LIFE WITHOUT BOUNDARIES – PART 4 by John Beaumont…
Man made and accepted boundaries set up a barrier against God’s
highest plans for each one of us. They actually block us from fully
experiencing what Paul shared in Ephesians 1:3, ‘Praise be to the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in the heavenly realms
with every spiritual blessing in Christ.’ When we accept boundaries that
hinder us from knowing the wonder of eternal blessing flooding our hearts
and lives for Christ’s sake, we actually tend to break down boundaries which
God has established for his glory and our safety and good.
Here’s something else Paul wrote which you may wish to check out in
your favourite translation: ‘Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is
not mine, but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave
Himself for me. I am not going back to that. Is it not clear to you that to
go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an
abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God?
I refuse to do that, to repudiate God’s grace. This is from Galatians 2:20-21 in The Message.
It is a very precious privilege to simply be a God-filled nobody,
experiencing continuing intimate fellowship with our wonderful Lord Jesus.
DANGEROUS REQUESTS!
After I had begun writing this paper a dear South African friend sent
me his reply to a recent questionnaire we’d sent him. He wrote: ‘Two very
dangerous requests I made of Christ were, “Give me everything you have
got for me and don’t hold anything back” and, “Please sift through all the
church teaching (knowledge) I have accumulated and remove that which is
of man and leave only that which is of You”. Dangerous because He took me
at my word and has done exactly that, which has led to a life of great
exhilaration. This is a life I wouldn’t change for anything!
Over the years we have observed the freshness and fullness of this
brother’s fragrant Christian life. Even though the path he and his wife have
walked has not always been understood or appreciated, other believers
have responded to the challenge that their lives present, and they have
been privileged to point sinners to their Lord and Saviour.
WILL YOU FACE UP TO THESE QUESTIONS?
Are these the kinds of prayer that you, my reader, should be earnestly
uttering? Does your reading of this article stir you to cry out to the Lord for
the fullness of His life to be manifest in you? Isn’t God deserving of our
heartfelt love and adoration?
Can you see that living out what I have endeavoured to share with
you may provide the very best hope for the next generation, which is
among us even now? Can you respond to God with determination to
discover experientially the very best that He has for you? His love, which is
so very amazing, demands my life, my soul, my all.
To be satisfied with being much the same as other believers we know
is totally unacceptable, isn’t it? The Lord Jesus Himself is the standard.
God’s plan is for us to be conformed to the likeness of His Son! [see
Romans 8:28,29]
A God of glory, a church in disarray and a world in darkness all
deserve, and must have, nothing less than our all, fully yielded to Christ.
To Him alone be praise and glory for evermore!
John Beaumont
In Christ – because of Calvary. Joy of joys!