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Ministry on Romans 7
It is ever God's way to produce a sense of need in the soul before He meets it. No sinner gets the forgiveness of his sins, for example, until, as a self-condemned offender, he is brought to feel the need of it.
It was not enough for the prodigal to be needy and hungry; before he was induced to take a single step homeward, the cry had to be wrung out of him, "I perish with hunger." And so with a new-born soul thirsting for liberty; he must not only be brought to wish for it, but be reduced to the sense of absolute helplessness, before, by the power of another, he is really and experimentally set free.
There are many true, earnest souls today who are seeking what is called a 'higher life.' No doubt what they are really seeking is the deliverance we have been speaking of, but they hope to reach it by an act of entire consecration, thus beginning altogether at the wrong end. But look at Rom. 6:13 again. We are here exhorted to yield ourselves to God as those that are alive from the dead. In other words, we do not yield to get this blessing, but because, through grace, it is ours already. We hold ourselves to be such. On the other hand, we cannot have peace and joy by the Holy Ghost in our souls unless there is unreserved surrender to the Lord. It is thus that we prove "what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God" (Rom. 12:2).
Thus must be the practical everyday exercise of our souls before God: "Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body" (2 Cor. 4:10). The more our souls are set upon this, the more shall we look forward with joy to the day when our very bodies shall be conformed like to His body of glory. Then we shall enjoy the "liberty of the glory of the children of God" (Rom. 8:21 (JND)). But now He would have us enjoy the liberty of grace. And, oh, what liberty it is!
Liberty to look away from self for everything, knowing that all God could wish for in a man He finds in Christ, and that "as he is, so are we in this world" (1 John 4:17; John 14:20).
Liberty to serve, in the constraint of loving gratitude, the blessed Deliverer Himself and His beloved saints for His sake, until the return of His Son from heaven. This is liberty indeed, dear reader. Is it yours?