The Narrow Path Ministries

Someone posted the below on another forum. This particular person tends to post a lot of the same sort of ideas.

I am a reasonably intelligent and educated person but I have some difficulty understanding what he is saying.

I wouldn't necessarily say I have "red flags" because what he writes seems to reasonable and good news, but at the same time I have difficulty grasping what he is trying to say from a PRACTICAL standpoint.

Any comments or elucidation any of you can provide would be appreciated.

Anyway, here is the post:
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"I will show the root cause of our all our failures in experiencing the TRUE LIFE OF CHRIST daily.

I have been in the school of the law and self effort after embracing Jesus Christ as My Savior.

The purpose of the school of the law and death was to strip me of ALL my works of the law and to strip me from all self effort. The only way to graduate is to be totally dead to all self effort. I was in this school for over 40 years on the sin - confess merry-go-round and the dedicate and rededicate cycle that never worked. Sometimes it appeared that I had victory as THE RESULT OF MY OWN EFFORTS but this lasted only for a very short season. And even then I was proud of MY EFFORTS and I became very critical and judgmental toward others, thinking that I was better then them for my actions.

I got stuck in this school for so long that I gave up all hope but as a result I fell into some very serious sins. I came to the place where I realized that I needed faith so I tried to get it but could not because I still regarded myself as my point of origin and source of life.

I knew my sins were forgiven, but I always failed to live and experience Christ's Life. I found out that the harder I tried to live this life the more I failed. Then I was forced to come to the conclusion that me living this was impossible for me to do. I began to realize the reason why I could not live it was that God never even intended me to do that by my own efforts or energy.

I regarded myself as my point of origin and source of life. I found that I could not produce the life of God out of me. I couldn't bring God's life out of me. How was I going to do that? As long as I saw myself as the source of life, though, I had to keep trying. Until one day after countless failures and defeats, Jesus impressed to my spirit: "I am your life. I am the only life acceptable to the Father. I not only want to forgive you; I want to live the life in you. I want to be your life."

So my question was, how do I change the point origin and source of my own life? I knew that my own efforts that it was impossible for me to surrender or to change my source just by the power of my will. Self can NEVER surrender it self.

This is when my eyes were opened to see that this was something that God had already done for me and in. I saw it was ONLY by HIS doing that I was in Christ. 1 Cor. 1:30 New American Standard Bible (©1995) "But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption."

God in Christ did what the law and all my own efforts could NEVER accomplish.

I was facing the same issues that Hudson Taylor experienced. Here is part of what he wrote to his sister.
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"All the time I felt assured that there was in Christ all I needed, but the practical question was how to get it out. He was rich, but I was poor; He was strong, but I was weak. I knew full well that there was in the vine, in the root, the stem, abundant fatness; but how to get it into my puny little branch was the question.

As gradually the light dawned on me, I saw that faith was the only prerequisite to laying hold of His fullness and making it my own. But I had not this faith . . . I strove for it, but it would not come; I tried to exercise it, but in vain. Seeing more and more the wondrous supply of grace laid up in Jesus, the fullness of our precious Savior - my helplessness and guilt seemed to increase. Sins committed appeared but as trifles compared with the sin of unbelief which was their cause, which could not or would not take God at His word, but rather made Him a liar! Unbelief was, I felt, the damning sin of the world - yet I indulged in it. I prayed for faith but it did not come. What was I to do?

When my agony of soul was at its height, a sentence in a letter from dear McCarthy was used to remove the scales from my eyes, and the Spirit of God revealed the truth of our oneness with Jesus as I had never seen it before. McCarthy, who had been much exercised by the same sense of failure, but saw the light before I did, wrote (I quote from memory): "But how to get faith strengthened? Not by striving after faith, but by resting on the Faithful One."

As I read I saw it all! "If we believe not, He remains faithful." I looked to Jesus and saw (and when I saw, oh, how joy flowed) that He had said, "I will never leave you." "Ah, here is rest!" I thought. "I have striven in vain to rest in Him. I'll strive no more. For has He not promised to abide with me - never to leave me, never to fail me?" And Dearie, He never will!
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I was in this exact position also. " I felt, the damning sin of the world - yet I indulged in it. I prayed for faith but it did not come. What was I to do?”
Now here is the answer to that question. Look the real power of the new covenant.

Jer. 32:39-40, "I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me always, for their own good and for the good of their children after them. And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good, and I will put the fear of me in their hearts so that they will not turn away from me."

