Man’s Best Intention Vs Christ’s Life

By Arthur J Licursi

Matthew 26:33-35 Peter answered and said unto him, Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended. 34Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, That this night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. 35Peter said unto him, Though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee. Likewise also said all the disciples.

Matthew 26:73-75 And after a while came unto him they that stood by, and said to Peter, Surely thou also art one of them; for thy speech bewrayeth thee. 74Then began he to curse and to swear, saying, I know not the man. And immediately the cock crew. 75And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly.

This account is a sad story but it simply portrays the situation of all well intentioned natural men (psuchikos, man of the soul). We know that Peter could not do otherwise because He was not indwelled by the Spirit of life, as yet. Even as a Christian we may live naturally, by our soulish life and self-efforts, or spiritually, that is trustingly dependent upon the indwelling Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (Rom 8:2a).

By our natural (soulish) life it is not possible for us to live in an overcoming way in the face of adversity. This fact is made abundantly clear in the account of Peter’s good intention but absolute failure in Matt 26:31-75. Here we have a picture of the arrest and judgment of Christ. This record reveals that no one can follow Christ on the pathway of the cross by the natural life. The Lord can take this pathway, but we in our natural life cannot.

Therefore, the Lord

- must die for us,

- enter into resurrection for us,

- and come to live His overcoming resurrection life in us;

- that He might live through us, as He wills.

The Lord has done a thorough job on our behalf.

· Through His blood our sins are dealt with, both now and forever, washed away.

· Through His death our fallen self-for-self old nature is crucified, dead with Him.

So our negative situation is settled. Sin and condemnation have no hold upon us; under His loving care we are free to live, by trusting Him.

· By His resurrection as the Spirit of Life, He is able to be received into us and …

Even become us (Gal 2:20, Col 1:27).

We can praise God for so great a salvation!

Our salvation is sufficient for us to live under the cover of His love, with His life in us. But as great as that is there is something more. With His life He has brought a His nature into us – the nature of the resurrected and ascended Christ.

2 Peter 1:4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

In time past we were other natured.

Ephes. 2:3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.

It is important for us to see the significance of Peter's denial. In Matt 26 the Lord Jesus and Peter stand in absolute contrast to each other. In every respect Jesus was able to pass through the pathway of the cross. But in every respect Peter was defeated in taking this pathway. All the other disciples, of course, were the same as Peter. If we see this matter clearly, we shall pay careful attention not only to Peter's denial but, even more to Christ's victory over so horrendous a situation as facing death of the cross.

We must come to know that a Christian’s best religious intention is a failure all the time, if he does not recognize and live by the indwelling life of Christ. Oh yes, some of the things we may do apart from Christ in us may look or sound good, but they are not of his life, and thus will not stand the test of adversity. I’ve long seen that it is under pressure that our back-up mode comes to the front and it is not a pretty picture at all. Most of us in ourselves under the fire of adversity then resort to being short, loud, picky, unloving toward others (even our loved ones), and even violent, while some of us may cower.

Now I must say of a truth, that adversity and failure are good in that they expose us to the truth - that we cannot live the Christian life with our best intention and best self-efforts. We must see that this failure, that is exposed by situations that the Lord permits to come our way are not to condemn us, but rather to provoke us to turn, trustingly toward the life of Christ in us, in utter dependence upon Him who has already borne us to and through the cross to give us His life. Now He will bare us to and throughout life – in both the good and the times of adversity, as we trust Him. The Apostle Paul himself wrote of the reason for adversity in his life 2 Cor. 1:9 But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead:

Thus our focus as Christians is not upon ourselves but upon His indwelling life, not upon our inability and utter helplessness to live as Jesus of Nazareth once did, but upon His who is all. So, we need not to spend time on our past with its sufferings or failures – they were needed to get us to see, receive and trust Christ, not only as Saviour but as our new, all-sufficient, life.

As I’ve written before - If we dwell on the past, He is not there; if we are anxious about the future, He is not there; for He is the “I AM,” in the very present. He is NOW, presently, our new and overcoming life.

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