him presentable but alas it is an exercise born of futility and vanity. The discipline and the subduing of Adam is the ultimate in futile spiritual exercise. But Oh, how the "old man" loves to practice and pretend it can pull itself up to God by the boot straps. Someone once said, "cleaning up Adam would be like trying to make a cat into a dog. You could spend forever trying to teach that cat to "bark" but in the end that old cat will look up at you and say "Meow."

"Jesus put Adam to death on the cross, and resurrected the NEW Man! And the church has been trying to beat a dead Adam into submission ever since! I remember how I used to beat the dead man up and then on Sunday I would dress him up for church (lol). It is important to realize that the Adamic man can never ever please God."

The truth of the matter is, that Adam must die to be raised a "new creature" and in this message we want to address the "I"s in our lives which represent Adam. Hopefully we can come to see how we might finally find freedom from this spirit, which the pronoun "I" represents. An anonymous saint who signed his book "Friend of God" wrote in the fourteenth century, "For the Self, the I, the Me and the like, all belong to the Evil Spirit." Now that's tellin it like it is! And another, William Law, tells us how the cow eats the cabbage when he succinctly reports, “SELF is the whole root, branch, and tree of sin.”

Every sin is rooted in SELF and just as we accept Christ's death for sin, with each day we must accept our death to SELF. We daily take up our cross, deny our SELF and follow Him. In the simplest of terms we actually suffer the great Cross, in enduring ourselves.

Long has it been debated, what the perfect man Job might have lost when his trials and tribulations were over. Possibly these verses from Job 29 might give hint.

I delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him.
I caused the widows heart to sing for joy.
I put on righteousness, and it clothed me.
I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame.
I was a father to the poor: and the cause I knew not I searched out.
I brake the jaws of the wicked.
I chose out their way, and sat chief, and dwelt as a king in the army, as one that comforted the mourners.


Do you see God in any of the verses quoted above. Maybe it was the many "I"'s that stood in Job's way, until he would be emptied, brought to naught and finally proclaim, "now mine eye seeth THEE" And you my friend, if you have been through tribulation and you are sonship material, have you not found that it wasn't til you took your thoughts and focus from "I" to "THEE" that you found solace, peace and even deliverance. For a surety that seems the pattern. "Not I, but Christ" Gal 2:20

Not too long ago a friend of mine wrote on a forum in response to one of my messages, "You know the worst enemy you will ever face is staring at you in the mirror every morn .........
O wretched man that I am."

With that, I got to thinking about who I see in mirror and I realized things had changed in my walk with Christ. Yes, the old man and Adamic nature is the enemy of my soul but it seems for some time that scoundrel has received less and less attention until he is almost forgotten. Adam is no longer my focus and the center of my world. I have learned that I become, and am whatsoever I identify and join myself with." Today it seems, I can but cry out as the martyrs did, "None but Christ, none but Christ!" There in, I believe is the progression of Christ in me, becoming All In All.

Adam with his sin moved from God-consciousness to self-consciousness and as we retrace Adam's steps back to Paradise, we move conversely. We move from self-consciousness to God-consciousness. We travel from being ego-centric to Christo-centric. In this the Adamic carnal mind gives way to the "mind of Christ" which is the God focused mind given to hearing and speaking the words of the Father and seeing and doing His works. Hear the words of the Pattern Son.

"Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works." Jn 14:10

We would be remiss and even dishonest to say we each and all, haven't suffered the "put self to death wars" that were part of God's processing. If you are like me, there was a time when there were a lot of "I"s and it seemed Satan hid behind every one of them. The battles were incessant and exhaustive. Then we, upon whom grace fell, one day finally realized we could never overcome the "I". Undone and unfinished we finally cried out for Him, the only Overcomer ever to be and ever will be. In our futility and subsequent surrender our focus changed and we learned to cast a single eye upon the One and Only Overcomer, Christ Jesus. Then came welcomed rest, as we realized it was Christ, who would overcome. We also learned the Father was more than capable in appropriating all the conditions and all the circumstances needed to gain our attentions and affections for His Son, in whom all power was given. God drags us to the place of "self death." There we are overcome as He overcomes within us. This is the simple "truth" behind becoming one with the "Overcomer." Christ Jesus does the job, we could never do, as He subdues all things, that He may fill all things. What a supernal and great task that is, and oh, the folly to think we could ever have a hand in it. Surely better to die!

For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Rom 6:7,8, 10a,11

So, getting back to looking in the mirror and seeing the enemy. Maybe we get beyond that, as we come to the place of total surrender. Maybe we no longer look at that face, because we are so focused on the Father. A higher state has come upon us and our self-awareness has fallen away. The face in the mirror has become as a foreigner, little known and holding the identity of one long forgotten. Surely, this is progress!

Oh my, the battles were certainly there when we were young. When a thousand "I"s stood up ready to both help and hinder God in His transforming work. Little did we know that our helping was even the greater hindrance. Then the surrender, the incessant fires, the coarse sandings and our hearts were thrown upward desiring only to walk in His grace and mercy with nary a glance at the smoldering "I" s or the face in the mirror.

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Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” “My name is Legion,” he replied, “for we are many.” Mk 6:10
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I'll tell ya, Legion had nothing on us when it came to the "many" ......... the thousand "I"s that once occupied us.

It would only be fitting to end this message by repeating the introductory thought from Paul and the quote, with the only use of "I" that should ever stand, or better said, bow before our Christ


"If any man thinks he is something when he is nothing, he is deceived."

"I am naught, I can do naught, I have naught, and I desire naught but Jesus and His love."


Jack

Note: intro and closing quotes
by St Paul and Walter Hilton