Ezek. 36:25-27, "I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean, I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from your idols. Moreover I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you and CAUSE YOU TO WALK IN MY STATUTES, and you will be careful to observe my ordinances."

Deut. 30:6, "And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou may live."

Jer. 24:7, "And I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart."

The Good news of the Gospel is that Christ crucified you with Him and you were buried with Him. When you were born again, you just experienced the reality of what God had already accomplished for you. You began to realize that the old you died and now instead, you have Christ's Life.

We were made one with Him by an irrevocable act of God that made you in perfect union with Him. We have been made one with God. We are truly one with Him and we can experience His Divine continual presence and power. He has taken away our old stony heart and has now given us His heart. We now have a heart of flesh, a tender, living, loving heart.

We now have His Life within us. It is by His Almighty Power and Love, breathing and working in us, that He makes the promise true, "I WILL CAUSE YOU TO WALK IN MY STATUTES AND YOU WILL KEEP MY JUDGEMENTS." We now have a heart in perfect harmony with Him, a life and walk in His way - God is engaged in Covenant to work in us. HE UNDERTAKES FOR OUR PART IN THE COVENANT AS MUCH AS FOR HIS OWN.

Yes this is the true secret of experiencing the reality of Christ in your life.

Now you may know these facts but this promise is NOT AUTOMATIC. Now, just because you know these facts or believe in them does not mean you will ever truly experience the reality of Christ living and abiding in you.

What is needed is for us to place our ALL OF OUR CONFIDENCE in this message to us. LOOK HIS MESSAGE to you NOW! "Moreover I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”

This is God's answer and solution to the question, "how do I change the point origin and source of my own life?”

Here is the key to living the Christian Life - it does not depend on you but on Christ Himself living and abiding within you.

Yes - you MUST place you confidence in Him but that is EASY once you see Christ's faithfulness to you!!

So now, just stop all your efforts in the attempt to get faith, it is a FREE gift of God. Eph 2:8 "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:" You can place your confidence in HIS message to you because in contain and supplies the faith that is required. You can grab hold of HIS HOLD ON YOU. You must count on it and expect it daily. This is NOT SOME PASSIVE STATE. It is a total reliance of God in Christ to perform and bring it to pass according to HIS WORD!!

LOOK AT CHRIST'S FAITHFULNESS TO YOU!! You can truly expect Him to BOTH TO WILL AND TO DO OF HIS GOOD PLEASURE moment by moment because you have HIS LIFE WITH IN YOU and NOW He IS YOUR LIFE. Yes - He now lives and abides within you and He will NEVER leave you or forsake you. You can expect and count on the fact that the Holy Spirit will take the things of Christ and make them known and real to you moment by moment.

Do you see what Taylor Hudson saw? "As I read I saw it all! "If we believe not, He remains faithful." I looked to Jesus and saw (and when I saw, oh, how joy flowed) that He had said, "I will never leave you." "Ah, here is rest!" I thought. "I have striven in vain to rest in Him. I'll strive no more. For has He not promised to abide with me - never to leave me, never to fail me?" And Dearie, He never will!"

Romans 4:3-5, "For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness."

Here is the key "And being fully persuaded that, what GOD had promised, God was able also to perform." Abraham considered his body dead and knew that he had no hope in his own abilities or faith to make this promise happen. His confidence was not in his flesh or anything thing he could do. All of his confidence was placed in God and his message being fully persuaded that, what God had promised, He was able also to perform.

So where is your confidence? Is it in your own abilities to trust or somehow work up faith or love that is required? You must realize that you are completely dead to your own efforts and you can never place any hope in yourself whatsoever.

You can NOW place all of your confidence in HIM. You can say - "I am fully persuaded that I cannot by human strength and will obey or please God. I have no plea of holiness. I am without strength, and I can do nothing in my own ability. My sin is too powerful, the chains too heavy. I am too wicked to free myself. I need a miracle, and I need a helper. All I can do now is cry, Abba, Father."

This message is close to my heart. I can relate. I've given my whole life to understand it. I first ran across ideas in this vein in Watchman Nee's "The Normal Christian Life."

I don't think the idea is meant to be difficult to understand, but it seems for many difficult to apply. A person who feels like they don't have this type of intensity going on in their soul might wonder what it means. Some people even call it a second work of grace, a deeper truth, something that happens us to bring us to even more grace.

