Perspective
( Isa. 6:5 ; Luke 5:8 ) Until we see ourselves through God's eyes, we really don't know ourselves. The more God enables us to see ourselves, the more we'll realize we cannot live without Him. We cannot be intimate with God except as we come to know ourselves as we really are ( Jer. 17:9 ).
Thus, there are impurities inside of us that rule us without our knowledge. These ambitions, hopes, dreams, desires, expectations and presumptions are preconceived belief systems upon which we build our lives separate from God. It is vital that we allow God to reveal them to us, so that we can recognize and surrender them to Him ( Ps. 139:23-24 ).
( Prov. 21:2 ) Only God can see and know our hearts: He alone knows our true motives and intents. His views are all that matters!
Death to Sin/Deeper Death to Self
( Rom. 6:3-11 ) Buried with Christ, we are dead with Him to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus and thus empowered to live the virtuous life. Jesus took care of the sin issue, but now it is up to us to deal with our own immorality.
( Eph. 4:22-24 ) The residuals of sin remain in our soul - the mind, the emotions, the will: the organs of the self. The thinking, the speaking and the acting are our responsibility to insure that we are being conformed to the image of Christ.
( Luke 9:23-24 ; 1 John 5:21 ) To take up the cross and follow Jesus involves the interior crucifixion of self-love, self-confidence, self-reliance, self-trust, self-will, self-pity, self-grasping, self-seeking, self-preservation, and self-esteem.
( Phil. 2:12-13 ) God wants all our self-interest, pettiness, spite, revenge, cruelty, foolishness, egotism, possessiveness, addictions and selfishness removed. These self-centered ways not only affect our communications with God, they also affect our communications with others. We must become detached from all our self-centered thoughts, hopes, plans, preferences, sorrows, successes, failures and comforts: dead to all desires but those of God.
Until these things are purged from our soul, we cannot have the union with Him as intended from the beginning ( Prov. 3:5-6 ).
Obedience Through Suffering
( Rom. 8:12-29 ) We are naturally conditioned by the world's influences to pursue a course of self-preservation, self-protection and self-interest: a course of avoidance of suffering (taking the easy way out) leading to self-destruction. God 'foresaw' the sin of man, but instead of destroying all of mankind, God used the suffering caused by sin to conform us to the image of Christ. If we refuse to suffer, we will not be conformed. The 'true self' is wholly identified with Christ. No longer self-conscious but God conscious, ready to give self to God and to others. This is a dying process, and dying involves pain and suffering. By dying we gain eternal life.
Predestined/Conformation
( Rom. 8:29 ; Rom. 12:1-2 ; Eph. 1:4-5 ) Here we see the primary function of predestination is to conform us to Christ's image, to be holy and blameless, to be adopted as His sons.
( Heb. 5:1-10 ) Jesus learned obedience through what He suffered which was predestined. Like wise, our goal is to follow the same predestined path and be 'conformed to his likeness'.
( 2 Tim. 1:9 ; 1 Pet. 1:2 ; 1 Thess. 1:4-6 ) God has laid out a 'predestined' path in order for man to enter heaven and there is no other way God will allow us to enter.
Conformation Process
That predestined path includes ...
| .. suffering ( Rom. 8:18-28 ; Acts 14:22 ); |
| maintaining faith in spite of not being able to see God or when life appears too hard ( Rom. 4:18-25 ; Heb. 11:1-40 ; 1 Pet. 1:6-9 ); |
| .. obedience in spite of sin and concupiscence ( Rom. 7:7-25 ; Rom. 8:1-17 ); |
| .. perseverance in spite of harsh treatment and ridicule ( James 5:1-12 ; 1 Pet. 3:8-4:19 ); |
| .. submission to authority ( Rom. 13:1-8 ; 1 Pet. 2:13-25 ); |
| .. loving your enemies and praying for those who persecute you ( Matt. 5:43-48 ; 1 John 3:11-4:21 ); |
| .. repenting of sin ( Acts 2:3, 8-41 ); |
| .. giving riches to the poor ( Matt. 19:16-26 ); |
| .. self-denial and shunning the world ( 1 John 2 :15-17 ) and any other thing related to the spiritual life. |
Following this path (instead of allowing sin, pain and suffering to destroy us), God will take the sin, the pain, the suffering, the good as as well the bad, all the things of life, to perfect us, to conform us to His Son Who overcame the world. Thus, we, in Him, cannot lose for winning, being 'more than a conqueror' in Him Who loved us.
True Selfhood
( Matt. 10:39 ; 1 Thess. 4:3 ; Gal. 2:20 ) Christ must become the center of our thought, our yearnings, and our will. Saints do die to themselves in the sense of being absorbed by their love of Christ, losing themselves in Christ. Only in this way will they find their true selfhood: the self as intended by God.
True self-surrender consists in our giving ourselves to Christ absolutely, in a spirit of loving adoration; in our full renunciation of our sovereignty; in our becoming empty with regard to all things. We set a course of action to be separated from the world, the flesh and the devil. In true self-surrender, we experience ourselves being possessed by God. Thus, the only gift we can offer God is the gift of the 'right to our self'. As we do God will make a holy experiment out of us ( Rom. 12:1 ).
Abandonment
( John 6:69 ) Supernatural life as a whole requires us to depart from all that was natural and comfortable. Our abandonment of self is an indispensable condition of the full unfolding of supernatural life. To be perfected by and lost in what is greater than ourselves comes to us as a gift of God. But we must receive it should it be granted, and allow grace to elevate us above ourselves.
Paradise Regained
( John 15:16 ; Eph. 4:24 ; 1 Pet. 2:9 ) Now the new man who is renewed unto knowledge according to the image of Him who created him in order to 'declare his virtues, who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light'.
Work Out Your Salvation (Phil. 2:12-13)
Heb. 2:10
See Section A.5, “Dying To Self” , and list in priority the old self sin patterns that are to be dealt with. Use Section A.4, “Victory Over Sin Worksheet” to work out the healing of the soul process.