A Continual Surrender of the Will

I ended last time talking about how Christians can be lovers of Christ’s words without being abiders in his Living Word. This is easy and common. Words can be good and helpful. They can describe true things, and help us look in the right direction, but they are never the Truth itself. The Truth is not words. The Truth is a living thing, a substantial thing, an experience and not an idea, a reality and not a description. Truth is what is real to God, in God. It is what God sees, what God knows, what God is. And I think that we all have seen how minds can be filled with true words, even when hearts are far from the Truth. 

Jesus Christ is not true words. Jesus Christ is a living Word, a living communication of God, a living communication of what is real to God, in God, what God sees, knows, and is.  He is a Word that resides in the heart of man, and there He speaks his own nature, his own life, his own will.  Jesus Christ is a substantial thing, an experience and not an idea, a present life and power, and not a collection of biblical ideas. John says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” He is a Word because He speaks God’s life, God’s nature, God’s reality into man. This Word is alive. This Word is life. And the life of this Word is a light that shines in man.

Again, the living Word speaks His own nature in man, He manifests His own life, He causes man to feel something of His will, He opens His own eye in the heart of man and lets man share His view. He does not teach these things with words. I say again, words are useful and they have their place, but they are much weaker teachers than light, and you cannot abide in them. They have great limitations. Words are easy to misunderstand, misuse, and argue against. But when the living Word makes His life manifest in the heart by light, you cannot help but understand, and at times even the most evil men are forced to see and feel that they are sinning against the truth. And it is this living Word, speaking or shining in the heart, that we must learn to abide in.

Now before we can go any further, it is of the greatest importance that we all understand that there are TWO things in man, and these things are very different from each other. I know I talk about this very often, but it is perhaps the most fundamental and practical thing for a new Christian to understand. There are two different seeds in man, with two natures, from two different worlds, and everyone feels or experiences them both. 

On the one hand, there is what man is in his natural and fallen condition. Man, in and of himself, is a soul that has stepped out of the will of God, died to the life of God, and apart from God lives in a dark, selfish, earthly nature that is enmity with God. This is what we are in ourselves apart from the gift of grace. We are an eternal soul, born in sin and trespasses, “conducting ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, by nature children of wrath.” This is the first birth, the man of the flesh, the fleshly man, the natural man, the outward man, the man of sin. He lives in self-will, like his father the devil, and as Paul says, “have been taken captive by him to do his will.” (2 Tim 2:26)

And it is INTO this man that God sows a seed of grace, a mustard seed, a heavenly talent, a precious pearl, an implanted Word. This is the Seed of life, the “Seed of the Woman,” (Gen. 3:15), the Seed of the kingdom, which, when received, produces a new birth in man, and can develop into a new creation, a new man, with a new heart, with new desires, new thoughts, new fruits of a new Spirit. So the second thing that is found and felt in man (because it has been sown there by a kind Sower of seeds), is a measure of God’s life, light, Spirit, or Word, and this is the Word that we have been talking about. This Word testifies in all, calls to all, invites all, “convincing the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment,” although it produces a birth only where man gives up his first life and will to follow it. 

And so, to return to our subject, if we are going to talk about abiding in this gift, this light, this Spirit, this Word, then it is of the greatest necessity that we come to recognize the difference between these two things in us, so that we learn how to avoid the one and live in the other. We must learn the difference, in our own hearts, in our own experience, between that which we are by nature, and the gift in us that can overcome nature. We must see and feel and find the limits, the boundaries where the one stops and the other begins. Do you see what I mean? If we are going to abide in the Word or Spirit or Light, then we have to be able to recognize it in us, to know where it is, what it is, and what it means to cling to it, stay near it, and stay out of the first birth or flesh.  

The whole New Testament speaks of this very fundamental thing. Jesus says that discipleship involves denying self and following Him, losing one life and gaining another. Paul tells us that we must put off one man, and put on the other. We must walk in the Spirit, and cease walking in the flesh. John tells us that we must learn to abide in the light, and walk no longer in the darkness. Where do we find all of these things? Friends, we find them within us. 