So what troubles you about it? Do you feel it's perhaps too elaborate and unnecessary, or do you feel you just have trouble applying it in any way to your own life? If it's the second, I'd say that can be normal. Every Christian can walk in a level of grace simply with what they have. If grace is to you, simply trusting God, you might ask "Why do I need more? Should I need more?"

It's something that happens to those of us who see, believing in Christ for a free ticket to heaven, or believing in Christ just for some blessings here on earth, is an incredibly shallow walk with God. To see the depth of Christ's sacrifice elicits in us a response to meet that depth—to be the fullness of what Christ would desire us to be. In this response is where we meet these kinds of truths; we learn the depth of the depravity of our nature, that it was what Christ came to redeem; we learn the depth of who we are without him, so that we can learn the depth of who we are in his grace. And that process can be extreme, it can bring us to limits we never imagined. And we learn the power of the Law and the power of Sin, but all because we want to go all the way with God and not just be a Sunday morning "pew sitter." Satan is not afraid of us or what we can do; he is only afraid of one thing: what the grace of Jesus Christ can do. And to be a person that doesn't just tack on a religious belief to their life as a "cherry" on the sundae of their fleshly interests, but who is consumed with one thing and one thing alone, who Jesus Christ is and what his desire is for us, it takes a deep and cathartic "dark night of the soul" for many of us to wrestle with God. I don't think every Christian is required to go through this to enter heaven, but I'd say to really know God deeply, I don't know of any other path.

God bless.

Thanks dizerner-

Yes- my difficulty is primarily one of application.

I also have a 2nd problem, namely that there appear to be numerous NT passages that tell us to "resist" or "flee" from evil. But according to the OP, the second you resist or flee you are relying on your own flesh and therefore doomed to failure because in our flesh we have no power.

So did the biblical authors who talked about resisting or fleeing just get it wrong? Perhaps they had not been clued into the "secret" set forth in the OP?

TK wrote:Thanks dizerner-

Yes- my difficulty is primarily one of application.

I also have a 2nd problem, namely that there appear to be numerous NT passages that tell us to "resist" or "flee" from evil. But according to the OP, the second you resist or flee you are relying on your own flesh and therefore doomed to failure because in our flesh we have no power.

So did the biblical authors who talked about resisting or fleeing just get it wrong? Perhaps they had not been clued into the "secret" set fort W h in the OP?

Aha. Grace and works. A classic and complex debate. Does grace mean passivity, or passively waiting to do something God tells us to do? If not, what does God require of us, and how much do we really have to do?

When I got a paradigm shift of grace, I realized the commands God gives us were never meant to be done in our own power. I realized underneath Scripture there really was a secret—"The secret counsel of the LORD is for those who fear Him, and He reveals His covenant to them." This covenant is actually the fact that God asks us to do something impossible for us to do—why would he do that? If we can do nothing apart from Christ and in our flesh dwells no good thing, why would God say "Be holy as I am holy, be ye perfect, be imitators of Christ, live spotless and blameless in a perverse generation." It's because God wants our life to be a miracle, not a fleshly effort that is like a menstrual rag of self-righteousness in his sight.

But God does indeed require things from us, and here I think what is now known as "hyper grace" has become unbalanced. "Hyper grace" takes the teaching of grace but removes our synergistic part it in, so that it becomes a work of monergism (God does it all and we play no part).

So here's the thing. What part do we really play. When God says "resist the devil" what happens when I try to do that and fail? Is it game over for me with God? Or was I maybe attempting to do it wrongly? Because in the same passages we get Scriptures like "put on the Lord Jesus Christ" and "put off the old man" and that we are "kept by the power of God" and Paul said he "puts no confidence in the flesh." So in grace, the warnings and demands become promises of what God will do in us if we trust instead of try. It really is a new blessed life and a new creation of power from rest. But it only comes when we exhaust our own efforts, because we can only trust God where we don't trust ourselves—and not trusting in ourselves takes the experience of knowing deeply we are not trustworthy. This is what it means when it says that the Law is the tutor that leads Christ to be formed inside of us.

