Let Faith Transform You

July 2

"We who share His weakness shall by the power of God live with Him in your service." II Corinthians 13:4

THE SPIRITUAL PLAYPEN

Love is the way to maturity. Selfishness stunts growth and keeps us in a spiritual playpen. The world is full of emotional babies, crawling over each other, screaming, "Mine! This I want, and this I shall have, and never mind what it does to anybody else!"

What a relief, what peace, when one who has reached spiritual adulthood, who by love has grown out of himself, comes along. He freely gives up his own aims and ambitions, his safety and his cherished plans, his possessions, his feelings, anything at all that will help and says my life for yours. Such a one comes as a rescuer.

To give myself up is the last thing I think of doing. It looks like weakness. In God's eyes, though, it is power!.-- Elisabeth Elliot



To give oneself up is power in God’s eyes, but Elisabeth Elliot is quite correct—it is not thusly perceived in the eyes of the world. The world sees power as self-realization, as domination over others. What humility is to God, self-aggrandizement is to those who dwell in the failed system into which man has relegated himself through sin.

The perception of the Holy One in this matter is clearly defined in Philippians 2:6-11 where it is said of Jesus, “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to His own advantage; rather, He made Himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Unless and until we assume that same attitude of humility for ourselves—that declares our inability to please God or to save ourselves apart from embracing Jesus Christ as our personal Savior and Lord—we are dead in our trespasses and sins. However, the moment we claim His proprietary life, death and resurrection in our behalf as our own, “Old things are washed away; behold, all things become new,” II Corinthians 5:17.

At that moment, His grace intervenes into our sin-laden lives and we are accounted righteous according to Romans 4:13, which says, "For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith." Let faith in Jesus transform you from a sinner to a righteous heir of Heaven.