We need to Have our Natural Strength and Self-Effort Dealt with by God through the Cross so that we may Live by Grace
In seeing how Isaac experienced God and how his experience applies to us we need to realize that Isaac was born of Sarah through grace and not through the efforts of the flesh.
After Abraham’s natural strength has been dealt with by God and His self-effort ceased, Isaac was born (see Gen. 17:15-19; 18:10-14; 21:1-7). The very beginning and source of Isaac is the grace of God and the termination of the natural strength and self-effort.
Abraham believed God concerning the seed He promised him, but when he saw that time was passing by and nothing was happening, he listened to his wife’s advice to have a child through Hagar, the maidservant.
Because Abraham exercised his fleshly effort to “help God fulfill His promise” (and there seems to be nothing outwardly wrong with that), God didn’t appear to him for thirteen years. God rejects our fleshly effort to fulfill His purpose. He wants His purpose and His promise to be fulfilled by Himself being wrought into us to produce something in us by God’s grace and not by our fleshly effort.
When God appeared to Abraham in Gen. 17, He renewed His promise of the seed and requested that Abraham would be circumcised, that is, that Abraham would have his flesh cut off. Isaac can come only when our flesh is cut off, dealt with, by the cross of Christ. Christ can be brought forth in us only when our flesh is dealt with and we live by grace in spirit and not by our natural efforts in the flesh.
Our self and our flesh are the greatest hindrances in the way of our full enjoyment and living by grace. But whenever we exercise our spirit and touch the Lord, the death of Christ is applied to our self and our flesh, and we can enjoy grace and live by grace for the bringing forth of Christ.
This is what God desires, that He would be enjoyed by His people for Him to work Himself into them and become their life and their living for His good pleasure, His heart’s desire.
After Our Natural Strength is Terminated Christ will be Our Life and We will Live by Grace
Because Abraham produced Ishmael with Hagar by the exercise of his flesh, God waited for thirteen years before He appeared to Abraham again. By this time, both Abraham and Sarah were so old that they had no hope in a seed being produced through them. When seemingly it was humanly impossible for them to have a child, God came in and promised that Isaac will come at the appointed time, at the time of life.
After our natural strength is terminated and seemingly we have no more strength to fulfill God’s purpose, God can come in to apply the death of Christ to our natural being (spiritual circumcision) and bring forth Christ through us by His grace (see the case of Abraham in Gen. 17:15-19; 18:10-14; 21:1-7).
Isaac was born of grace (represented by Sarah, Gal. 4:24-28, 31) at the time of life. The time of life is the time of the Lord’s visitation, the time when grace can operate in us as the Lord visits us and appears to us (see Gen. 18:10, 14; 1 Pet. 3:7).
When the Lord Jesus came, grace and reality came (John 1:17); when we are dealt with by the cross and our natural efforts are halted, Christ can come in and, full of grace and reality, live out in us the life God desires us to live.
The Lord is operating in us and on us to bring us to the point where we will have our natural strength terminated so that He may come in at the time of life and bring forth Christ in us. Nothing is too marvelous for God, and nothing is impossible with Him (Gen. 18:14).
When it seems humanly impossible for us to live Christ by grace, when our natural strength is dealt with by God and outwardly we have nothing to do or say, Christ can come in to be our life and live in us the life God desires us to live by grace.
The Greatest Frustration to Knowing and Experiencing Grace is the SELF
The greatest frustration to Abraham having Isaac with Sarah sooner than when he was 100 years old was his self. In our Christian life and church life God desires that we would be fully enjoying Him as grace and live by grace; however, the greatest frustration in knowing and experiencing grace is our self.
We have been saved by grace, we stand in grace, and grace is with our spirit; but we still want to do things for God in our self and not by enjoying the grace of God and by allowing grace to operate in us.
