Sacrifice the Natural!

6/3/2001

If God has altered our disposition and filled us with Himself, where is the need of discipline? Why is “self-discipline” a fruit of the Spirit, and why does Father “discipline those whom He loves”? Why does “sin so easily beset,” and why must we “beat our bodies and make them our slaves,” and “offer the parts of our bodies as instruments of Righteousness” while “the Spirit and flesh wage war with one another”? Why would we need to “cut off our hand if it causes us to sin”???!!! And yet in these verses, our Lord speaks of what we must call, if we are honest, very stern self-discipline—even to the cutting off of the right hand and gouging out of the eye. Don’t attempt to convince yourself that these Scriptures and Teachings of the Master do not apply to us “on this side of Grace.” The Lord was not mistaken! The reason for the need of discipline is that the body has often been used by the wrong disposition, by the flesh—and when the new disposition, the Spirit is put in, the old physical case is not taken away. It is left there for me to discipline and turn into an obedient servant to the new disposition (see Rom. 6:19).

“If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.” What does that mean? It means absolute, unflinching sternness in dealing with the right things in yourself that are not the best. “The good is the enemy of the best” in everyone. Not the bad, but the good that is not good enough. Your right hand is not a bad thing; it is one of the best things you have, but Jesus says if it causes you to sin in developing your spiritual life and hinders you in following His precepts, cut it off and cast it from you.

Jesus Christ spoke rugged truth. He was never ambiguous. And He says it is better to be maimed than damned, better to enter into life lame in human sight and lovely in God’s than to be lovely in human sight and lame in God’s. (It is a maimed life to begin with, such as Jesus describes in these verses; otherwise we may look all the right in the sight of other people, but be remarkably twisted and wrong in the sight of God.) To repeat, Jesus the Christ says it is better to be maimed than damned. And likewise, it is better to enter into life LAME IN HUMAN SIGHT and lovely in God’s—than to be lovely in human sight and lame in God’s.

One of the principles of our Lord’s teaching that we are slow to grasp is that the only basis of the spiritual is the SACRIFICE OF THE NATURAL. The natural life is neither moral nor immoral. I make it moral or immoral by my choices—what I allow to rule my mind, my emotions, my affections and friendships, my eyes, my desires and dreams and ambitions. Jesus teaches that THE NATURAL LIFE IS MEANT FOR SACRIFICE. We can give it as a gift to God, which is THE ONLY WAY TO MAKE IT SPIRITUAL (see Rom. 12:1-2). That is where Adam failed: he refused to sacrifice the natural life and make it Spiritual by obeying God’s voice. Consequently, he sinned the sin of taking his right to himself. If you are going to be spiritual, you must barter or trade the natural for the Spiritual; sacrifice it. If you say, “I do not want to sacrifice the natural for the spiritual,” then Jesus says you must sacrifice and lose the spiritual. It is not punishment, but an eternal principle.

This line of discipline is the sternest that ever struck humankind. There is nothing more heroic or grander than True Christian life. Spirituality is not a sweet tendency towards piety in people who have not enough life in them to be bad; Spirituality is the possession of the Life of God that is mighty in its strength, and He will make Spiritual the most corrupt, twisted, sin-stained life if He be obeyed. Obedience is strong and fierce, and the man or woman who is going to be obedient for Jesus Christ’s sake has a gloriously sterling Life ahead.

When Jesus Christ has miraculously altered our disposition by enduing us with His very Life, one still must bring the body into harmony with the new disposition of God within and “a New Creation.” We must now yield to Him, His Ways, His Voice in order to explore and experience the Fullness of “this New Life”—“Rivers of Alive Water.” We may now cause our minds to Live IN Him, rather than FOR Him, simply. It is now available to us that we may yield our hearts and minds and bodies to His Invasion of Love and Liberty. This is the Freedom to LIVE, not a burden to bear. His Ways are Right, and His Outcome sound and full! In so yielding the natural and crucifying what the world (and even the mere religious) finds acceptable—we may “exercise” the new disposition “unto godliness.” Trust the Messiah: this can only be done by stern discipline. “If even your right hand”—your good hand that is used for much valuable—will not submit, it is better to appear foolish and ugly to the world than to suffer their fate or lose your Highest Destiny. This discipline the Lord speaks of so vigorously will mean cutting off a great many things for the sake of one’s spiritual life. When we live this way, so unlike human logic and worldly love, the world that knows us says, “How absurd you are to cut off that hand—whatever is wrong with a right hand?”—and they will call us fanatics and cranks. IF ONE HAS NEVER BEEN A CRANK OR FANATIC, IT IS A PRETTY SURE SIGN THAT ONE HAS NEVER BEGUN SERIOUSLY TO CONSIDER TRUE LIFE. Why engage in pretense on this point? God knows, and we are robbing ourselves alone if we will not sacrifice the natural, even the “good” for Him.

Jesus says we must be prepared to be limited fools in the sight of others in order to further our spiritual characters. If we are willing to give up wrong things only for Jesus Christ, never let us talk about being in love with Him. We say, “Why shouldn’t I? There is no harm in it.” For pity’s sake, go and do it, but remember that the construction of a spiritual character is doomed when we take that line. Anyone will give up wrong things if he or she knows how, but are we prepared to give up the best we have for Jesus Christ? The only right Christians have—is the right to give up our rights.

May God help me, and may He help you to see and respond to Him in the specific and practical and observable ways that He will soon whisper to us.

OzzieC/mp