Chapter 2, Part 1 The Scripturalness of This Life

Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. (Col. 3:2-3)

There is a secret that must be told! This secret is about the true Christian life, that life which is hid with Christ in God. Every child of God longs, even pines for this life, but often it seems to elude our grasp.

We all long for victory and rest in Christ. Can you remember the shout of triumph your soul gave when you first became acquainted with the Lord Jesus, and had a glimpse of His mighty saving power? How sure you were of victory then! How easy it seemed, to be more than conquerors, through Him that loved you. How could you possibly dream of defeat at that moment? And yet, our real experiences have been quite different. The victories have been but few and fleeting, the defeats many and disastrous. You have not lived as you feel children of God ought to live.

There has been rejoicing in the knowledge of things testified of in the Scriptures, without a living realization of the things themselves, consciously felt in the soul. Christ is believed in, talked about, and served, but He is not known as the soul's actual and very life, abiding there forever, and revealing Himself there continually in His beauty. You have found Jesus as your Savior and your Master, and you have tried to serve Him and advance the cause of His kingdom. You have carefully studied the Holy Scriptures and have gathered much precious truth, which you have endeavored faithfully to practice.

Despite all your knowledge and activities in the service of the Lord, your souls are secretly starving, and you cry out again and again for that bread and water of life which you saw promised in the Scriptures to all believers. In the very depths of your hearts you know that your experience is not a Scriptural experience; that, as an old writer says, your religion is "but a talk to what the early Christians enjoyed, possessed, and lived in." Your souls have sunk within you, as day after day, and year after year, your early visions of triumph have seemed to grow more and more dim, and you have been forced to settle down to the conviction that the best you can expect from your religion is a life of alternate failure and victory; one hour sinning, and the next repenting; and beginning again, only to fail again, and again to repent.

But is this all? Had the Lord Jesus only this in His mind when He laid down His precious life to deliver you from cruel bondage to sin? Did He propose to Himself only this partial deliverance? Did He intend to leave you struggling along under a weary consciousness of defeat and discouragement? Did He fear that a continuous victory would dishonor Him, and bring reproach on His name? When all those declarations were made concerning His coming, and the work He was to accomplish, did they mean only this that you have experienced? Was there a hidden reserve in each promise that was meant to deprive it of its complete fulfillment? Did "delivering us out of the hands of our enemies" mean only a few of them? Did "enabling us always to triumph" mean only sometimes; or being "more than conquerors through Him that love us" mean constant defeat and failure?

No, no, a thousand times no! God is able to save to the utmost, and He intends to do it. His promise, confirmed by His oath, is that "He would grant to us, that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him, all the days of our life." It is a mighty work to do, but our Deliverer is able to do it. He came to destroy the works of the devil, and dare we dream for a moment that He is not able or not willing to accomplish His own purposes?

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, hold fast to this one thing: that the Lord is able to save you fully, now, in this life, from the power and dominion of sin, and to deliver you completely out of the hands of your enemies.

The Life Hid With Christ in God is Like Chocolate Cake

I wrote this devotional after reading Chapter 16.

I made a chocolate cake yesterday. The rich, sweet scent of the chocolate still lingers in the air this afternoon, enough so that both family members and visitors have commented on the chocolately aroma. When my niece came bounding in, she stopped and asked if she could have some chocolate cake, "pretty, please."
I teasingly asked her how she knew I had been baking if she couldn't even see the cake.

"Oh, that's easy. It smells like chocolate in here, the kitchen is warm, and your floors are clean. You always mop after you bake."

The tell-tale sweet aroma of chocolate.....the warmth of the kitchen.....the clean floors......signs and clues of a chocolate cake that couldn't be seen.

After I have encountered others in my daily walk living the life hid with Christ in God, how do they know of my devotion to Our Heavenly Father? What type of spiritual aroma do I leave in my wake? What signs and clues of my love for Christ, Christ alone, can be discovered by observing my daily life? How would another know?

According to Hannah Whitall Smith, there are characteristics shared by those striving to live the life hid with Christ in God. A reading through these gives a glimpse of the person God is molding me to be. May I continue to be pliable in His hands, so He can snuff out those aromas that aren't pleasing to Him, and may His aroma linger everywhere I pass, for I am but a vessel.