When we enjoy Christ as grace, the self must go; when we live in the self, no matter how many good things outwardly we may do for God, God rejects our doings. We need to experience spiritual circumcision by applying the death of Christ to our self so that we may enter into the full enjoyment of God’s grace and live a life by grace.
In Matt. 16 Peter saw the vision of Christ, the Son of the living God, and then later Christ said, I will build My church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. How will the Lord build His church? By taking the lead to die and put off the flesh through crucifixion, and then in resurrection He will produce and build up the church.
When Peter heard of the Lord going to die, his self was immediately expressed: no, don’t do it! The self is the greatest frustration to the building up of the Body.
The reality of the building up of the church as the Body of Christ is in the Spirit, in resurrection, by applying the cross of Christ to our being. When we are outside our mingled spirit, Satan has a way in us and we set our mind on the things of man.
But when we follow the Lord and cooperate with Him for the kingdom, we deny our self, take up our cross, lose the soul-life, and follow Him through death into resurrection to live a life by grace for the building up of the church.
To have the reality of circumcision we need to be in spirit, serve in spirit, boast in Christ, and have no confidence in the flesh (Phil. 3:3). If we love others in ourselves – and we do have the capacity to love! – God will not recognize that love because it doesn’t come from His visitation, from the Spirit with our spirit.
To God it doesn’t really matter whether we are kind or upset, crooked or straight, humble or proud, loving or despising – if we are in our self. The self is rejected by God, and anything we do in the self cannot please God. The application of the cross of Christ to our self is not pleasant, but our suffering to terminate our natural life is for the enjoyment of God’s grace.
The Apostle Paul entreated the Lord to remove the thorn from his flesh but the Lord told him, My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness (2 Cor. 12:9).
For the sufficiency of the Lord’s grace to be magnified, our sufferings are required; for the perfectness of the Lord’s power to be shown forth, our weakness is needed. Hence, the apostle would most gladly boast in his weaknesses that the power of Christ might tabernacle over him. Grace is the supply, and power is the strength, the ability, of grace. Both are the resurrected Christ, who is now the life-giving Spirit dwelling in us (1 Cor. 15:45; Gal. 2:20) for our enjoyment. (2 Cor. 12:9 footnote 2, Recovery Version)
We need to realize that our flesh is both active and weak in doing the things of God, and allow the cross of Christ to operate in us by the Spirit with our spirit. Whatever we cannot do in our Christian and church life allows the Lord the opportunity to come in as grace to be everything to us.
What we need is God’s visitation as grace, and for this to happen we need to allow the cross of Christ to operate in us and terminate our self and our flesh. It is good to open to the Lord and tell Him,
Lord, we need Your visitation. Without Your fresh visitation we cannot do anything. If You don’t visit us and You don’t work something through us and out of us, we cannot do anything. In our self we are nothing and can do nothing. We need You, Lord! Keep us turning to our spirit where the reality of the cross of Christ is. We don’t want to be humble or kind without being in the enjoyment of Your grace. Give us the experiences we need that would bring us into the full enjoyment of Your riches, even if this means that we may suffer loss and our natural life would be circumcised.
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Dick Taylor’s sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Genesis (msg. 63), as quoted in, the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Genesis (2), week 9 / msg 9, Living a Grace-enjoying Life for God’s Good Pleasure.
- Hymns on this topic:
# May the Cross put me to death / That on Christ I may rely; / May His Holy Spirit fill, / That Himself I may apply. / May His death so work in me / Daily deeper than before, / That my self may be destroyed / And His life thru me may pour. (Watchman Nee, Hymns #412)
# This grace, which is the living Christ Himself, / Is what we need and must experience; / Lord, may we know this grace and by it live, / Thyself increasingly as grace to sense. (Witness Lee, Hymns #497)
# I love my Lord, but with no love of mine, / For I have none to give; / I love Thee, Lord, but all the love is Thine, / For by Thy love I live. / I am as nothing, and rejoice to be / Emptied, and lost, and swallowed up in Thee. (Hymns #546)
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