If you think a man can simply read the commands in the NT and do them, or if you think you really are fulfilling them now, we who espouse grace would tell you that you believe in "cheap law." You lower that standard of perfection God requires of you, and by so doing, you lessen the power of what was done for you on your behalf in the Cross, because you are living out of the flesh when you seek to obtain a righteousness through any system of commands and demands. And that's what we would call the second work of grace, so that just as we helplessly came to Christ when we got saved, and brought none of our own "obedience" with us, except the obedience of helpless trust in the Savior, so we learn to also walk in him helplessly. Some might misunderstand that as passivity—but we would say, no, it's merely a process that allows a new power to work in us. Watchman Nee compares it to a drowning man, who was thrashing about. A Christian brother waited until this drowning man exhausted himself and his efforts flailing about, and he said to this brother "It was cruel of you to wait so long to rescue him." But the brother replied "If I went to early, the drowning man, by his misguided efforts, would sink both of us by his thrashing." When he finally learns to rest in another, that is when he can be carried to safety.

I'd not encourage someone to pursue this line of spiritual progress, unless they were fully committed and wanted something a lot deeper than what they have. If a person is comfortable walking in the level of grace he or she is at, I wouldn't bring any condemnation to him or her.

I don't think God has any intention/desire to save us without us.

"Death-to-self" and "Surrender" language, in Scripture, are not meant (in my opinion) to communicate the eradication of personhood.

If all God were interested in was the existence of God's-self, there would have been no creation... no Eden... no anything.

God created the universe and people because God is a relational God who actually desires partnership. God is other-oriented.

The "death to self" and "surrender" language comes into play specifically because we are NOT other-oriented. For partnership to be possible, we must surrender our selfishness. When we do so, we do not cease to exist as a person. In fact, in one sense we only then BEGIN to exist as full persons. We are empowered by our partnership with God to participate in our salvation. It is not so much about the elimination of our will, but the conformity of our will to God's.

God forbid... in my opinion... that we should think it inappropriate to resist the devil and/or work out our salvation with fear and trembling. I realize these things are sometimes attempted in the flesh (a failed project that we shouldn't try), but they certainly should be attempted in the Spirit.

Thank you both for your replies.

Matt- I actually had some thoughts along the same lines. If every Christian were to master this perfect surrender so that Christ is working perfectly through each person, it seems God would relating to many "Christs" as opposed to many people.

In other words, I think God wants to relate to us as people.

Can you imagine if your child ALWAYS did everything right? It would be a tad creepy.

I guess Jesus was the creepiest guy ever.

Remember the tower of Babel? It was built with identical bricks. The tower represented people under a totalitarian system, where all "individuals" are identical. That's the way the system of Communism used to work in the Soviet Union. Get rid if individuality and have everyone submitting to and working for the system. Don't do anything on your own. Let the state do all the work through you.

Now consider the building that Christ built. "... you are ... God's building." (1 Cor 3:9).

You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 2:5)

Unlike bricks, the stones that make up a building constructed from stones, are all unique. Each one is different from each of the others. There is a particular place in the building in which a particular stone is placed.

Each disciple of Christ is unique and fits into the body of Christ.

For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body.e would be the sense of smell? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be?
As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”
22 On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. ( 1 Cor 12: 13-27 ESV)

I remember as a younger Christian, I taught, "Just quit struggling and let Christ use you as a hand uses a glove." Now a glove can do nothing of itself unless it is powered by a hand. But I learned that that is NOT how Christ works. He honours us as unique individuals. He wants to work in us with our coöperation. He will not do it alone, and we cannot do it alone. But together we CAN do it.

Paul wrote:Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. (2 Corinthians 6:1)

If we ask God to do everything through us, He won't. We'll be "receiving the grace of God in vain," that is, not at all.
But if we "work together with Him," that is coöperate with His enabling grace, then God and we will succeed in doing His will.

I appreciate Matt's comments. We need to pay attention to them.

Or we could pay attention to Paul, who said "Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ." "For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son." Don't stifle my individuality Paul.

Dizerner-

You are being a tad too defensive. No one here has said that we are not to be imitators of Christ- or to be perfect as our heavenly father is perfect. Nor is anyone questioning that our life is hidden with Christ in God, or that where we are weak He is made strong.

What bothered me about the OP is that there seems to be some sort of a "self-hypnosis" or something weird going on to convince ourselves that when we are faced with temptation, etc. we just stop everything and put all reliance on Christ to fight for us and all of our troubles will just magically disappear. Whenever I ask the person who wrote the OP to give practical examples of what he is talking about he either refuses or is unable to do so. It's sort of like WOF but different.

If this is such a fool-proof and awesome "secret" why is it a secret? WHy isn't it taught more than it is? Why do so many Christians struggle in their walk if all they have to do is "hang loose" and let God handle it? I mean, it sounds awesome but is it really that simple?

Perhaps it is that simple, and I am just a blooming idiot.