The "Education" Of a Christian

In this graduation season, we Christians must come to the realization that our life on this earth is a "schoolhouse". We must all be educated in the lifestyle which is purposed for us by a loving and patient Father God.
Man, through "the fall", has put himself in the front of his own thinking with the illusion that he has to work through his problems and care for and develop himself in a lonely world.
With the remnant of this outlook carried over, the converted Christian feels that he has to struggle to reach certain standards. This brings him almost to despair, as he is unable to really be "like" Christ, even though he constantly calls for divine aid. He cannot truly love himself because, despite all his efforts, he is unable to meet the standard. Conflict is created as he loves God but rejects himself because of his inadequacy – the self whom God has loved and accepted!
So God starts a period of education in which He weans man from his self-dependence through sometimes painful experiences. Self-dependence is really an illusion – a carry-over from the primal downfall of the human spirit. What has to happen is that the Christian's false concept of himself must drastically change. He has received Life and Love at conversion, but he can no longer make life work through self effort – the keeping of laws and meeting of standards. The reason for the conflict is far from a lack of desire for the ways of God, for the most dedicated and consecrated are frequently the ones who suffer most until the newness of life in union with God by Christ living in them permeates and reshapes their thinking.
The process of conversion into the service of God can be a devastating affair, as many can testify, if carried on from the viewpoint of "my work for God." Has God gone out of business? Is He still not the Worker? Jesus said, "My Father works, and I work," meaning that God is the Worker and we are His manifesters. But we can mistakenly look upon ourselves as the ones independently doing this for God.
While God accepts man at conversion, He does not accept man's self-dependence. This has to be changed. WE MUST ENTER AN EDUCATIONAL PROCESS IN WHICH GOD LIVES IN MAN, NOT ASSISTS HIM FROM SOME REMOTE REGION.
The dreadful condition caused by the fall of man has been removed by the experience of redemption and new birth. The nature of Satan, our father, has been removed. And we have been reborn with a new Father. Union with Christ and God the Father is a fact, not an earnestly desired objective. It is Another living through me. "For me to live is Christ living," says Paul. Only God living in man is Christianity; anything else is name only.
But we must not be confused by the delay or the conflicts which arise as God puts us through this educational process. We finally learn who we are and how we function, but more often than not it requires us to pass through a long and painful period of life. But the end result is such that we cannot but ask God to hasten in us the destruction of the illusion of the independent-self.
The individual who has come to a clear realization of this new relationship and for whom the yoke has become easy and the burden light will not easily move back into a life of self-effort. A new level has been gained, the focus of life in union with Christ understood. However, a word must be said about the slips into self-trust, self-love, anger, resentment, and many other things that tend to bring us low and into the bondage of temporary remorse and guilt. Thank God, we do not live in these distortions of the true relationship. They are temporary and short-lived because we are sensitized by the Spirit so that we quickly recognize them. Our awareness of the sin quickly becomes a recognition that it is finished and powerless through Christ. The illusory independent-self is recognized again as false. No time is allowed to indulge in remorse for this independent and sinful action. Renewal is immediate upon recognition and acknowledgment of the wrong, whether thought, word or deed. The grace of God's acceptance is an immediate healing.
Should you find yourself going down a wrong street in an unguided and self-chosen excursion, remember that GOD IS NOT INACTIVE IN ALL THIS! He does not stand at the street corner where you departed and wave goodbye to you as if He could not go on the trip with you. He goes with you for the express purpose of KNOCKING YOUR FOOLISH HEAD against the wall at the end of that dead-end street. And the quicker the better, so as to get some spiritual sense into your outlook. God doesn't stand aloof and leave us to our own devices. He is the INVOLVED God, the "Hound of Heaven," as Francis Thompson depicts Him in his marvelous poem. He hurries you along to the end of your self-centered side trip, and you find that correction you need.
You are therefore educated by God to live unafraid of yourself, for God is well able to take care of your deviations. He will not and cannot gloss over them, but He is with you to bring you through in a sometimes severe, but always spiritually educating experience.
We are to live freely in the assurance that "we are His workmanship" and that "he that has begun a good work in you will perform it." We can rest assured that it is God living in us. We don't have to "find Him" or invite Him to be with us. We AFFIRM His presence – we don't wonder if He is there. As someone else has said, "I awake in the green light of His assured presence and go in that, only stopping to consider what should be done when I see that the red light has appeared." We live in the green; the red is there in case we go off beam at any point. But to live in constant apprehension of the red is a dreadful distraction and frustration. We are intended to live a full, spontaneous, and restful life, regarding the next step to be God 's will, unless He checks us. Surely God is great enough to check you effectively!
A flood of light comes to us from the words "Work out your own salvation…for it is God who works in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure" (Phil. 2:12-13). My working, therefore, is His working in me, both in the realm of willing and acting! There is nothing in life outside these two realms. Willing and doing is the ALL of life. Therefore we can live boldly in this restful assurance. There will always be a willingness to recognize when we have gotten in the way, with some attempt to help ourselves or to help God out. But we don't live in the over shadowing fear that this self-dependency is going to express itself. Some suffer from this sort of self-consciousness, thinking it is true spirituality. But it is an over-concern with our own perfection, instead of the perfection of God.
Now, at last, God has educated us in His truth. You know that you are complete in union with Christ; that you cannot, but He can; that you are weak, but He is strong; and that while you decrease daily, He increases. He will conquer though you, in your self-effort, can never conquer. In reality, all things have already been perfected through Christ's death and resurrection. All you have to do is recognize that as a fact. God has placed HIS desires in your heart. Your problems arise when you demand, rather than receive, from the Giver. You MUST be weak, and He will be strong. If you are weak, not as a dependent cry-baby, but in a vulnerable way, you will submit your life to His will and trust His love.
At last, when your education is complete, you are free but at the same time vulnerable in your world. On occasion, to trust God is difficult, but the love, protection and direction you receive when you do is worth it. It builds you up for the next time of weakness. That is the education of it all. And there is joy in knowing that the true desires of your heart have been placed there by God, and that you can act on them, depending on Him in all that you do and say.
As Saint Augustine said, "Love God! And do as you please!" It sounds like a wild idea until we understand that Christ is in us to direct our desires. He lives in our spirit which is the spiritual guidance system of our being. The only thing that can mess us up after our conversion and new birth is when we are swayed by the world, the flesh or the devil to temporarily ignore who we are in spirit. BUT CHRIST DOES NOT LEAVE! He draws us back quickly to Him.
The Christian life is not a process of getting stronger WITHIN OURSELVES TO DO THE WILL OF GOD.
Yes, the Christian life is a process of education and growth and getting stronger within our soul. But the education is only in the area of recognition and acceptance and trust in God's control of our life; trust in the power of God. We can trust our lives into God's hands every day because, by our new birth, we have already entered into intimate union with God. We are who we are in our spirit: Christ in our form. Following those desires that we recognize from our spirit will eventually lead us to the fulfillment of God's plan for our lives.
So the bottom line of the education and the graduation of a Christian is to teach us to rest in Him. THE CONFUSION OF A MIXED UP INDEPENDENCE GIVES WAY TO THE CLEAR UNDERSTANDING THAT IT IS CHRIST WHO LIVES IN, AS AND THROUGH A WHOLLY UNITED HUMAN BEING!

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