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Words of Encouragement |
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Answers
to Praise by Merlin R Carothers _____________________________________ Pathways to
Answers
It is the nature of man to work. He works to achieve, to build security, to impress others. He works even harder to find ways to get out of work. God cuts sharply into the grain of natural man and says men’s works will never lead to Him. Our works are egotistical, self-centered at their very best. God’s works are holy and were perfectly manifested in Christ.
Jesus urged us to let go of our paltry visions of self-achievement. Yet, He is continually confronted with our highest opinions of our own worth. He gave Peter eternal life as a free gift. Peter knew this and appreciated it. Yet Peter said he was willing to die for Christ. He was not, yet thought he was.
What good do you think you are doing? Peter said he would never deny Jesus. What evil do you think you would never do? Jesus knew Peter was human and therefore capable of falling. He knows that you are human and capable of falling. There is no sin that you incapable of committing. At this point I know that I am “where angels fear to tread”, for you may be very positive that there are some things you would never ever do. Since you are convinced that you would never do them, you may feel justified in heaping all kinds of criticism upon others who are guilty. I believe that in order to appreciate God’s great love for us, we must realize that anything in our life that resembles good is the result of God’s careful protection of us over all influences that are being brought to bear upon us.
General Wright, U. S. Army, tells of the unbelievable animal characteristics that raised their ugly heads when Christian young men were involved in the Bataan death march. When confined in the hold of the ship with no fresh air, no sunlight, no food, and no water, and 100 degree heat for many days, the men seemingly lost most of their resemblance to civilized man. When one of their number was hit by a bullet from an American plane that was strafing the ship, they literally sucked the blood from the body of the dying man!
Insane? Yes, they were. But that same insanity lurks within you. You may not want to admit it, so you pull your robes of righteousness close about you and declare your complete allegiance to everything good and holy. God sees you a little differently and declares that in you “dwelleth no good thing”. Does it hurt too much to admit this? The more you admit it, the more quickly you can permit Christ’s righteousness to be yours. You can freely admit that the capacity to deny Christ, swear you never knew Him, steal bread for your dying children, etc., lurk within you, but that your hope is not in you, your trust is in Christ! You confess that you are no better than other men. You cannot condemn their failures, for you know that their failures lurk within you and could come into full bloom, given the right opportunity. But you also rejoice in faith that Christ has become your eternal life, and that your newborn spirit will one day leave this decrepit flesh and rise to a new world of holiness in Him (Rom. 8:10).
God could keep you holy in word, thought, and deed, but it would have to be Him doing it. Paul declared that trying to obtain salvation by our own works brought God’s anger (Rom. 4:15). This most of us can’t understand. But he further declares that even trying to obtain God’s blessings by keeping His laws causes Him to be angry! This is hard for the natural man to understand. The whole picture points to God’s absolute insistence that we come to Him trusting only in Christ, as Paul said, “The more we trust Him, the more clearly we see.”
Since you have been saved from your sins through trusting Christ, how much less guilty of sin are you than the “unsaved”? Consider a scale from number one to ten, with number ten being the unsaved and “breaking all ten commandments”, and Jesus being zero or “breaking none”. Where do you fall in this scale? Please give this an honest effort. Decide. Where do you think you fall on the scale? If you average up your failures, do you hit about number four or five? If so, you have somewhat to boast in, for at least you are not failing as much as a number ten man. You can take him aside and say, “Friend, I too used to be a number ten man, but then Christ saved me, and I became a number four man. You too could be better if you would let Him do this for you!”
Sound logical? It does to me, but according to Christ it is not. He said if you are a number one man you are also a number ten man and guilty of breaking all of God’s laws. If you are willing to be classified as a number ten man by God, your friends, your church, your community, you are then free to believe that God through Christ has forgiven you of all your sins and given you eternal life. Now, with great peace you can look at yourself as you are, as you could be, as you might be, and know that there is nothing within you, around you, or any part of you that God does not forgive through Christ. You are then free to look at your fellowmen as they are, for you know that whatever evil they do, it is nothing that you are incapable of, and that any goodness that others see in you is merely a demonstration of what God has done for you. What a blessed day it will be when God’s children no longer condemn one another, when they feel a sense of complete dependence upon what Christ has done and is doing for them. This opens the heart to the real spirit of praise. We are then on a pathway that leads to answers to praise.
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Answers to Praise by Merlin R Carothers Ó Copyright 1972 by Logos International, Plainfield, NJ 07060 Printed in the United States of America SBN 912106-67-0 Used with permission. For more information about the Ministry and books of Merlin Carothers, please visit Foundation of Praise
Praise News ~ Merlin and Mary Carothers’ Monthly Newsletter |
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created 16 November 2007 / Page revised 16 November 2007
Acknowledgement Thank
you to Merlin for permission! Lynne Coulson 2003-2007
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