We must share some time on the subject
of identification.
Clarity here will mean so much to any
hungry heart.
And it's surprising to, when you come to
realize how many believers are not even clear
in the birth realm of justification.
You really have clarity there.
To say nothing of having any clarity in
the realization of the growth realm of identification.
And as we have mentioned before, there is
no possibility of any reality in the identification
realm, in the growth truths, unless the Christian
is firmly established in the primary birth truths
of justification and acceptance.
His acceptance with God.
The fact that he is in the Lord
Jesus Christ in a union of nature, of
birth, born into him, eternally secure in him.
This is the only basis upon which the
believer can come to reality in the deeper
truths.
There has to be the firm foundation upon
which to build.
And in our sharing these things, we must
make sure about the individual to whom we
are ministering, that that person is clear as
to his security in the Lord Jesus and
his fact that he is accepted in the
Lord Jesus.
That he knows he has the assurance of
his salvation and he's sure that he is
secure in the Lord Jesus.
Not any conditional security, but the security of
sheer grace upon what the Lord Jesus did
on his behalf and who the Lord Jesus
is in relationship to him.
The relationship of life, eternal life.
This must be settled before there is any
progress in these deeper truths.
And as the Christian is clear as to
substitution, where the Lord Jesus died on his
behalf and in his stead, paying for his
sins, then he can become clear in the
realm of identification.
But not until.
And he must not only be clear as
to the truth, but he must be conditioned
as to his everyday experience through failure, through
finding out about self, through the need being
built up in his life where he must
have the Lord Jesus as his daily life.
Who shall deliver me from this body of
death?
I thank God through Christ Jesus, my Lord.
There must be that conditioning.
And this takes a long time.
But it's worth all that one goes through
to come to the place of the cross.
And usually the believer goes through the different
attempts to come into a healthy Christian life
and walk by his own efforts.
He has to go through all that so
often before he'll come and rest in the
Lord Jesus and acknowledge that he is his
life.
He seeks to mortify himself and to win
out through self-denial, and that fails.
And then he seeks to conquer self, and
that fails.
And revivalism is not the answer.
And growth is not the only answer.
Growth is not the full answer.
Growth is only a part of the answer.
Growth is the result of the work of
the cross.
And, of course, the work of the cross
is God's answer to the problem with self.
And until the believer is finally brought to
the place where he gives up and puts
his case in the hands of the Lord
Jesus, until that time he is not going
to get God's answer.
Because it is the truth that sets us
free.
And it is specific truth that will set
us free from the dominion of the self
-life, from the power and domination and slavery
to sin.
It is the truth that has to do
with the liberating cross.
To that truth we must comply.
We must line up with that which God
has done at Calvary.
Not just general truth, but specific truth.
And this, of course, is in the realm
of identification, and mainly brought out in Romans
6.
And Paul, as you go through Romans 6,
you notice where Paul says, knowing this, and
know ye not.
And he realizes that the Christian must know
the fact before he can get the benefit
of them.
We think of Galatians 2.20, and we
often quote it and hear Christians quoting it
so often, especially at conferences.
Many Christians have Galatians 2.20 as their
life verse.
Many Christians use it and quote it, but
a few Christians, comparatively speaking, a few Christians
really know and understand what Paul is saying
in Galatians 2.20. And I think the
revised version, the RV, not the RSV, not
the revised standard version, but the revised version,
puts Galatians 2.20 very clearly, even more
clearly than the King James, where Paul says,
I have been crucified with Christ, and it
is no longer I that live, but Christ
liveth in me.
And there's a past tense, the finished work
there, I have been crucified with Christ, and
that Paul realized that he was identified with
the Savior on the cross, as is everyone
who will ever believe in him.
God placed every believer in the Lord Jesus
Christ when he was on Calvary.
And the Lord Jesus died unto sin.
He died out of the realm of sin
when he died on the cross.
He was made to be sin, our sin.
