Someone asked my sister how Christians could forgive those who harm them. She had a specific instance in mind and it made no sense to her. My brother thought that talking about forgiveness is easier if it is in the lap of someone else, but if the harm happened to him or one of his family, he would seek revenge.
My sister and I felt that we could not know for sure. Most Christians have little idea what Jesus will do in our hearts should something terrible happen to us. We really don’t know if we would forgive until life demands such a response. We also agreed that being able to forgive comes from the One who lives in us, not from ourselves. In the flesh, we would likely retaliate.
Today I’m reading 1 John 5. Verses 10-13 describe the essence of what it means to be a Christian and affirms our subjective witness of that reality:
He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; he who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of His Son. And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.
When Jesus Christ came into my life, He brought with Him His life. By myself, I cannot live forever, but because Jesus lives in me, I have that hope. I am in possession of His very life, but of course that life is measured by far more than its length.
The life of Christ is unique. Jesus never sinned, always obeyed God, always knew the right things to say and do and deeply cared for sinners. He also died that we might live and forgave those who crucified Him. Because He lives in me, I have the potential to be like Him.
Of course I am still me, and even though the old nature is separated from God because of sin and spiritually died on the cross with Christ, it still flops around like a chicken with its head cut off. My sinful, fleshy nature will be with me until I step into eternity. In the meantime, God gives me a choice. Will I follow it? Or Him?
After God led His people out of bondage in Egypt, Joshua challenged them to put away the gods their fathers served back in that place and serve the Lord. He said, “If it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. . . .” (Jeremiah 24:14-15). They were offered choices: serve their old religious ways and traditions, serve new religions, or serve the Lord.
Proverbs 3:5-6 say, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.” In other words, I’m challenged to choose between obeying God based on faith or following my own ideas.
As a Christian, I’m told in several places in the New Testament to “put off the old” and “put on the new” life that I have in Christ. Galatians 5 says I have been called to freedom, but never to use my freedom as opportunity to live according to the flesh. Verses 16-17 say, “Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.”
My sinful nature will always want that which is contrary to God’s will. In every instance of life, He gives me choices. Will I obey Him? Or do my own thing?
The reputation of the church suffers because too many of us do our own thing. Instead of choosing to obey God, or even consulting Him on many matters, I so easily go ahead with what seems right to me. With incredible patience, God lets me find out the hard way that what seems right to me is contrary to His will—every time.
Yet the grace of God is amazing. We have times in our lives when the Spirit of God and the power of the indwelling Christ simply shove aside any fleshy responses and we do the right thing, the godly thing. Sometimes that means we will genuinely forgive someone who harmed us, just as Christ did when we sinned against Him. On our own, this would never happen, but because of Jesus, we have a different sort of life.
My lament is that I block His life far too often with my selfishness and foolish choices, and then go through the school of hard knocks before I finally give up my way and choose His.
Christians talk about “yielding their will to the will of God” meaning they have dropped all resistance to whatever God tells them. Volition is about making a choice to go one way or another.
Serious choices are seldom made arbitrarily. Most are based on what the mind knows, or thinks it knows, or on emotions or lack of any feelings. The interaction between volition, reason and emotion has been described as three cars on a train. Where the train goes depends on the engine, or the car that we put in front. For some, it is emotion with logic, reason, or intelligence battling in second place or bringing up the rear as a mere add-on.
Others put intellect first. If they cannot figure something out or understand it, they will not go there, even if emotions tug them in that direction. Their emotions and will serve their IQ.
Christians are urged to put the will first, make a decision and let reason and feelings fall in line. Those outside the faith have accused this as abandoning our brains, being like sheep (or lemmings) who follow a track without thinking in some sort of blind commitment to the incomprehensible. In some cases, they are not far off with this assessment.
Chinese Christian Watchman Nee calls all of that the “soulish” life. He says we must not live the powers of the soul (intellect, emotions, and volition), but instead be governed by the Spirit of God through the human spirit. He defines the spirit as that inner part of humanity that is capable of connecting with God, knowing deeply the difference between godliness and sin, and being able to intuitively believe what God says, even without physical evidence.
According to Nee, who uses Scripture to make a good case for his points, the spirit of an unsaved person is dead (or separated from God) because of sin. That person cannot connect with God, does not see himself as sinful and needing godliness, and cannot believe in a God that he cannot see or experience with his mind or senses. The Bible uses the words “dead in sin” and “alive to God” speaking about the need for life in the spirit before anyone can walk with the Lord.
Nee says the soul (with its faculties of intellect, emotions, and volition) runs our life until we become subservient to our spirit, which must be made “alive” before this can happen. At salvation, we are given this new life, and combined with the power of the Holy Spirit, our spirit and our soul are both enabled to function as God intended. The mind or intellect connects with God through the spirit and His Spirit, and then can perceive the “hidden things” that God reveals to His children.
The emotions also are made alive by that same connection. A saved person is able to feel conviction of sin, joy in righteousness, burdens for things that burden God, even the very emotions of God. We can know by experience His joys and sorrows because He lives in us and intimately shares His heart with us.
As for the will, I’ve considered that no decisions are made without information. I need to have something on which to base my decision. It could be emotion (“The house is on fire — move!”) and it could be intellect (“Oatmeal is good for you — so eat it!”), yet God asks me to listen to Him. While He will not let me stay in a burning house or eat chocolate all day, He may ask me to do something that makes no sense to my reasoning. He may ask something that my emotions rise up and fight. Nevertheless, He knows more than I do, and tells me to allow Him to govern my life by His Spirit.
Proverbs 3:5-8 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and depart from evil. It will be health to your flesh, and strength to your bones.”
One more thing I notice about my will is that when I am in a place of indecision, I am still in one of my choices. For instance, this week someone asked me to make her a quilt. At that moment, I hesitated; would I or wouldn’t I? Before deciding, I considered several factors: my time, resources, the person asking and so on, but before deciding, I remained in one choice, the place I was before the option came up; I’m not doing this.
As I pondered the request, I considered things from both intellect and emotions. My intellect said “You don’t have time” and my emotions said, “But this is your mother-in-law.”
Who was going to pull this train?
I decided neither one and asked, What does God want me to do with this request? In my spirit, I knew His answer and agreed to move from my negative position to a positive response. The quilt is not made yet, but God has reasons I don’t yet understand for telling me to do it. I trust Him. Therefore, my will agrees with His will, not my reasoning or my emotions.
Nee says far too many Christians are letting their soul pull their train. We’ve done it all our lives and such habits are difficult to break. I suppose this is why He brings us to places large and small where our understanding and our emotions are in conflict. Life is a big nonstop lesson learning to quit relying on my own resources and take all decisions to Him.