A Drifter Among Us

In Colossians 2, Paul writes about a circumcision of the desires of our old self, not yet submitted. "In Him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ....And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the circumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven all our trespasses by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands, this he set aside, nailing it to the cross..."

I'm feeling the heat of conviction that I've been living my life out of the parts not yet submitted instead of walking in the redeeming grace he's ALREADY shown me. His work has been done. No acts of mine can change that or earn it. Understanding this should steer your heart to seek things from above.

*Note to self*
James,
   You want to know why you feel lame spiritually? Go to battle against the flesh. PUT ON your new self.

"Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church" -Colossians 1:24

This doesn't mean that Christ's sufferings weren't enough, Christ's sufferings are sufficient to save, but rather His people will still suffer. Paul is talking about being filled up with those sufferings that were ordained for him.

That makes me wonder: What sufferings were made for me? And why?

We take our own spiritual consecration and try to make it into a call of God, but when we get right with Him He brushes all this aside. Then He gives us a tremendous, riveting pain to fasten our attention on something that we never even dreamed could be His call for us. And for one radiant, flashing moment we see His purpose, and we say, “Here am I! Send me” (Isaiah 6:8).

This call has nothing to do with personal sanctification, but with being made broken bread and poured-out wine. Yet God can never make us into wine if we object to the fingers He chooses to use to crush us. We say, “If God would only use His own fingers, and make me broken bread and poured-out wine in a special way, then I wouldn’t object!” But when He uses someone we dislike, or some set of circumstances to which we said we would never submit, to crush us, then we object. Yet we must never try to choose the place of our own martyrdom. If we are ever going to be made into wine, we will have to be crushed—you cannot drink grapes. Grapes become wine only when they have been squeezed.

I wonder what finger and thumb God has been using to squeeze you? Have you been as hard as a marble and escaped? If you are not ripe yet, and if God had squeezed you anyway, the wine produced would have been remarkably bitter. To be a holy person means that the elements of our natural life experience the very presence of God as they are providentially broken in His service. We have to be placed into God and brought into agreement with Him before we can be broken bread in His hands. Stay right with God and let Him do as He likes, and you will find that He is producing the kind of bread and wine that will benefit His other children.

           -Oswald Chambers