"My Utmost For His Highest" by Oswald Chambers for today covers something that I am faced with frequently. Here is a portion of it:
Beware of placing Our Lord as a Teacher first. If Jesus Christ is a Teacher only, then all He can do is to tantalize me by erecting a standard I can not attain. What is the use of presenting me with an ideal I cannot possibly come near? I am happier without knowing it. What is the good of telling me to be what I never can be – to be pure in heart, to do more than my duty, to be perfectly devoted to God? I must know Jesus Christ as Saviour before His teaching has any meaning for me other than that of an ideal which leads to despair. But when I am born again of the Spirit of God, I know that Jesus Christ did not come to teach only: He came to make me what He teaches I should be. The Redemption means that Jesus Christ can put into any man the disposition that ruled His own life, and all the standards God gives are based on that disposition.
I get SO many comments from unbelievers AND immature born again believers about the teaching of Jesus and how certain people are not following the teaching of Jesus! They have absolutely NO understanding whatsoever of the Word of God, and they cannot. The unbeliever cannot even begin to understand because he is NOT born again. His spirit is NOT recreated in the image of God as the born again believer's spirit is. He does NOT have the Spirit of God as his teacher and therefore cannot understand the Word. Look at 1 Corinthians 2:14:
But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
The non born again human spirit CANNOT understand the Word! Look at this same verse from the Amplified Bible:
But the natural, nonspiritual man does not accept or welcome or admit into his heart the gifts and teachings and revelations of the Spirit of God, for they are folly (meaningless nonsense) to him; and he is incapable of knowing them [of progressively recognizing, understanding, and becoming better acquainted with them] because they are spiritually discerned and estimated and appreciated.
2 Corinthians 5:17 says this:
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. (2 Corinthians 5:17 NKJV)
THAT is what is needful for a person to be in position to understand! That brings us to the immature believer. The New Birth gives us access to the understanding because the Spirit of God comes to live IN us, and He is there to teach us! We have a responsibility to study, though, or we will still be unable to understand! Hosea 6:3a tells us this:
3 Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord:
We will ONLY understand the Word of God IF we make it our determined purpose to study the Word for the purpose of knowing! Instead of trying to tell others "what Jesus would do", let's get to know Him intimately, obey Him immediately and implicitly, and pray for others to do the same! AMEN! THAT is walking in the love that Jesus commanded us to walk in! Here is Hillsong with "Children of the Light", which is how the unsaved should see us!
Shalom in Him!