He was made to be sin for us.
And the wages of sin is death.
And the Lord Jesus died and went down
into death and took sin with him and
paid the penalty because he had no sin
of his own.
And then he was free to rise out
of death.
Death could not hold him.
The wages of sin is death, but he
was not a sinner.
So he was free to come up out
of death onto resurrection ground and ascend up
into, back up into glory, as a man,
as the man Christ Jesus, as God the
Son, the Son of Man.
And he's there at this very moment on
the right hand of the Father with his
nail-pierced hands and feet.
And he will forever be in that glorified
body that identifies him as our Savior.
He eternally identified himself with us.
And we are eternally identified with him.
And when the Lord Jesus died on the
cross and went down into death, he did
not only do this to pay for our
sins, but he took the sinner.
Every sinner who would ever believe upon him,
trust him, was identified with him at that
moment.
And every Christian was taken down into death
in the Lord Jesus Christ.
I have been crucified with him.
And now our Christian life is the life
of the Lord Jesus Christ, Christ who is
our life.
It is no longer I that live a
Christian life, but Christ liveth in me.
And then in 2 Timothy 2, Paul says
that it's a faithful saying, for if we
be dead with him, we shall also live
with him.
It doesn't say if we be dying with
him.
It's not a progressive thing.
It's something that happened at Calvary, a finished
work.
If we be dead with him, since we
are dead with him, we shall also live
with him.
In 1 Peter 2, we being dead to
sins shall live unto righteousness.
And then of course, Romans 6, 6, knowing
this, that our old man was crucified with
him.
And this is where we were identified with
him, in his death.
This we will cover more thoroughly when we
come to Romans 6.
But this is the truth of identification.
These are the facts.
This is the doctrine.
This is what the Word sets forth, that
when the Lord Jesus Christ died, we died.
When he was buried, we were buried.
When he rose, we rose.
If any man be in Christ, he is
a new creation.
Old things are passed away in death.
Behold, all things are become new.
That's our position.
And as we grow, that position becomes more
and more fully our condition, our everyday life.
That the old things pass away because they
already did pass away in the finished work
of the cross.
And we receive that benefit day by day
as we grow.
Old things are passed away.
Behold, all things are become new.
Positionally, all things are new.
We are new creations in Christ Jesus.
But we experience this.
We grow in this day by day, a
bit at a time, all being drawn from
the finished work, alive unto God in Christ.
That's the progression.
That's the growth.
But as to the position, the facts, it's
already completed.
We already are dead in Christ.
We already are alive in Christ, completely.
First we see the facts.
First we are established in the truth, in
the doctrine.
And then as we see the doctrine and
as we trust Him about it and believe
these facts, the Holy Spirit begins to apply
this finished work of death to the old
and life in the new.
Hence we grow, not I, but Christ.
When God's light first shines in our heart,
our eyes for forgiveness, for we realize that
we have committed sins before Him.
But once we have known forgiveness of sins,
we make a new discovery, the discovery of
the principle of sin.
And we realize that we have the nature
of a sinner, even as Christians.
There is an inward inclination to sin.
And this is what the young convert begins
to find out after a time, after a
while, sometime after he's saved.
There is an inward inclination to sin, even
though he is a Christian.
There is a power within that draws us
to sin.
And when that power breaks out, we commit
sins.
We may seek and receive forgiveness, but then
we sin again.
And life goes on in a vicious circle,
sinning and being forgiven, but then sinning again.
That's the up-and-down life of the
defeated Christian.
We appreciate God's forgiveness, but we want something
more than that.
We want deliverance.
We need forgiveness from what we have done,
but we need deliverance from what we are.
And that's what God is showing the believer,
what he is in himself, so that when
the believer sees how sinful he is in
himself, he begins to long for deliverance.
And after he struggles for a long, long
time, seeking to get deliverance in his own
strength and by different means, finally he comes
to the place to see that he's already
been delivered at Calvary.