And here is where outward Christianity always fails or falls short. It deals only in words, ideas and beliefs, but words and beliefs cannot teach you inward boundaries. Words cannot teach you how to abide in Christ. Words cannot show you when a thought comes from the selfishness of the natural man, and when it comes from the selflessness nature of the implanted Christ. No. But there is an inward light that can show you these things. There is no book, not even the Bible, that can manifest in your heart when pride is behind your humble words, when you dress to call attention to yourself, when there are secret roots of pride, selfishness, lust, covetousness hidden in the things you do and say. There is no Scripture that will uncover the hidden leaven, the secret faults, the mixed motivations of the heart. There is no outward religion that can show you an inward disease, or lead you out from it. But there is a light, an implanted Word that will “manifest the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Heb. 4) 

This is why Paul calls it a Word that “pierces,” “divides” and “discerns” between things that are different, telling us that all things are “naked and open before its eyes.” It is THIS inward, speaking Word that divides these two births, divides soul from Spirit, Adam from Christ, precious from vile, and shows us what spirit we are of (Luke 9:55). And all of Christianity, in its truest and purest form, is a life in the Spirit, a walk in the Spirit. It has to do with learning to STOP living in the flesh, and to START and CONTINUE living in the Spirit. It has to do with seeing and feeling the difference between two lives, two natures, two seeds, two worlds. It has to do with learning what it means to INWARDLY leave the one, and abide in the other.  

What does it mean to abide? We all understand that abiding has to do with staying somewhere, and not going outside of its boundaries into something else. If you abide in a room, you stay in the room, and do not go beyond the four walls that make up its boundaries. If you abide in a country, you live there, and remain within the country’s limits. If you abide in a light, you stay in the light, where the light gives you vision, and lets you see your way. If you were walking in the dark woods with a friend, and only your friend had a flashlight, you would know exactly what it meant to abide in his light. You would feel a need to stay in his beam of light, because outside of that light, you cannot see your way. 

But how are going to abide in Christ, the vine, the light, the Word, and avoid self, flesh, and darkness if these things haven’t been divided in our hearts? How can we abide if we haven’t felt the walls, the limits, the boundaries of where light stops and darkness begins, where Christ ceases, and flesh begins to act, to desires, to speak? We cannot. If we are going to abide in Christ, then we must allow Christ to teach us where He is, and what He is within us. And when we begin to find Him there, then we must walk in Him by giving to Him the same inward faculties as we once used to walk in the flesh.  

So first, how do we find Him? We cannot find Him on our own, but He appears to us, in us, out of His own grace and kindness. He appears in man as light, and He testifies against darkness. He appears not with words in your ear, but over and over again with convictions, teachings, reproofs, checks and cautions in your heart, showing you over and over where the boundaries are. He lets you feel when unwholesome words, inappropriate jokes or comments come out of your mouth. In fact, he lets you feel these even before they come out of your mouth. He lets you feel a sting in your conscience when you give your eyes or your time to things that are evil or foolish. He gives you an inward sense when you are feeding the nature in you that he is trying to put to death, or when you are resisting the nature that He desires to reign in you. His Spirit is quick light lighting, it is a fast witness in the heart and mind, and when it appears in your heart, it teaches you the boundaries. 

This is how you find Christ. You can read about Him in a book, you can sing about Him with your mouth, but if you are going to find Him and learn to abide in Him, you must find Him in your own heart in the light. And it is there you must love Him. If you do not love Him as light in your heart, if you do not love His coming with limits and boundaries, it matters very little if you love religion or true words. Everybody says they love the outward coming of Christ—both His coming in the past, and His coming in the future. But very few people love His coming in the heart, when He comes as a swift witness into His temple, turning over tables and exposing evil things. 

I did not realize these things for many years as a Christian. I did not know how to abide in Christ because I didn’t want to see in myself the things that were not Christ, the things that opposed His reign. I didn’t want His light to divide the precious from the vile in my heart, especially because most of what was in my heart was vile. I wanted Christ to come with His sword against the unbelievers, but I didn’t want Him to come with His sword against my pride, my selfishness, my excuses, my worldly pleasures. I didn’t want Him to draw clear lines in my heart, and teach me to “touch no unclean thing.” I didn’t love His light, because my deeds were evil, my thoughts were evil and earthly, my desires were in the world and of the world. And for this reason, and ONLY this reason, for many years I did not learn to abide in Him. 

