STEPS TO HOLINESS Part 4

The wisdom of the fathers

STEPS TO HOLINESS Part 4

6.) Those who fully surrender to live for Christ’s purposes alone will be acknowledged by God. While God first tests our willingness to become like Jesus in all truth before He fills the temple with His glory, we can depend on Him to do what He has promised. This crown of life that He wants to share with us throughout eternity can now be revealed within our inner being in its firstfruits. This blessing comes from Him through our faith. Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. (Jam. 1:12 NIV) He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me…and I will love him and manifest Myself to him. (John 14:21)

Christ reveals Himself to those who have made a very profound and interior surrender to the unlimited will of God. It is an itemized giving up that takes place point by point. There must be a letting go of things in both the past and the future, including turning over all circumstances and plans and hopes to Him. Everything is surrendered and put on the altar of sacrifice.

The Son will reveal Himself within the vessel when it has been fully consecrated to the exclusive purpose of expressing the life and will of God. Since God knows the heart, He knows when some part of our self-life is being held back. The individual does not always recognize this inner reserve at first. It is in this sense that this full surrender generally does not take place until there has been some severe tests and the exposure that comes from the searching illumination of the Holy Spirit. It is a thousand miles beyond human logic, or the mere utterance of words. It will entail coming to God for both a revelation of the hindrances within the heart and an enablement through grace to surrender whatever He requires. God insists upon a complete abandonment to Him so He may become all in all.

(from "Heavenly Life" by George D. Watson)