By His doing alone!

Cliff Gableman, my wonderful friend and brother IN Christ of nearly 30 years had the following on his Gracebook status today:

‘I have purified these waters ; there shall not be from there death or unfruitfulness any longer.’” (II Kings 2:2)

It got me thinking of James…

“Can purified water and polluted water flow from the same well?” It is not a question of trying to clean up our well, it is just realizing our well is already clean by His doing alone!

“From the tongue comes both blessing and cursing, this ought not to be.“ So what is it we do as the good Christians we claim to be? We try to help God by cleaning ourselves up, and trying to change our outward behavior to match what has happened inwardly! What an exercise in futility that turns out to be! We are already clean by His doing alone!

Can a man look in the mirror and forget WHO he is? On first glance this seems to be another verse about our outward behavior, what we look like! But walking away from a mirror doesn’t change anything, we are who we are by Grace alone IN Christ alone! We are already clean (and accepted) by His doing alone!

For many years I looked at these passages in James and others like them, and instead of Resting IN the fact I am already a New Creation IN Christ by His doing alone, not by works of the flesh or religious “doings” of any kind, I instead tried to change my behavior in my own strength! And for those same years I lived under the black cloud of condemnation, so much so that I eventually walked away from anything to do with God! And to be perfectly honest (not religious)I still go back there for short visits from time to time. Fortunately, it was also there I learned He will never walk away from me, no matter what I do or don‘t do!

The human will has a natural tendency towards living and acting independent of God! This “You will be like God” bent was inherited by mankind as a result of the “Genesis” Fall!

The suffering we endure every day is specifically designed and fitted by God for one purpose, to bring us beyond ourselves! To bring us to the same place as Paul when he finally came to the end of all of his “doing” for God! The place where he cried out “who will deliver me from this body of death?”

Every one of these passages in James have one common goal!

To point us to the futility of trying to do what God is able to do, by His Spirit alone! And in fact, has already done IN every one of us who profess Him as our Lord and our Life!

IT IS FINISHED!

You and I were never meant to strive FOR God! We were created to REST IN Him…SO THAT the Spirit who lives IN us can do the “willing and the doing” on our behalf!

This is not inactivity as many think, this is in fact, the only activity acceptable to God! We Rest while He works! Anything else is just separation, manifested in the form of a schizophrenic two headed monster called “ us working FOR God!”

How dare we try and compare the futility of our life of “trying and failing” FOR Him, to the ALL POWERFUL (saving and keeping) Mercy and Grace of the One who lives IN us!

Yes, it is only by His doing that we are IN Christ!  By His doing alone!

So knowing this, let us all agree it’s time to leave behind all of our doing FOR God, and Rest IN His love! And it’s in that place of Rest where we quietly wait on Him for the next thing, whatever that might be!

Let us also agree it is way past time to…Cease striving and know that (the)I AM…IS God! (Psalm 46:10)