Being Made Fit for His Use

By Arthur J Licursi

We as Christians know that we have been “bought with a price,” and that our “life is not our own” (1Cor 6:19-20), to do as we please. Serious Christians will ultimately come to face the matter of their lack of expression of His life in their living. Many Christians know this and yet deny the poor expression seen in their lives; they choose to bury their heads in the sand, being satisfied with the necessary but meager portion of objective salvation from hell, while their soul remains subjectively unchanged; they walk as they always walked but now they go to church, and do random righteous acts. God, working as Father, brings others to see and face the shallowness of their true state of being, to recognize their need of being dealt with, by His loving hand – to bring them to become spontaneous expressions of Christ’s life in them. Christ’s Spirit of life actively functioning in and through our whole being, as He flows from our spirit, through a yielded soul, to rule our body, is the singular key to all proper Christian living and activity.

This is not a matter of WWJD, trying to imitate Jesus. No, we have the risen Lord, Christ Himself literally dwelling in us as our life (Gal 2:20, Col 3:4), desiring to flow through our yielded soul’s organs (mind, will and emotion), to direct our body; and thereby to touch and reconcile others to Himself. For this to happen it is necessary that our will be bent toward yielding and trusting Christ in us as our life. That bending of our soul’s will is God’s work.

Apart from Christ, as our life, nourisher of our new life, and spontaneous guide of our living, all that we do is just “so much activity.” After all the flutter of self-effort, promises, praying, seminars, conferences, and trying, there really is not much progress for Christians who is addicted to “doing,” to work at being seen as righteous. We may at times express random acts of righteousness, naturally (not sourced in Christ), but the old self-interest is still there when something comes against our self-interest? It does not take much to cross us before we may become reactionary, unreliable or inconsistent in our effort to be good, just blatantly expressing self-interested. On this track, our natural self-abilities soon run out of steam, much as the man who can hold a book up in the air for some time, but then his arms become tired and weak the book falls.

The heroic effort or acts of the natural man mean nothing to the Lord; they are as “strange fire” to the Lord. Only the doings and works that arise out of the prompting and spontaneous flow of His life in us are as acceptable offerings, pleasing to the Father. Yet, there is a realm in Christ where He may become manifest spontaneously in our living, more and more, bit by bit, day by day.

In 1Thes 5:23-24 Paul says, “God will do it” (v24), He will sanctify us completely, our “whole spirit, soul and body (v23).” Another term used in the Bible for these three parts of man’s being are; outer (or outward), inner (or inward) and innermost (in John 7:38, “belly” in KJV is the “innermost being” in NASB).

· Our outer being is our body, which still contains Sin (Rom 7:17-23, Gal 5:16).

· Our inward being is our self-soul, which is in process of being renewed (2Cor 4:16).

· Our innermost being is that of the spirit of man, which after regeneration contains and is one with the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. (1Cor 6:17, 1John 4:13)

(For further explanation and detail concerning man’s anatomy, see “The Anatomy of Man,” by the writer)

The self-soul and the body doubly hide Christ dwelling within our innermost man, our human spirit (Zechariah 12:1). He is dwelling within our outer man of the body as His temple, yet Christ dwells even deeper still than our inner man of the soul – He indwells our human spirit (1Cor 6:17, John 3:6). We can view this arrangement of body, soul and spirit, graphically, as three concentric rings inside one another. Thus, Christ must function by flowing out of our spirit, through two organs of ours (soul and body), while we live in this world, if He is to become expressed in this world through us, His body members in this day.

We struggle many, many years, knowing we ought to be different in our expression, but when situations come to us that conflict with our self-desires, we still find ourselves expressing these self-desires as we had for many years. We then say, “What is wrong with me, I just don’t seem to change.” We then have come to the place of the man in Romans 7, who did what he did not want to do, and did not do what he wanted to do. The remedy for the frustrated man of Romans 7 is seen in Romans 8; it is “the law (normal operation) Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” that is able to live the Christian life through our broken and yielded soul self. While “I” and “do” are the key words of Roans 7, we see that “Spirit” and “life” are the key words of Romans 8 – it’s no longer abut I but Him, who is our life (Col 3:4).