But when I was at last, by some real Christians, encouraged to pay attention to the light, to love the light, to let it divide, reprove, correct, and teach, then I began to understand two things. First, I began to understand that there really was a place to abide. There really was a way to stay in His life, and to keep out of the flesh. It wasn’t fiction. It wasn’t just head knowledge and hearsay religion. There really was a division in man between flesh and Spirit, and a way to stay in the one and to deny the other. 

But secondly, I began to understand what I have previously hinted at: that in order to abide in Him, I needed to learn to look to Him, turn to Him, and follow Him with all the strength and resources of my inward man, that is, with all of my will, my heart, my soul, my attention, my time, and my mind. In other words, I had to direct my will to Christ, and learn live in Christ, in the same way, and with the same devotion, that I had lived in the world as a son of Adam. I had to do what Christ said was the first and greatest commandment, “to love the Lord my God with all of my heart, soul, mind and strength.” This was not just a new position or a new belief, it was a completely new way to live, every moment, of every day. 

Remember I said in the first session that Christianity on the part of God is a heavenly gift. It is an outward gift and an inward gift. It is an outward Christ that gave His life, forgave sins, and opened the door to a new and living way. And it is also an inward gift, an inward Christ, a gift of His light, life, grace, seed, and Word, in which a man may live and leave sin and self behind. But then on OUR part, Christianity is the way to live in this gift, to abide in it, to walk in it, to stay with it, to submit to it, to turn to it, to follow it, to love it’s appearing, and to be changed by it. 

And the way that all of this happens in man is by a careful, inward attention and submission to the light of Christ as it shines in the hearts and teaches us where to abide. It is the light of Christ shows us our proper domain, the boundaries of Israel in our heart. It is the light of Christ that makes us see and feel in ourselves what flesh is, where it hides, and how to deny it. It is the light of Christ that lets us feel joy in righteousness, peace in purity, hope to overcome all sin and evil. And it is abiding in this light that makes us real disciples, makes us progressively know the truth as an experience, as a living thing! It is abiding in this Word that continually separates us from all that is false and fallen and contrary to the Spirit of Holiness. In other words, as Christ has told us: “you must learn to abide in My Word, and THEN you will learn what it means to be My disciples, and THEN you will start to really know the truth, and THEN the truth will make you free.”

But this Christianity, this abiding in Christ, is an active work of the will. I don’t mean it is a work of the flesh trying to please God with natural resources; or a work of the law trying to please God performing ceremonies, symbols and shadows. No, far from all this! But it is a work of the will, the heart, the mind, and the strength. God will not work against your will. God works in you, and your will must work with the light of God, must yield, submit, obey, follow, and even put your body in subjection to your spirit, so that it in no way becomes an obstacle to your growth in grace. God gives you his own willing and working, but with it you must work out your salvation with fear and trembling. 

It is not a work of the flesh, or a work of the law, to give up your will to Christ, to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. This love, this surrender, and every outward thing that it leads into or leads out from, is not works religion, or old covenant Christianity. It is wisdom. It is obedience. It is yielding to the power of grace. It is the true love of God, the true service of God, the true discipleship of Christ. It is an active thing, an active following, turning, watching, praying, and yielding. An active denying of yourself, picking up your cross, and following Christ. It involves not allowing sin to reign in your mortal body to obey its lusts, but rather presenting your members unto God, every day, every hour, as instruments of righteousness. Or “Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?” It involves “fleeing from youthful lusts,” “resisting the devil,” “setting your mind on things above,” “hating even the garment stained by the flesh,” “running the race,” “fighting the good fight of faith.”  