And he begins to come back to the
basis and the principle of faith, not of
effort and struggle.
And the principle, as we have, the same
way we became saved by having faith in
the finished work, we are to grow by
having faith in this new finished work that
we see, that we were freed from the
power of sin at Calvary through death.
And we're to reckon, we're to count ourselves
dead indeed unto sin, because we see that
we did die unto sin in Christ.
We see it in the Word.
And we're only counting upon that which we
see.
It isn't a matter of reckoning we are
hard seeking to make it come to pass.
It's simply resting in the fact that we
see has already come to pass.
And then we begin to receive the benefit
in our daily walk of the finished work.
We need forgiveness from what we have done,
but we need deliverance from what we are.
And this truth needs revealing today.
It's far too little known identification.
The Reformation restored the truths of a new
birth, the birth truths by faith alone, but
the Reformation failed to go on to the
deliverance truths, to the growth truths, for everyday
life and growth.
The Reformation did not bring these truths out
that are necessary for growth.
And if you know this about the present
-day Reformation churches and the Lutheran churches and
all, there's very little...
As a matter of fact, today there's very
little salvation and justification in them amongst the
members.
But even so, there's very little hunger for
growth.
There's very little separation.
There just isn't the truth there for this.
The Reformation didn't go that far.
But what sort of a salvation would it
be if our Father had simply saved us
from the penalty of our sins and then
left us on our own to deal with
the power of sin in our Christian life
and walk?
What type of...
That wouldn't be much of a salvation.
But the trouble is today that many Christians
feel that's about all God did.
They know they're saved and they know they're
going to go to heaven.
And any of them who are the least
bit concerned about their Christian life, they feel
that they have to struggle and carry on
with all the efforts that they can muster
to live the Christian life and to seek
to get away from the influence of self.
And they never have been shown that God
took care of that, too, at Calvary.
And that is what is needed today, a
more thorough revelation of these identification facts, that
the truth should be revealed beyond Romans 1,
2, 3, 4.
They must be revealed as they're set forth
in 6, 7, and 8.
Because this is the only realm of truth
that liberates, that frees the Christian to really
live in the Lord Jesus Christ.
We are not left to deal with the
old life ourselves.
It has been dealt with by Christ on
the cross.
Calvary is the foundation of sanctification as well
as justification.
But until a Christian sees this, he's going
to struggle.
He's either going to struggle or he's not
going to do anything.
He's simply going to vegetate.
And he's going to be nothing but a
nothing.
And, of course, simply revealing the truth is
not the answer.
It's only half the answer, because the other
half of the answer has to be that
the Christian is cultivated and conditioned to want
these truths, to want to enter into them,
that he must have the need.
The truth sets free when the Christian realizes
that he's a slave, that he needs the
freedom desperately.
Then he's going to apply to the liberating
truths.
He's going to find out about them.
He's going to be open to them, but
not until.
And the thing that is going on amongst
Christians today is that the conscientious ones are
simply aware of their sins, and they're confessing
their sins, 1 John 1, 9, being cleansed,
and they're seeking to get along on this
basis.
But yet, after a time, they just can't
keep up with things, and the sins just
sort of stockpile, pile up in their lives,
and cut off their fellowship with the Father.
And they just become overwhelmed, and sometimes they
just give up, and utterly defeated, because they
have not been shown how to get at
the source of sin itself, where these sins
spring from.
They have not been shown the identification truths,
where the cross, the sinner, has already been
dealt with at Calvary.
And so many Christians feel, well, this Romans
6 is extremely difficult.
I just can't get anywhere with it.
That is, many of the Christians who realize
that there is such a realm as Romans
6, many Christians today don't even know that
Romans 6 is in their Bible.
They don't even realize that there is such
a thing in the Word of God.
But some Christians, many Christians who are aware,
feel that it's just futile.
They just can't get anywhere with these deeper
truths.