-meekness and quietness of spirit

-submissive acceptance of the will of God

-sweetness under provocation

-calmness in the midst of turmoil

-yielding to the wishes of others

-insensitivity to slights and affronts

-absence of worry

-laying aside of thoughts of self

-dress and live in simple, healthful ways

-renounce self-indulgent habits

-welfare of God's creatures becomes the absorbing delight of the soul

-the voice is dedicated to Him, singing His praises

-the purse is placed at His disposal

-the pen is dedicated to write for Him

-the lips to speak for Him

-hands and feet to do His bidding.

Oh, may I grow to be more and more Christ-like each and every day!

Chapter 1 Part 2 God's Part vs. Man's Part

For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. -Ephesians 2:10

We are clay in the Master Potter’s hands. We must now expect Him to begin His work. His way of accomplishing that which we have entrusted to Him may be very different than from our way. He made us, is molding us, and we must be satisfied.

Many times in my life I have been a yielded, trusting piece of clay in our Father’s hands until His hands begin to mold me in unexpected and unforeseen ways. I yielded in the beginning of the process, but because I didn’t understand the divine plan , I took herself out of the hands of the Heavenly Potter, and the vessel became marred on the wheel.

Many other vessels has been similarly marred by taking ourselves out of the Master’s hands. The maturity of Christian experience cannot be reached in a moment, but is the result of the work of God’s Holy Spirit, who, by His energizing and transforming power, causes us to grow up into Christ in all things. And we cannot hope to reach this maturity in any other way than by yielding ourselves up completely and willingly to His mighty working. But the sanctification the Scriptures urge as a present experience upon all believers does not consist in maturity of growth, but in purity of heart, and this may be as complete in the babe in Christ as in the veteran believer.

The lump of clay, from the moment it is touched by transforming hand of the Potter is just what the Potter wants it to be at that hour or on that day to please Him. But it is very far from being matured into the vessel He intends to transform the clay into.

God’s works are perfect in every stage of our growth. Our works are never perfect until they are in every respect complete.

All that we claim then in this life of sanctification is, that by a step of faith we put ourselves into the hands of the Lord, for Him to work in us all the good pleasure of His will; and that by a continuous exercise of faith we keep ourselves there. This is our part. When we remain in His hands, we are truly pleasing to God. although it may require years of training and discipline to mature us into a vessel that shall bring honor and glory to Him, and fitted to every good work.

Our part is trusting. It is His part to accomplish the results. When we do our part, He never fails to do His, for no one ever trusted in the Lord and was confounded. Do not be afraid, then, that if you trust, or tell others to trust, the matter will end there. Trust is only the beginning and the continual foundation When we trust, the Lord will do mighty works in us. His work is the important part of the whole matter.

The creation that God is molding on His wheel become vessels for Him to pour out His love and power to humanity. It is not us, but God within us.

Have Thine own way, Lord, have thine own way
Thou art the Potter, I am the clay.
Mold me and make me after Thy will.
While I am waiting, yielded and still.-Adelaide A. Pollard

Chapter 1, Part 1 God's Side and Man's Side

And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
-2 Corinthians 3:18

Imagine, if you will, the way a lump of clay is shaped into a beautiful piece of pottery when it is spun on a pottery wheel. The only thing the lump of clay has to do is lie passive, submitting itself to all of the shaping and turning of the potter.

The potter takes the clay that is surrendered in his hands, and begins to mold and fashion it according to his own will. He kneads and works it, he tears it apart and presses it together again. Sometimes he works at it for hours at a time, sometimes he lays it aside for days and does not touch it. And then, when by all these processes he has made it perfectly pliable in his hands, he proceeds to make it into the vessel he had planned to make all along. He turns it upon the wheel, planes it and smooths it, dries it in the sun, bakes it in the oven, and finally turns it out of his workshop, a glorious vessel fit for his use.

In our relationship with the Master Potter, we, as the clay, are not expected to do the Potter's work, but only to surrender in His Hands. We must continually be in a state of surrender and trust for the Potter to complete His work. How do you think the end result would look if the clay jumped out the the Potter’s hands and tried to mold and shape itself on the wheel?

Our souls, abandoned to the working of the Heavenly Potter, are being transformed (not we are transforming ourselves) from glory to glory into the image of the Lord by His Spirit. By a step of trust and faith we put ourselves into the hands of the Divine Potter. Through a gradual process He makes us into a vessel for His own use, honor and glory.