Transformation is the fruit of genuine deliverance.
Posted by appolus on August 14, 2021
The great high point of my life, was my death. When I was born again I stood like Peter , James and John on the mount of transfiguration. And just like them, I mistakenly thought it was time to build something. Little did I know that quite the opposite would be true. It was time to dismantle everything. Or to say it more accurately, for everything to be dismantled. And this would take place in the depths of the valley floor, not on the top of a mountain. Chambers writes “Before sanctification we know nothing, we are simply put in the place of knowing, that is, we are led up to the cross. In sanctification, we are led through the cross.”
Can you say that you life is one of being “led through the cross?” Has it been a process of being crushed and broken in the darkness of the valley floor? Have you spent much of your life trying to scramble up unattainable mountains? Supernatural joy and likeness to our Lord comes not in the building of structures in high and beautiful places. It comes in the midst of surrender to the dismantling process in the depths of the valley of the shadow of death. And the purpose for it all is to transform us into useful servants of the most High God. We too often think of the cross as a place of deliverance, rather than a place of transformation. The transformation is indeed the fruit of our deliverance.
The cross is not the beginning of the life of Jesus, it is the culmination of it. Our transformation begins the moment that we take up our cross. Being brought to the cross is one thing, being nailed to it is quite another. Staying there is one thing when you have no power, staying there when you have the power to come down is quite another. Between the two positions lies a great gulf, on one side is life and on the other side is death. To live in Christ we must die. The mountaintop will come in good time, when He lifts us from the valley floor and takes us home. In the meantime, our business is the business of dying, its the business of the cross. Our calling is to die daily.
maus said
Staying there is one thing when you have no power, staying there when you have the power to come down is quite another. wow!