They're just too deep for me, you see.
But they're extremely simple, once the heart is
prepared.
And God has taught the Christian the principle
at the very outset, that when he was
saved, he saw that the Lord Jesus Christ
was his substitute, that he had done all
the work for him to pay for his
sins, and he put his faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ, and he entered into that
finished work, and he received the benefit of
it, that he knew he was saved, and
that his sins were paid for.
So he knew what to do about the
cross, and about the work of the cross,
and the one who did it.
He entered into the finished work.
Well, when the Christian is struggling, and he
begins to become aware of his need to
be freed from the dominion of sin, the
power of self, he is again shown the
work of the cross, where the Lord Jesus
Christ died out of the realm of sin,
and took the sinner with him, down into
death, and then the Christian rose in Christ,
the new creation, that the Lord Jesus was
not only his substitute, but now he is
his representative, and that the Christian was identified
with him personally, intimately, and not just objective
substitution, but subjective representation, that he was there
in Christ when it happened, when the Lord
Jesus died out of the realm of sin.
And as he begins to see that, and
realize that, that he did die in the
Lord Jesus, and that he is risen in
the Lord Jesus, then he begins to rest
in that truth, and he begins to count
upon that fact.
And as he does, the Holy Spirit begins
to give him the benefit of that finished
work, that the Holy Spirit brings the death
of Calvary into the Christian's life, and begins
to apply that finished work of death to
the old life, and holds it in the
place of death, as he counts it true,
as the Christian counts it true.
And he experiences more and more freedom from
the dominion of self and sin, and he
experiences more and more the rest in the
Lord Jesus, and the fact that the Lord
Jesus is living in and through him, and
he is beginning to experience Galatians 2.20.
As our substitute, the Lord Jesus went to
the cross alone without us to pay the
penalty of our sins as our representative.
And as our representative, he took us with
him to the cross.
And there, in the sight of God, we
all died together with him.
We may be forgiven because he died in
our stead.
We may be delivered because we died with
him.
God's way of deliverance for us, the race
of hopeless and curable, is to put us
away in the cross of his Son, and
then to make a new beginning by recreating
us in union with him, the risen, living
Lord Jesus Christ.
For ye are dead, and your life is
hid with Christ in God.
If any man be in Christ, he is
a new creation.
Old things are passed away.
Behold, all things are become new.
And that we must see.
That is what brings the reality of these
truths into our daily walk, that we see
the truth and we begin to stand upon
the truth.
It becomes our attitude.
Yes, Lord, I realize and I see that
when the Lord Jesus died unto sin, out
of the realm of sin, that thou had
identified me with him.
Thou didst place me in him.
And that when he died, I died.
I see that, Father.
And that becomes our set attitude as we
do see it.
And we do count ourselves dead indeed unto
sin, but alive unto God in Christ.
And we do.
This is a basis for our abiding in
him, the risen Lord Jesus.
We see it, and it becomes our fixed
attitude.
We reckon it just as definitely and count
upon it just as definitely as we did
for the payment of our sins when we
got saved.
This is the same thing, the same principle,
trusting in his finished work.
And it's on this basis that we begin
really to grow, that it's not I but
Christ more and more definitely, that we present
ourselves to him as those that are alive
from the dead, our basis for consecration, those
who are risen in the Lord Jesus, that
we see ourselves in Christ risen.
That's our position.
Our citizenship is in heaven.
That's where we abide, in him.
That's the basis for growth.
That's the basis for a progressive liberation from
the law of sin and death and the
dominion, domination of self, slavery to self.
And this thought, this truth of Romans 6
.6 shows so clearly our identification with him.
Knowing this, there is that word knowing, knowing
this, that our old man was crucified with
him, that the body of sin might be
destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
And of course that word destroyed in the
Greek means to render inoperative, to put out
of action.
