The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Is this the Higher Christian Life?

Practices Christian Living
#1

From an old book - the Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life.

What do you think about this short selection?

“In my last chapter I tried to settle the question as to the scripturalness of the experience
sometimes called the Higher Christian Life, but which to my own mind is best described in the words, the “life hid with Christ in God.” I shall now, therefore, consider it as a settled point that the Scriptures do set before the believer in the Lord Jesus a life of abiding rest and of continual victory, which is very far beyond the ordinary line of Christian experience; and that in the Bible we have presented to us a Saviour able to save us from the power of our sins, as really as He saves us from their guilt.
The point to be next considered is, as to what this hidden life consists in, and how it
differs from every other sort of Christian experience.
And as to this, it is simply letting the Lord carry our burdens and manage our affairs
for us, instead of trying to do it ourselves.
In laying off your burdens, therefore, the first one you must get rid of is yourself. You must hand yourself and all your inward experiences, your temptations, your temperament, your frames and feelings, all over into the care and keeping of your God, and leave them there.
He made you, and therefore He understands you and knows how to manage you, and you must trust Him to do it. Say to Him, “Here, Lord, I abandon myself to you. I have tried in every way I could think of to manage myself, and to make myself what I know I ought to be, but have always failed. Now I give it up to you. Take entire possession of me. Work in me all the good pleasure of your will.
Mould and fashion me into such a vessel as seems good to you. I leave myself in your hands, and I believe you will, according to your promise, make me into a vessel to your honor, sanctified, and meet for the Master’s use, and prepared to every good work.’” And here you must rest, trusting yourself thus to Him continually and absolutely.
Next, you must lay off every other burden,—your health, your reputation, your Christian
work, your houses, your children, your business, your servants; everything, in short, that concerns you, whether inward or outward.”

#2

I might add - I have no ego attachment to that selection out of the book. I think it is incredibly naive, but I could be wrong. That’s why I would like to bounce off you, the bouncees. :smiley:

#3

I really like this, Dave, and it’s something that hits very close to home just now so “thanks”— I appreciate this post very much! :smiley:

#4

I used the word ‘naive’ and I want to amend that. I’ve been thinking more about the selection, and I think what bothered me was the disconnect - the ‘cognitive dissonance’ - between that simplistic-sounding advice and on the other hand, the big questions we deal with on the forum and elsewhere. Does God exist, what is He like, is He the inventor and propagator of evil, ECT and all the rest.

But really, when I consider things a bit, the problem is, as the scripture points out, that we have evil and warring in our hearts, and that plays out in the world; so it is our hearts that need changing before all else. This is Sunday School teaching, but I didn’t attend. :blush:

So this method from the CSoAHL may be the balm that many of us are in need of. We have to have some sort of foundation, or all of our speculations can go awry, right? I’ll have to think about this more - the approach seems extremely passive? Maybe/maybe not.
Any and all insights are surely welcomed on this thread - the ‘spiritual life’ is important, from all I can tell, but sadly I know very little about it.

#5

The “how to” literature is still going strong and many make a good living out of it I think. A good earlier example is Methodism. Currently attending a Weslyan Congregation I feel I know a little about this. The difficulty which often arises out of this approach is that perfection is held out as the goal in some form. One just needs to surrender to achieve this blessed state. Problem is we have problems in surrendering so we keep going down to the front to get fixed again, however eventually this nonsensical state of affaires becomes obvious or just plane tedious and well… The bottom line is that salvation finds its expression as " the gift" of righteousness and the “provision” grace per Romans 5 vs 17. it’s not about surrendering it’s about believing and asking and receiving in order to experience reigning in life, even if truth to tell, we can’t as St Paul also admitted hold up our hand and say I’ve arrived. Here endith the sermon! Chris :wink:

#6

Thanks Chris. I appreciate your insights on this. :smiley:

#7

Simply put, it works if you believe it.
If not, then don’t worry about it.
As for the actual advice itself, the one thing to understand is that it is nothing more than that: advice. Take it or leave it, but you don’t need to analyze it to get ; it’s a work of art from someone’s mind about Christianity. I’ve discovered this from experience when I read all sorts of books from my denomination about how to best live a Christian life. Ultimately, if you want to live up to a solid, Biblical life and have a good relationship with Jesus, obey Him. (If you love me, obey the commandments ~ Jesus). The author’s suggestion is to surrender in order to obey. There’s nothing wrong with the author’s words, but you are right, DaveB, the message is simplistic. Personally, I think it is a matter of God’s perspective. Do we try to live up to God’s expectations or do we live up to our own? To know God’s mind on how we should honor Him, it takes experience garnered by struggle after struggle with the flesh, not some words from fellow Christians on their understanding of the mind of God as the author is doing.
I guess to round out my point, I should say that saying a mantra (“I surrender my will to God”) over and over or trying to brainwash myself into obedience will not make me obedient. Really it takes some struggles to explicitly rather than implicitly know God’s ways are best and why I should obey Him.

#8

Thanks Nick, good reminders.

It has been said, with some validity imo, that the cause of great anxiety is taking more on ourselves than we can carry. There are burdens that only the Lord is able to bear, and any of those burdens that we are trying to - and failing to - carry ourselves will crush us. It’s just a matter of the creature-Creator divide. And in those things we can actively trust Him and then get about what we are able to do.

#9

Here are a few translation of 1 Pet 5.7:
Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.
casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.
Throw all your worry on him, because he cares for you.
Turn all your anxiety over to God because he cares for you.

How do we do this? 1 Peter is where most of us really live; I don’t have to explain anxiety, since we all know what it is; but is Peter’s advice practical? Is it a psychological trick? Or is it the Truth?
Relieving anxiety is not the whole of the Christian life, of course; but it would sure seem like heaven for most of us to be out from under that burden, wouldn’t it?