Don’t tell me that these are works of the flesh! These are commands of our Savior and His apostles who are teaching us how to abide in the Spirit of God, and how to abandon our flesh, with all of its works. And all of this must be learned inwardly. The Bible can tell you to flee from youthful lusts, but only the light can show you your youthful lusts. The Bible can tell you to resist the devil, but only the light can expose the devil’s work in your heart. Paul can tell you to walk in the Spirit and not in the flesh, but only the living Word can divide these two natures in your heart. I can stand here and tell you to abide in Christ, but only an inward Teacher can show you what any of this means, where He is in you, and where He is not, what in you is from Him, and what is from your flesh. It is only by paying attention, watching, and surrendering to this inward gift, being taught, corrected and guided by it, that we learn the boundaries of light and life, what it means to stay in it, walk with it, and come under its power. 

It is as you live this way, abiding in His Word with your will—and not just believing His words with your mind—that you begin to find and feel two very contrary things within you. It is more than a belief in two seeds, or a doctrine of two natures, but a being taught by the light to live in the one and to deny the other. 

And so, I say again, true Christianity is lived in the will by abiding in Christ. The fall of man was the will turned away from God. The restoration of man begins with the will turning back to God, and being brought back under God. Because what could it mean to love God, if we do not first give to Him our will. What have we given God if we haven’t given Him our will? Have we given Him only our brain? Our beliefs? A little time on Sunday mornings? What value is there in loving God with our emotions if we keep our will for ourselves? What does God really have of us if He does not have our will? He has nothing he can work with. The will is the first offering, the whole burnt offering, and everything else follows after. 

And this work of the will, this offering of the will, must be a constant thing. When I say “work of the will” I simply mean what you are turning to and reaching for throughout the day. Are you continually turning to and reaching after Christ? Have you (like David) “set the Lord always before you.” (Psalm 16:8)  Because the truth is you are always willing something. If the will runs out of the light, then it works with the darkness. If with your will you love yourself, love the world, choose the things of time for your portion, that is exactly what you will have. But if your will turns, submits and works with the will of God, learns to feel Him, to see Him, and to stay with Him and under Him, then you will grow “like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper.” (Psalm 1:3)

Abiding in Christ is a constant thing my friends, the constant occupation of your will and heart. I don’t know why this was so hard for me to see for many years. I think I believed the idea of it, but I did not even try to live as though I could give my will to Christ in all things, or look to His light at all times. I didn’t know that there was a light in me that would both teach what this means, and give power to do it. I didn’t know anybody that was trying to live with their inward ground, their inward faculties and resources turned and surrendered to Christ at all times. I had never heard of a person who was actually abiding in Christ as an experience, or as an act. And I didn’t know anybody that could testify to the fruits of abiding in the light of Christ inwardly revealed. 

Although I don’t claim to have attained any great degree of this, I can see the truth of it, and have tasted some of the fruits of it. If you think about it, life is just a series of decisions that are made in the present moment to love things. That may sound simplistic, and maybe it is a little simplistic, but there is truth here as well. Every day is composed of hundreds of little opportunities to love yourself more than the truth, or to love the truth more than yourself. Hundreds or thousands of little decisions every day to chose life or death, blessing or a curse. Christians often struggle to see the continuous and present nature of discipleship. I mean, they have a hard time realizing that every moment gives them chances to choose Christ over themselves, or to choose themselves over Christ. But right here, right in the present moment, in what we do with our heart, our will, our attention, is what matters most. Turning to Christ, uniting our will to Him, and learning to stay in His light is how we grow in grace, little by little every day, until we overcome.

I’ve seen a number of people get to the end of their lives and not be where they want to be. I mean, they have run out of time to work out their salvation with fear and trembling, and the time of their pilgrimage has come to an end. And most of these people that I have known are not in the place where they want to be, or where they wish they were. I mean, things have not ended as they hoped. They are not saying with Paul, “I have fought the good fight”, or with Jesus in Revelation, “I have overcome”. And some of them are perhaps asking, “How did I get here? How did I come to this place?” The answer is, you took hundreds of thousands of steps in order to get where you now are. And then they ask, “But how did I take steps?” And the answer is, you took steps with your will, every time your will united to either light or darkness, life or death.