Greetings!
Do you believe God has given you everything you need for life?
Seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.
(2 Peter 1:3-4)
You can consider every command a promise. What He requires, He provides. If He commands, then that is the assurance that what He commands is possible through Him. Every command He gives is meant to set you free. There is a difference between following a stringent set of rules trying to live up to some elusive standard of behavior, and following the voice of the One who loves you completely and has only your good in mind.
The New Testament contains
many direct commands calling us to choose obedience. Each of these commands is a call to go against the flesh’s inclinations and actively embrace the Spirit’s way. We don’t need a command to do things that come instinctually. No one needs to command you to breathe air, for example. The fact of the command means that the indwelling Jesus is calling you to altar your flesh. but, each command has a corresponding promise of indwelling power. You choose, but your choice is to lean on the power of the present Jesus, not merely to accomplish the command.
Jim Fowler of Christ in You Ministries, explains this paradox. In his description he differentiates between imperative commands— giving orders or directives— and indicative statements— stating the way things are.
Paul’s admonition to “work out your own salvation
with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12) is an
imperative
. The
indicative
statement is, “God is at work in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). Another
imperative
is, “Do not worry about anything” (Phil. 4:6). The following
indicative
is, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13). “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, . . . abstain from every form of evil” (I Thess. 5:16,17,22) are the
imperatives
. “Faithful is He who calls you, and He will bring it to pass” (I Thess. 5:24) is the foundational
indicative
. “Love one another” (Jn. 13:34, 35) was Jesus’ command. The supply for such is indicated in that “the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Rom. 5:5). The
imperative
is, “Be strong in the Lord” (Eph. 6:12), but the
indicative
awareness is that this is “in the strength of His might” (Eph. 6:12), for we are strong only “by the strength which God supplies” (I Pet. 4:11). “Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5), Paul commanded the Philippians, and to the Colossians he wrote, “Set your minds on things above” (Col. 3:2), but he advised the Corinthians, “we have the mind of Christ” (I Cor. 2:16). “Discipline yourself unto godliness” (I Tim. 4:7) was the admonition to Timothy, but Peter indicates, “His divine power has granted us everything pertaining to life and godliness” (II Pet. 1:3). The
imperatives
are always based on the
indicatives
of God’s grace in Christ, and are never commands for self-produced behavioral “works” of righteousness.
We have the ability to choose because we are humans made in God’s image, but we have the power to choose righteousness because Jesus empowers us from the inside. Little by little, living in an altar’d state so radically recreates us that things we once had to choose become instead the heart’s desire. Oswald Chamber says, “The choices of our free will become the preordinations of His almighty order.”
Choosing the Cross
Each time your flesh is exposed, choose the way of the cross. What exposes your flesh? Circumstances and people. Anything or anyone you can’t control or manage. When you come across people and circumstances that engage your flesh, you are at a crucifixion moment. Altar that anger, or offence, or fear, or defensiveness, or possessiveness. Right then, before flesh starts running the show. It’s there, but it’s altar’d. Flesh might show up, but it won’t take over. Altar it again and again until one day it doesn’t show up. The altar has done its crucifixion work and you are free of that particular flesh pattern.
To have a will that operates separately from God’s will is not wrong. Jesus had His own will, but He freely chose the Father’s will. He lived in an altar’d state. He didn’t have a will that was unrighteous because He never let an unrighteous desire take hold, but He had a human will.
“For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me”
(
John
6:38).
“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”
(Luke 22:42)
.
If Jesus had not had a will of His own, then He would have been a robot, not a man. because He came as the last Adam, as a fully human being, He had His own will. Like the original Adam, He was tempted as we are (Hebrews 4) to be His own source. You can see that when He made statements about how He lived His life on earth, He kept that will altar’d. He emphasized that He never acted as His own independent source.
“I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does” (J
ohn
5:19).
“I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me”
(J
ohn
8:28)
.
“For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it. I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say” (J
ohn
12:49–50).
In each of these statements He is laying claim to His Sonship and as proof of His relationship with the Father. He said, “I never act as My own source.” He kept His soul or personality in its right position— servant to the Father, who lived in Him. He lived in an altar’d state. He chose the way of the Cross every day, time and again, before the day came when He chose the Cross.
And choose He did. Even at that juncture, He could have chosen to be His own source and not altar His will. The Gethsemane prayer hints at the agony of the choice, the bloody messy altaring of His own will. “Not My will.”
He chose the Cross. No one forced His will.
“The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life— only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father”
(John 10:17-18).
He knew the Crucifixion was the path to resurrection. He surrendered to the Crucifixion with His eye on the promise of the Resurrection. When we surrender our flesh to His crucifixion, we join Him in His resurrection.
“Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life”
(Romans 6:3-4)
QUESTION
What choices of obedience do you need to make?
Jennifer Kennedy Dean
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Jennifer Kennedy Dean 2019
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