October 2000

[Part Twelve]

                The Lord has set many snares for the man of pride to fall into, to prevent him from boasting of things that are none of his doing. How foolish for man to continually seek glory for his efforts when God has said, “All have sinned and fall short of the (only true) Glory of God!!” (Ro 3:23) How vain for men to strive for the impossible! But what else can he do while under the influence of his lowly flesh mind? The Amplified Bible well-describes this mind saying, “The mind of the flesh, which is sense and reason without the Holy Spirit, is DEATH!” (Ro 8:6) It is interesting that an unrighteous man is more easily convinced of his inability to produce true godliness in his life, than the self-righteous man who is content to act the part! Religious hypocrites are persuaded that their good works are SELF-motivated and SELF-perpetrated, despite Christ’s own words, “Without ME you can do nothing!” (Jn 15:5) But He also said the same of Himself, “The SON can do nothing of Himself!” (Jn 5:19) Now if Messiah denied Himself the “free will” to “make His own choices”, which of us would stand before His bloody Cross and claim, “the disciple is above his Master, and the servant is above his Lord”?! He says we can do “nothing” apart from Him; so any attempt to do “good works” not born of the Anointing is vainglory! Religious leaders condemn unbelievers for not “choosing” Jesus Christ as Savior; while they applaud one another for their great wisdom in “choosing” Him! But to all of these foolish ones, Jesus says: “You have not chosen Me, rather I have chosen you!” (Jn 15:16)
                As He walked the earth Jesus knew, that for the most part, He addressed flesh-minded men, [“He knew their thoughts”, Mt 12:25] When praise was directed toward His human nature instead of His Spiritual Nature, He knew their vision was obscured to the Knowledge of Who He really was! That is why He kept diverting their attention to His Father in heaven from whence He came! He knew better than to allow any glory that rightly belonged to His Father of Spirit to be misdirected to His father of flesh (the first Adam)! For certainly if the satan (i.e., “opposer, accuser, adversary”) of Jesus’ own flesh mind couldn’t tempt Him during His wilderness testing (Mt 4:1-11) to deflect the Light of Glory from His Spirit to His lowly humanity [since He resisted with Anointed Truth], He certainly wasn’t about to yield that Light of Glory to men of far weaker flesh minds who possessed no such anointing! For this cause, He would not allow flesh-minded men to call Him “good”; saying, “Why do you call Me ‘good’ when there is none good but GOD? If you want to enter (His and My) Life, *keep the Commandments!” (Mt 19:17) [*This was, in itself, a provocative statement; for Jesus knew no natural man was able to keep His Father’s Commandments! For “The Law is SPIRITUAL; whereas (natural man) is carnal, and sold into sin-slavery”(Ro 7:14) and “Natural man cannot receive SPIRITUAL THINGS, for they are SPIRITUALLY discerned! Besides that, the mind of the flesh HATES GOD and is His ENEMY; and is therefore not subject to His Laws because he is incapable of so being! So anyone who thinks and reasons with his flesh cannot please God!” (1 Cor 2:14) In God’s estimation, “Whoever tries to observe every point of the Law; yet offends (“errs, fails”) in one point, is guilty of breaking the whole Law!” (Jas 2:10)
               Jesus had confidence that natural man could never destroy His Father’s Royal Law of Love; as natural man is disallowed by God to even lay one sin-soiled finger on that sacred, Spiritual Law! It is reserved for the Man of Spirit! Only carnal man would boast of keeping the Commandments [though, without realizing it, the most he can observe is the “Letter of the Law that KILLS; and not the SPIRIT of the Law GIVES LIFE!” (2 Cor 3:6) Jesus never had to boast of being able to perfectly keep the Law for He actually fulfilled the Law in Himself! A truly Righteous Man need not boast of his righteousness, He just humbly lives it! Carnal-minded men boast their self-righteous works- which God calls “filthy rags”- but they never fool unrighteous men, and they never fool Christ! So boast if you will, carnal one, but the “Chooser” knows whom HE has chosen!!

[TO BE CONTINUED]