#10

1st Peter 5:7 is nearly impossible to do. I myself read that verse and think 'He makes it sound so easy" and so, then you ask yourself “If I gave it to Jesus, why I am worried about it again 5 seconds later?” Hannah addresses this in her book. She says “Then give it to Him again and keep giving it to Him” Again, I say, easier said than done. I am convinced, at this point, that God allows us to fall, or tests and allows us to keep falling until we learn perseverance as discussed in 2nd Peter. I know in my life, the struggle has always been to keep getting up after falling down and the temptation becomes “Just stay down, because if you get up, you will fall down again” and so many (myself included) will often just give up. This is where we need to persevere and keep getting back up. I have to believe this is part of our training plan as everything we learn to do in life follows the same basic principle, right? We walk, fall, eventually enough times we learn to walk stronger… They we learn to run, fall and must keep striving. If every mistake we make discourages us to the point where we don’t try for long periods of time, the journey will likely take much longer than it could if we just got back up and continued to strive.

That said, this is all easier said than done. My Christian walk has always been void is a strong perseverance aspect… Sometimes I just want to sit on the bench for a while. Take me out coach! :slight_smile:

#11

Yeah, fending off despair when we’ve fallen for the umpteenth time takes some training, for sure.

There is certainly a temptation to think hard about the so-called ‘second blessing’ or the ‘filling with the Holy Spirit’ or ‘entire sanctification’ but to be honest, it seems that everyone struggles, even those who have those experiences, doesn’t it?

#12

Guys (and Dolls), Sorry to harp but when I read what The Lord Jesus urged it seems to be about believing and asking. Now obedience gets its true root from believing. Do you believe Jesus when He says my yoke is easy and my burden is light? As the old song says it takes a worried man to sing a worried song. How does Jesus say our needs, when we ask, will be met? Overflowing, pressed down! Provision, it’s about provision. The more we experience His provision the better and more authentic our story that we can personally share with people around us. Second blessing, 3rd, 4th no! new every morning and the bits in between as well. Boy oh boy! do we make it hard for ourselves and others. Chris

#13

Chris, when you get a minute would you fill that out a little bit? I think your ideas are important but very compressed. Feel free to harp!! :smiley:

#14

Concerning this topic, the Lord gave me this verse:
2 Corinthians 13:4-9
4 For although he was executed on a stake in weakness, now he lives by God’s power. And we too are weak in union with him, but in dealing with you we will live with him by God’s power. 5 Examine yourselves to see whether you are living the life of trust. Test yourselves. Don’t you realize that Yeshua the Messiah is in you? — unless you fail to pass the test. 6 But I hope you will realize that we are not failures. 7 And we pray to God that you will do nothing wrong. We are not concerned with our appearing successful, but with your doing what is right, even if we appear to be failures. 8 For we cannot act against the truth, only for it. 9 So we rejoice whenever we are weak and you are strong; indeed, what we pray for is that you become perfect.

The “higher Christian life” is one of going through the path of recognizing one’s own failures due to the flesh and being reconciled to God. It does appear as if this passage indicates we must ‘surrender’ to God. What one needs to realize is that if they are already justified in Christ (hence, they are not failures), then the next step is sanctification. We can not learn how to surrender until we have failed in the first place. What Paul is saying is that once one has been justified by Christ’ work on the cross, they can’t act against the Truth. It is a matter of sanctification which requires struggle followed by victory which testifies of the Truth.

A simpler analogy of the concept: How can one be a martyr for Christ if he/she has not struggled for Christ before? Would one really give or surrender their life for Christ if they have not experienced death to the flesh? One’s faith must be proved by works…which Christ does through them. Faith must be proved by repeatedly going through trials and tribulations rather than by rites of baptism or by “magical saving prayers” as you point out DaveB. I sympathize with your points.

#15

Thanks Nick.

(off-topic a bit -I found this verse to be VERY interesting: 2 Cor 13.4
For he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but in dealing with you we will live with him by the power of God.Does Jesus now live by the power of God - meaning, the Father? So the eternal Son did - die? Cease to exist?)

Like I said, off-topic. The topic here is what powers the christian life. It seems synergistic, doesn’t it? Part me, in striving to please the Father, as Christ did, and part Christ, an all the many ways He uses to comfort and challenge and…well, the NT if full of the blessings of being “in Christ.” But not many xns live in those blessings, as has been pointed out by everyone since the 2nd century… :smiley: That’s why I’m glad to be getting all the comments.

#16

If you figure it out… Please let me know :slight_smile:

#17

Sure…I’ll have my people contact your people. :laughing:

#18

Love that one Dave! It does illustrate the difficulty we all face in sorting out life as we race, wander and dance along our time line. I believe and have found in practice that acknowledging God in all my ways works. That does not mean that I stop and bow my head in order to decide the question of jam or marmalade on my toast at breakfast. As I look back over rather a lot of years now I have plenty of stuff to cause me to go to the naughty corner and have a good talk to myself over. Further, however much I try this stuff keeps happening. Who will rescue me from this body of sin - thanks be to God - throughout Jesus Chris our Lord! Don’t you just love that whole bit in Romans 7 with its taughtology " that which I do… that which I fail to do". It’s just like life, confusing. So my point is that you can spend your whole time trying to get it all right. You can read all the how too books you like and yes some can be helpful because God does use that stuff sometimes but if you want my advice (perhaps you don’t?) cut to the case and follow the Shepherd who will lead you In the paths of reightousness for His own names sake and enjoy, rejoice, taste, have fun, value, and find peace in life. Chris

#19

Very encouraging, Chris, thank you! :smiley: