Oxymorons

James 1:20-22

20For man's anger does not promote the righteousness God [wishes and requires].
21So get rid of all uncleanness and the rampant outgrowth of wickedness, and in a humble (gentle, modest) spirit receive and welcome the Word which implanted and rooted [in your hearts] contains the power to save your souls. (and receive with meekness the engrafted word)
22But be doers of the Word [obey the message], and not merely listeners to it, betraying yourselves [into deception by reasoning contrary to the Truth].1…Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies.
2If anyone supposes that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know’.

Receiving the implanted, engrafted Word of God with meekness is a wonderful thing because therein lies the power to save my soul. Power derived from weakness? God seems to delight in such oxymorons!

I believe with all of my heart that the moment a Christian is translated out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom reality of the Father’s love and light, it was God’s intention to begin the needed and necessary 24/7 working, training and disciplining in our souls. However, this does not come without a price. We know the Lord opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. To me, this means that grace is ineffective without the necessary, crucial humbling required in our lives to bring us to see our need for Him, the grace-full One.

Many think that the various spiritual or physical maladies that seem to plague Christians exist because the believer is somehow defective. Actually, deficiency is not the issue. Defiance is the issue. This defiance (Satan in our flesh) expresses itself in the believer operating out of the knowledge of good and evil. This knowledge is Satan’s stronghold over our souls, deceiving us into believing we are doing the ‘Christian’ thing - in fact, even trying to be like Jesus, when in actuality we are not. Here’s the test - is our so-called knowledge of the Lord really transforming our souls (mind, will and emotions), or is this knowledge we possess as Christians being used to keep us self-centred, self-absorbed, divisive and derisive of other believers?

’Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart’.

I wonder how this 'meek and lowly', yet all-powerful Saviour is making Himself known to us. Maybe He will appear to be anything but kind or loving as he unveils the enemy’s lies we have believed all our lives. These are the strongholds that have kept us locked into trying to get Him to help us versus allowing Him to expand and expound upon the grace that wants to transform us, and these strongholds don't give up without a fight.

Jesus said, ‘All of you who labour and are heavy laden; come unto me, and I will give you rest’.
Is this rest some thing, or is it in fact somebody? If rest is somebody – the person of Jesus – then we need to seek Him only. The bible states that God is love and just maybe what the Lord is endeavouring to relate is this: ‘I want to give you true knowledge of my love for you, and in so doing it will allow Me to continue to set you free. Where - in your spirit? No – your spirit was already set free when my Son’s spirit was birthed within you. The freedom I want to work in you will be processed in your soul.’

Christians tend to use catch-phrases such as the following: ‘establish truth in our innermost being’, ‘reflect His likeness and image’, ‘be a self-for-others’, etc. Although these statements are good and valid, the truths resident within them will not set us free. The best we’ll have are glorious statements or correct terminology. As stated earlier, the processing occurs in our soul as we learn to submit to this discipline.

Rich