And as we see this fact that we
were crucified with him, the Holy Spirit begins
to progressively put the old life out of
action so that we do not have to
serve sin, that we're free from the domination
of sin more and more fully.
And there's no other way for us to
get free from the self-life and from
the law of sin.
No other way than applying to the truth
of the cross, seeing it and applying to
it, of appropriating it, of counting it so.
And the reason there's no other way is
because this is the way that God did
it.
And he did it 2,000 years ago
in the Lord Jesus Christ when he was
crucified.
It's all done and it's ours now to
believe as we see it.
And we can't really believe a thing until
we understand it and know it.
And there comes our knowledge again, know ye
not, that we have to study, that we
have to be shown by the Spirit what
happened to us at Calvary.
And this is a wonderful fact here, a
very true, that the flesh will only yield
to the cross.
And the reason for that is that the
cross is the victory over sin and self.
There is where the completed work was done.
The flesh will only yield to the cross,
not to all the resolutions we may make
at a conference, not to any self-effort,
not to any attempted self-crucifixion, only co
-crucifixion, crucified together with Christ.
And it doesn't mean present-day crucifixion.
It means a past-tense completed crucifixion at
Calvary, crucified together with him, that we're looking
back and trusting in something that already happened.
We're relying upon a finished work.
Only will the self yield to co-crucifixion,
crucified together with Christ.
So that I begin to realize that death
separates me from the old life, the death
that I went through at Calvary.
We are to see that gap between the
new life and the old.
As we abide in the Lord Jesus, we
can be confident that the tomb that we
went down into with the Lord Jesus now
separates us from the old life and its
domination.
And as we count upon that death, we
progressively get the benefit of it, that death
separates.
Death is the great and final separation.
And as we abide in the Lord Jesus
and count ourselves alive unto God in him,
that death takes hold of the old life
and holds it in the place of death.
Puts it out of action.
Holds it inoperative.
And we're free to live in the Lord
Jesus.
And he's free to manifest himself in and
through us.
And this is the result of the identification
truths.
This is the benefit we derive from them
as we rest in them.
And we only rest in that which we
see and understand.
So there can be no results until we
really see these truths and are brought into
them.
Many Christians seek to rush into Romans 6
just to get the benefit of what they
hear about it.
And they're not ready at all.
They're not prepared.
And they do not get the results.
And they reckon and reckon with all their
might and nothing happens.
And so they cry as well.
There's nothing to it.
It isn't true after all.
And Romans 6 doesn't work for me.
And there's a common cry because the heart
was not prepared.
They did not really know the facts.
And therefore they were unable to rest in
them and get the benefit of them.
Because we're not only saved by faith, but
we are to live and walk and to
stand by faith, faith in a finished work.
And we cannot exercise faith in that which
we're not sure of, that which we do
not see.
So knowledge comes first.
And then the exercise of belief and faith.
The flesh will only yield to the cross.
We see in Romans 6, 3, baptized into
his death.
Well, that is a spiritual baptism that when
we were placed in the Lord Jesus, we
were immersed in him, we were placed in
him, baptized into him.
Why, naturally, when he died, we died.
We were baptized into his death.
It's the same meaning as in 1 Corinthians
12, 13, where the Holy Spirit baptized every
believer into the body of Christ.
We were baptized into his body by the
Holy Spirit.
We're placed in the body of Christ.
We became members of his body, placed in
him.
It's a spiritual baptism.
Water baptism is only a picture of this
spiritual baptism, this finished work, this truth.
Water baptism is depicting it, typifying it.
It is not the baptism itself.
And then we see in Romans 6, 4,
buried with him, with him.
We were taken down into the tomb.
And Romans 6, 5, the progression.
For if we have been planted together in
the likeness of his death, we shall be
also in the likeness of his resurrection.
And we see that also in Colossians 3,
3.
For ye are dead, and your life is
hid with Christ in God.
It's not only resurrection, but it's ascension.