In Rom 8, we see the answer to the frustration of trying and failing to meet the standard we assume to be set for us. Paul first proclaims an absolutely a new paradigm for living - “no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:1), combined with “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:2a), which dwells within us, as the one who does the overcoming of sin and death.

Okay, I know Christ live in me, but still the question, “How can Christ be effective by living in and through us?” The answer is, He may only be effective and manifested through our daily living if we, as an independent soul self, are denied, set aside. We must become submitted to His indwelling life as Lord, the sole governor of our living. Our soul-self, who until now is yet active, as the god of our being, must be laid aside, yielded to Christ’s life within, to permit the Lord Himself to flow through our being in our daily living.

We may actually have come to see this matter of our independent self as the problem and then likely tried to lay aside our self as god of our living. We may vow and try to be more meek, kind, loving and serving. Yet, when the conflict comes, we find our independent self is still in charge. This situation can only be dealt with by the subjective, intimately personal working of the cross in our life. Yes, we know we were crucified (Rom 6:6, Gal 2:20) with Him and we are raised with Him, factually, in our mind’s understanding. However, it is not until we have been dealt the deathblows, which only our loving Father can execute upon us that we will simply learn live by yielding to the Lord’s life within. He then will flows through us, automatically. His will have made our soul to conform to His life within our spirit, both as life and Lord. This will bring the end of striving to be righteous, at least in that area of our life in which He has dealt the deathblow.

With the deathblow, spontaneously comes the flow of His life. Life can only come out of death. We see this in the matter of a seed, planted to die to itself, in order to bring forth fruit of the innermost life of the seed. In that case, the seed's outer skin is no longer visible, only the fruit of the seed's death is then manifested. Suffering the loss of self-rule, is a death of sorts, (death to self-rule), it is what permits the manifestation of His life to come forth. We as a our old self soul are crucified with Christ (Rom 6:6) and thereby made free for the power of indwelling sin (Rom 6:7).

Thus, we see in Romans 6:11 that Paul says, we count our self as dead … only that we might count on the outcome, which is our true self has now become alive to God. It is in living by the new life, which we have by Christ in us that our co-death with Christ is made manifest. It is in this co-operative relationship of our soul submitting to Christ in our spirit that Christ may become effective in us, in our daily living. Our broken, formerly self-strong soul is finally subdued, as we have learned to yield to His indwelling life as our life. Thus, reckon yourself alive unto God, and your death to self is then made effective. We look to Him, not to us.

Who can deal us the necessary deathblow? It is only the Father Himself. The Father is the husbandman who prunes the vineyard (John 15), that it might bear much fruit. Not only can He deal such blows, but also He will deal us the deathblows, only because we are His children, and whom He loves He chastens. Chastening is not punitive but remedial. Punishment is of a judge, chastening is of a loving Father.

Changing metaphors here, we have such a Father, who loves us so much He will not let the rich deposit of His Son’s life lie dormant within us, trapped by seed shell our self-soul. As our Father is the skillful husbandman of His vineyard, He also brings pressure to bear upon every seed. Being much the same as a seed, we possess a shell, which is typical of our soul-self. Trapped within is the “germ,” it is the precious life of the seed. As our sovereign, loving, Father orders the rain, the night’s darkness, the seasons, and the light, pressure then builds until the skin of the seed is bursts open and the life within comes forth … as life coming out of death. Apart from such pressure, the life within the seed lies dormant.

We know that Christ is the “seed” of life (Gal 3:16, 1Pet 1:23) who has come to dwell in our spirit since the moment of our regeneration. We can trust that “in season” He will come forth.

Philip. 1:6 Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:

Philip. 2:13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

Please do not read this paper and then vow to try hard to be broken or meek, to let the Lord come forth in your daily living; rather trust that His hand is already at work in your life. See through the outer difficulties and circumstances, which occur daily in the course of living, to trust His hand at work, renewing your soul to become pliable to His living hand in you, just as a hand in a glove. For this, we can but praise and thank Him – for His work in our lives. <END>