Assist, or Enable

[netchaplain]

I have taken this article from the book, “The Complete Green Letters,” compiled by Miles J Stanford. It’s from the chapter titled “Help,” page 65. The article is based on the premise that man cannot ask God to help him with anything related to His godly virtues; it’s not like man can do anything to produce any type of power of God—it’s all Him empowering and using the believer.

“God didn’t help us to be saved, and He doesn’t intend to help us live the Christian life.” “The Christian life is not our living a life like Christ, or our trying to be Christ-like, nor is it Christ giving us the power to live a life like His (mimic); but it is Christ Himself living His own life through us; “no longer I, but Christ.“ -MJS

We can live like Christ lived, but we cannot live Christ’s Life, because He “is our life” (Col 3:4). He must live it through the believer.

“Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ” (1Co 11:1). We follow Paul in following the Lord Jesus!

Assist, or Enable ​

Can our receiving power from God to live the Christian life constitute Him helping us? No! To assume He is helping us would be to presume that we have a part in effecting some power. Once we understand that we can do nothing but receive, we will be awakened more to the application of the process of all of God’s blessings, especially concerning growth and the strengthening of our faith. If one has a difficulty comprehending this teaching it will have of course no effect on one’s salvation, it only effects the maturity in one’s faith, as all spiritual growth truths do; and faith can only be strengthened, never decreasing from its present level of maturity. Just think of it, the saved being empowered to reach all who are in “the Lamb’s Book of Life” (Rev 21:27); and all who should be saved will be saved.

J E Conant (1866-1955): “Christian living is not our living with Christ’s help, it is Christ living His life in us. Therefore that portion of our lives that is not His living is not Christian living; and that portion of our service that is not His doing is not Christian service (though there will always be times of unintentional sin - Num 15:30; Heb 10:26—NC); for all such life and service have a supernatural and spiritual source.”

William R Newell: (1868- 1956): “Satan’s great device is to drive earnest souls back to beseeching God for what He says has already been done”! Stanford writes, “God could never answer a prayer for help in the matter of justification. The same principle holds true for the Christian life” (though God doesn’t answer according to our way, He guides and enables us how to respond His way—NC).

A W Tozer (1897-1963): “We are forever asking God to do things that He has already done.” We plead for Him to speak when He has already spoken and is at this very moment speaking (God is always working to communicate with us—NC). We ask Him to come when He is already present and waiting for us to recognize Him.”

Watchman Nee (1903- 1972): “God sets us free from the “dominion” of sin, not by strengthening our “old man” (sin nature—NC), but by crucifying him (Ro 6:6); not by helping him to do anything but by removing him from the scene of action” (the old man remains on the Cross concerning believers, and is restrained from causing them to desire sin. Causing one to desire sin is where its dominion lies, because the heart is where our treasure lies (Luk 12:34—NC).

S D Gordon (1859–1936): “When you are in the thick of the fight . . . plead less and claim more.” I do not mean ask God to give you victory, but claim His victory.”

Andrew Murray (1828–1917): “”Even though it is slow, and with many a stumble (Jas 3:2), the faith that always thanks Him—not for experiences, but for the promises on which it can rely—goes on “from strength to strength” (Psa 84:7), still increasing in the blessed assurance that God Himself will perfect His work is us (there is not a single one reborn that will not be made perfect - Phl 1:6; Heb 12:23—NC).

 

[Tenchi]

I have taken this article from the book, “The Complete Green Letters,” compiled by Miles J Stanford.

In some twenty years of posting on Christian forums, you are the first I've encountered who knows about - let alone quotes - Miles J. Stanford. My dad gave me the "Complete Green Letters" when I was in my late teens and it has been profoundly spiritually-formative, for me. Wow. Really cool to see someone else citing his writing!

I don't subscribe to Stanford's Calvinism, but this hasn't meant that I've had to discard his writings. When they don't venture too far into Calvinist doctrine, his thoughts are excellent and much in the vein of the Keswick stuff that has fallen out of fashion among modern, evangelical Christians. I've recommended and distributed the abridged "Green Letters" to many young men over the last three decades.

The mistake of asking God for spiritual help, addressed in the quotation above from Stanford, I have often preached and taught to folks - as recently as three weeks ago. Good stuff!

I've often posted similar stuff in the Bible Study subforum on this site:

Bible Study - God Is Our Power Source.