And that the Christian is alive unto God
in the risen Lord Jesus.
And we're seated in heavenly places in Christ.
That is our position.
That's the source of our life, the Lord
Jesus himself.
I often think of this poem that has
to do with identification.
It's called, "'Tis Not Enough."
My God shall sin its power maintain, and
in my soul defiant live.
"'Tis not enough that thou forgive.
The cross must rise and self be slain.
O God of love, thy love declare.
"'Tis not enough that Christ should die.
I too with him in death must lie,
and in my death his anguish share.
O God of love, thy power disclose.
"'Tis not enough that Christ should rise.
I too must seek the brightening skies and
rise from death as Christ arose.
And from the cross and to the grave
descend.
And when the morning breaks to live anew,
the soul awakes that sin nor death shall
e'er enslave.
The cross is love, the Christ's and mine.
"'Tis life to die and death to live.
And not enough that God forgive if I
would live the life divine."
And that's what happens to the Christian.
He rejoices at first that he's forgiven.
That's established.
He comes to know that.
That he's clear before God and sure of
heaven.
And he rejoices in that fact.
But God does not allow the Christian to
stay there on simply the birth truths of
justification.
He brings him on through daily processing that
the Christian doesn't reject the birth truths, but
he seeks to go on from them.
On the basis of justification, he realizes he
must go on into the realm of sanctification,
in the realm of identification.
And the birth truths were not meant to
satisfy.
They're not meant for life.
They're meant for the beginning, not for growth.
But many Christians are staying right at their
birth, in their birth realm, and they're wondering
why they don't grow.
And they're seeking to grow on the basis
of justification.
And that's not possible.
So we come to realize that just being
saved is not enough.
It's enough to get to heaven, yes.
But that heaven is actually wonderful as heaven
is.
It's really, well, it's an extra when you
come to think of the importance of growing
in the Lord Jesus Christ and being used
of him here and now.
Christian growth, Christian development, Christian maturity, Christian service.
And the emphasis in the Christian's heart changes
from being thoroughly satisfied that he's saved.
He becomes dissatisfied with his condition.
And he sort of sets heaven aside.
That can wait.
Now the business at hand is to grow
and to become more like the Lord Jesus
Christ, to enter into God's purpose for him.
And his burden becomes growth now.
He doesn't leave his basis of birth and
the fact that he's going to heaven, but
there's more.
And now he becomes burdened and interested and
eager about his development in the Lord Jesus
Christ, day by day.
And as his hunger increases, as he is
conditioned and prepared, he becomes willing and ready
for all that is involved in daily Christian
growth.
That self must be dealt with, that self
must be taken more and more fully out
of the picture, that the center of the
Christian's life is not self, but it is
to be the Lord Jesus Christ.
But of course self just doesn't lie down
and die.
That isn't the nature of self.
The nature of self is to be self
-centered and to be the center of attraction
and to be the main force in everything.
That's the nature of self, selfishness.
So that the Christian comes to find out
how exceedingly strong and dominating that self and
sin are.
And he finds out that even though he's
a Christian, born again, he just can't do
anything, can't handle the situation.
He can't do anything with self.
The more he tries, the worse he gets.
And this drives him to God's answer to
self, the one and only answer.
This takes him back to Calvary.
This takes him back to Calvary, not the
Calvary of substitution and justification.
It takes him back to Calvary of identification.
And there's where he begins to see what
happened to him at Calvary, not only his
sins.
And since he is now concerned about himself,
he realizes that what an enemy self is,
and now he's in condition, and now he's
ready to see this further truth that is
contained in Calvary.
And the wonderful thing is that God himself
brings the Christian to that.
That we cannot do it ourselves, we will
not do it ourselves, since the law of
the natural life is self-preservation.
The Christian is not going to crucify himself,
he's not going to want to be crucified,
without God conditioning him to the extent that
he begins to hate his life and he
becomes willing.
