Category: Devotion of the Day

Be Your Age

That we henceforth be no more children.
Ephesians 4:14

We are to be childlike (Mt. 18:3) but not childish (Mt. 11:16). Those who pursue the study of the deeper Christian life often miss the way and become Faddists, studying it as a novelty, playing with it, like the world plays bridge. Others become Freaks, going off at tangents on “death to self” or the filling of the Spirit or some other point, making the part greater than the whole. Still others become Failures, giving up the whole thing in disillusionment.

There are not enough wholesome, healthy, normal Christians who “grow up.” We either freeze or fry, it seems. What a picture Paul paints here of saints and churches, carried about with every wind of doctrine instead of maturing in Christ! And we grow up in Him, Christ in His fullness, not in some phase or feature of His fullness however precious. How many saints, babes on milk instead of meat, need to “be their age!”

What to Do with Yourself

We had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead.
2 Corinthians 1:9

“Coming to the end of self,” a phrase much used in some circles, is not a Bible phrase, but what is meant by it is Biblical. The Scriptures speak of denying self ( Mt. 16:24), judging one’s self ( I Cor. 11:31), the crucifixion of self (Rom. 6:6; Gal. 5:24).

So few Christians ever get out of themselves into Him. They live a changed life but not the exchanged life – “Not I but Christ.” We must come to the end of our experiences, our success, our prayers, our seeking and striving, all that we can see or feel, to where our comeliness is turned to corruption and we can only cry, ‘Woe is me!” There is no liberty and victory until we cease from our own works and settle down in God.

In this day of self-exaltation the Bible teaches self-execution. Not that we execute ourselves but that we submit to the death of self by the hand of God. Paul witnessed his own execution, but there came forth a new Paul, “I live yet not I, but Christ liveth in me”.

What to do with yourself? Agree and submit to your execution!