1 Corinthians 1:7-9 7 so that you are not lacking in any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, 8 who will also confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus...

christianforums.net

 

[netchaplain]

In some twenty years of posting on Christian forums, you are the first I've encountered who knows about - let alone quotes - Miles J. Stanford. My dad gave me the "Complete Green Letters" when I was in my late teens and it has been profoundly spiritually-formative, for me. Wow. Really cool to see someone else citing his writing!

Hi, and appreciate your reply! Miles had much input to share from his personal teachings, but the majority of his books were his gleanings from many different Plymouth Brethren writings (1600-1800s), who specialized in spiritual growth, which were primarily derived from the Pauline Epistles (Romans-Philemon).

 

[Tenchi]

“God didn’t help us to be saved, and He doesn’t intend to help us live the Christian life.” “The Christian life is not our living a life like Christ, or our trying to be Christ-like, nor is it Christ giving us the power to live a life like His (mimic); but it is Christ Himself living His own life through us; “no longer I, but Christ.“ -MJS

I'm not sure why more evangelical Christians in North America don't understand this but their widespread ignorance of this spiritual reality has produced profound spiritual juvenility and weakness in the Church in North America. In place of the life and power of the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:9), working powerfully in and through born-again believers, there are just millions of Christians who think they must manufacture from their own human resources their best version of what it is to be like Christ.

Conduits, not Copyists.

Isaiah 64:8

substack.com

And the results are a disaster, spiritually. Though spiritual teachers and teaching resources have proliferated explosively in the North American Church over the last thirty years or so, I've observed a corresponding massive degeneration of the spiritual condition of the Church.

Mostly, I think it's because the teaching of God's people in North America has become an industry and the Christian faith merely a product to be consumed. Largely through Rick Warren's "seeker-sensitive" approach to "doing church," a business-minded, empire-building, give-them-what-they-want consumerist attitude has dominated North American, Protestant evangelicalism. Under Warren's tutelage and example, many churches - or, at least, their pastors - now aspire to "mega" status and feel they've failed if they don't achieve it. The "butts in the seats" preoccupation of men seeking mega-church fame and power drives the churches over which they rule into practices of industry - merchandising, infrastructure, and profit - only ostensibly seeking to convert souls and nurture them in their walk with God.

In actuality, many - if not most - modern evangelical, Protestant churches in North America seek customers, not genuine converts. But since narrow is the Way and few there are who find it (Matthew 7:14), looking for a big (which is to say, lucrative) customer base won't be found among those in the Way. No, as Rick Warren has demonstrated, the money, and notoriety, and influence is found among the "seekers," among those who don't know Christ as their Savior and have no particular interest in yielding themselves to him as their Lord. Though the "leaven" they introduce into the Church "leavens the whole lump" (1 Corinthians 5:6; Galatians 5:9), "seekers" - the God-hating, rebellious lost - are enticed into churches on Sunday morning by a thinly "spiritual" version of the carnal, worldly things they enjoy outside of the church. And as these unsaved people foul and exhaust the Body of Believers, leaving the Body sick, compromised and spiritually impotent, the coffers of the "seeker-sensitive" church swell and the pastors garner fame.

This process has been playing out, as I said, for the past thirty years or so now, and the spiritually-deleterious effects of the process are very evident, not least of which is the total ignorance of the vital spiritual truths about which Miles J. Stanford wrote in your OP, netchaplain.

I'm doing all I can to resurrect the essential truths of walking with God that Stanford, Newell, Tozer, Nee, Maxwell and others wrote of, but more often than not these days, I get confused, suspicious and sometimes even baleful stares. How about you? So unheard of, or confused, are things like "walking in the Spirit," the "crucified life," "walking by faith," the believer's identity in Christ, the victorious Christian life, spiritual warfare, and so on that, when I broach these subjects in sermons, or when teaching a Christianity 101 class, people object to the foreignness of what they're hearing!

 

[netchaplain]

I'm not sure why more evangelical Christians in North America don't understand this but their widespread ignorance of this spiritual reality has produced profound spiritual juvenility and weakness in the Church in North America.

I fully agree with you in all you have shared here. Most Christians do want truth but may not be seeking it as they should yet ("seek and find"). It's my opinion that the Body of Christ--the Church, will be at an immature level when He arrives; but He will then bring all up to par. Nice chatting you, and God bless!