That he longs so deeply for the Lord
Jesus that he's willing, no matter what it
costs, that he wants the Lord Jesus Christ
in his daily life.
And this is the realm of identification.
Closed, absolutely closed to the unprepared heart, and
it's sheer mercy, sheer mercy that God opens
it up to us.
There's this thought by Austin Sparks in The
Christian's Development, where he says, the first phase
of our spiritual experience may be a great
and overflowing joy with a marvelous sense of
emancipation.
And that's when we're first saved.
Oh my, things are all brand new, and
we've entered a wonderful new life.
And in this phase, extravagant things are often
said as to total deliverance and final victory.
And we feel that the battle is all
over, and now we're born again, and now
everything is going to be simple and easy.
Oh, I know how I felt.
I felt that way.
All my problems taken care of.
Brand new life.
No more drunkenness.
No more cursing and carousing around.
No more of the emptiness of life and
the futility of it all.
But now there is fullness of life and
joy in the Lord Jesus.
Now everything is taken care of in the
most wonderful way.
Well, this is an earnest that God gives
us.
An earnest of the ultimate is often given
with the incoming of the Holy Spirit when
we're born again.
He gives us a taste of the life
ahead.
We at the time think that we have
arrived.
This is it.
But no, it's a taste.
He gives us a vision of it, a
realization of it to the extent that we
hunger for it.
Nothing else will satisfy.
And this is needed so that when He
takes us down into the processing that is
necessary to bring us into this victory into
the life of the Lord Jesus in our
daily walk, when He takes us down into
death to bring this about, our taste of
the life and our realization of it will
hold us firm.
That we won't give up.
That we're so eager for it and hungry
for it that we won't allow anything to
turn us from it.
And we're willing to go through anything to
be brought into it.
So He gives us tastes from time to
time of what lies ahead.
And often there's a testimony.
Well, now I have this or that and
I've entered into this or that.
That might just be the taste and then
it'll disappear while we're taken down into the
process that brings reality.
So we must be careful about our free
-handed testimony at times and to wait until
we truly have entered in and been brought
in.
It's the same way when a Christian begins
to see the facts of Calvary and the
identification truths and he experiences a great deal
of liberty and freedom and the wonderful release
from the power of sin.
And he testifies, he says, now I'm out
of Romans 7 forever and I'm walking in
Romans 8.
But it isn't long when God takes him
down into the process to make this real
in his life.
Then the testimony fades and the Christian has
to back off somewhat from what he's been
claiming.
But that was the taste and the earnest
of what is his in the Lord Jesus
and what the process will bring him to,
ultimately.
Then there may and often does come a
phase of which inward conflict is the chief
feature.
It may be very much the Romans 7
experience.
This will lead under the Lord's hand to
the fuller knowledge of the meaning of identification
with Christ as in Romans 6.
Happy the man who has been instructed in
this from the beginning.
Yes, the sooner we are able to see
the truths of identification, the better.
Because then we'll hold still and we'll have
this goal and we'll have the realization that
this is what God is seeking and working
and processing to bring us into.
And we'll be able to trust him and
hold still.
That's why it's so important to begin to
see the truths of identification.
That we can cooperate with him and rest
in him while he works him into our
lives through his daily processing.
We which live are always delivered unto death
for Jesus' sake.
That the life also of Jesus might ultimately
be manifest in our mortal flesh as we
grow.
Less and less of self, more and more
of Christ.
Not I, but Christ.
So as we see these truths, we must
be willing to wait his time and his
way for him to bring us into them.
That they might become an integral part of
our daily walk.
Patience is needed.
And trust and rest and time.
Our Father, we thank thee for thy word
today.
All of these wonderful truths and promises that
thou hast set forth so clearly.
And each of us waits upon thee as
thou dost give us these truths, as these
truths take hold of us and become real
in our walk, in our experience day by
day as we grow.
We just trust thee about all this.
In Jesus' name, amen.