Why It Doesn’t Work Apart From Love (Pt 1)

God won’t let it.

That sounds simple enough. And it is.

But whether you’ll find anything worthy of exploration and/or consideration in the following is entirely between you and God. There can be no compelling from my side. There is no authority granted me, or any other man, to determine what is of necessity to you.

The only authority given among any of us who call ourselves believers is to speak according to the Lord’s work in us, ourselves, apart from laying burdens upon one another of such sort. So it is that apostle came to a right conclusion of having no dominion over any man’s faith, but to merely be a helper of their joy. And even that merely described is a result of careful tutelage in many lessons that are testimony to the Lord’s patient endurance with us.

We discover many things about help. And as with almost everything the Lord leads us through our first inclinations may be to think exteriorly. The help is needed “out there”. The gospel is needed out there. Jesus Himself is most needed out there. And so, if under this delusion all is interpreted according to this misapprehension. And much can grow from this soil. And will. And must. Until such time as the Lord allows for our tasting of such fruit that, as if hollowed out and filled with dust, we now know is of no health…both to us, nor to any.

For we have been eating it as it were from the inside before maturity, taking from it for ourselves anything of value beforehand that might yield true life. Nothing lasting nor eternal…is found in it. We have gobbled it up for ourselves. Can this be understood?

We would first have to have disclosed to us the many snares of soul that accompany the delusion mentioned. Do you know the attraction of thinking oneself a “helper”? How that implicit in that presumption of estate resides its most obvious unstated appeal? But let’s state it, for it is all too clear before God. If one is a helper, and sees himself thus (and who hasn’t?) then it is obvious he himself, as helper, is not the one in need of help. He is now set apart (and how the soul loves its own distinction(s)!) as one above, rendering from superior position to the lesser(s) in need of him (and his help).

If allowed to continue in such delusion (even to being deluded as to what is soulish vs the spiritual) one will come to a very frank confrontation with himself as liar before God. For he may, as God allows, sense a truth that there is most shocking to him, even of such magnitude as to awaken him to all that he has previously done in so called “labors in, or for, the Lord”. He will discover he has only been serving himself as idol…all the time while preaching how necessary Jesus Christ is to and for life, he has been holding himself as the one necessary…even as deliverer of such message.

Do we think God does not see? How we use Jesus Christ to our own ends? Not unlike Elijah who bewailed his fortune before God as being the “only” one left to uphold God’s testimony, we find God unimpressed with what the man thinks of himself. But who of us is in any position to judge Elijah in, or for this? We may at best recognize ourselves; and even be thankful God has preserved such testimony that in due time we too may be set in order and remember.

Such experience is not uncommon to man, and such attitude is not rare before God. Ha! Unless we think ourselves so special as to be exempted! And God has a very pointed way of disabusing us, not necessarily of our special-ness, but to redirect to Him who remains singular to us all, Jesus Christ. The cross is unfailing in its work to divide any misconceptions we may have to His ability and our need. Yes, our need…of help.

One would rightly say “But are we not set apart, are we not special (in that sense) to God? Are we not a peculiar people…a treasure even to God, the inheritance of His son, paid for with such a great price?” and such considerations are most worthy to both speak and meditate upon. Yes! Indeed! True! And so true in truth that the soul unappreciating of their magnitude of truth must be rebuked. The soul can stop “trying” to take to itself matters to make itself special all other impoverished matters of propping up that pale as dung before gold in the light of such truth. Yes! Part of the (our) peculiarity (perhaps the greatest part) is that we are given to see by the work of Christ on our behalf the value of true and eternal things that are unshakably accomplished as opposed to the weak and beggarly elements of which all the world is seeking after.

The world strives to be “too big to fail”, too necessary for dispensing with, but we carry a far greater testimony of Him who overcame it…all its glitter, all its offerings, all its threats and intimidating by size and proclamation of dread consequence if resisted. We are saved…by one. One single man…against and from all of the world’s armaments. And all the Devil’s schemes. He alone…is our defense.

But saying this and knowing this may be shown to us as having been two different things in us, yet God is patient to bring us to know our confession(s)…(even if in all weakness made more weak by some foolish attempts to prop up self esteem) are true. God intimately knows our frame…and framing. And here we may find “the one” most in need of all help. Ourselves.

There is absolutely no shame in this, and God forbid any of this sound as though anyone is seeking to shame another. In this we are all “in the same boat” so to speak. Of being enlightened to the glory of the Lord Jesus. There is no shame in that glory. There is no vain coveting of it, as though the Lord would say “you can come this far but no farther, for I am keeping the best part from being sullied by your knowing”. God forbid. “The glory thou hast given me I have given them” must become true in our hearing. Otherwise we shall seek (and if necessary, be allowed to find) the very thing the Lord states as an enemy of faith “How can you believe who receive glory of one another?”

And we might admit, as need be, before God, such cleansing of all other “glory” (that is not glory at all, but a shame to man) is only made ours through the knowledge of His son, our Lord. And how we need it. Yes, we ourselves. Even first before any other. That our only life is in Him, by Him, and through Him and His work. Even to putting striving souls to rest. Souls that have, even in what may appear smallest way sought to make themselves larger having fallen for the “too big to fail” temptation. “If I am just right enough, I am acceptable” And then, can never be found dispensable. Even to “See? I…even I, am just trying to be a help…isn’t that good enough?”

It is good to be made able to hear God’s laughter. It is pure, it is Holy, it is a sure thing. And God forbid any misconstrue the abundant entrance provided by Jesus Christ is not sufficient to even change a being laughed at to the glory of a laughing with. Take the Lord…seriously. Take your calling…seriously. But yourself? Be the most malleable thing of all, the weakest thing as putty in the hands of another. What issues from Heaven to you is above all precious. What may issue from yourself…to yourself, learn to discern.

I think I understand how easily this can all be made subject to some twisting. How that it can be made to sound as though an exercise in merely self abasement, false grasp at humility, and really, no more than a man seeking to make himself necessary, even as a helper. Thus making all this no more than the self aggrandizing it would, or may appear, to decry. Yes, I am kinda trapped myself. A caught thing. A captured thing. A thing that is no less caught “speaking” as though caught in the act is now subject to being accused; and by that very act, of being persuaded it has something to add, something to be of help. Well, yes. I am subject to accusation!

In truth…it’s far safer for me to agree. And I am the one who needs all the help there is. Particularly from the only One who can even save hypocrites.

Part 2 to follow.