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Now
Is It Possible—
And
I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto
the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 1
Thessalonians 5:23
We never can be
faultless in this life, but God’s Book brings out that we must be
blameless, that is, undeserving of censure from God’s standpoint, and
remember what His standpoint is. He can see into every crook and cranny of
my spirit and soul and body, and He demands that I be blameless in all my
relationships so that He Himself can see nothing worthy of censure. The
revelation is one which shows the supernaturalness of the work of
sanctification. It cannot be done by praying, by devoting myself, by
believing; it can only be done by the supernatural power of a supernatural
God.
1.
To Be Blameless in My Self Life?
I
pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto
the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now
where are we? Is there the tiniest element of the conviction of the Spirit
of God? If so, yield to Him at once. We must distinguish between the
working of our own suspicions and the checking of the Spirit of God who
works as quietly and silently as a breeze. As He brings back to our mind
our bodily life in this past week in public and in private, in eating and
drinking, have we been blameless in our self life? Sanctification means
that God keeps my whole spirit and soul and body undeserving of censure in
His sight.
Take
the soul—how have we been conducting our imaginations, our motives, our
fancies, and all the working of our reasoning life; is there anything for
the Spirit of God to check and censure? We must not say because we are
sanctified we are sure to be right. The seal of sanctification in the
practical life is that it is blameless, undeserving of censure before God.
Blamelessness is not faultlessness; faultlessness was the condition of the
Lord Jesus Christ. We never can be faultless in this life, we are in
impaired human bodies; but by sanctification we can be blameless. Our
disposition can be supernaturally altered until in the simplicity of life
before God the whole limit is holy, and if that is to be done, it must be
by the great grace of God. “My peace I give
unto you.” The Spirit of God works with an amazing zeal on
Christ’s words.
“I
pray God your whole spirit . . . be preserved blameless.” Are
we spiritually affected before God? Are our petitions our own? Do we put
our will into them? Do we borrow our sentiments, or are they really ours?
Paul does not say we are to be blameless in our self life in the view of
other people. We never shall be; Jesus Christ was not. It was said of His
bodily life—“Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber,” of His soul
life—“He . . . is mad,” and of His spirit life—“He hath a
devil"; but before God He was blameless. Some of us are so concerned
about being blameless before men that we are to be blamed before God. The
apostle Paul prays that we may be sanctified and preserved blameless; then
it is a matter of absolute indifference what anyone thinks of us, but it
is not a matter of indifference what God’s Holy Spirit thinks of us.
If
we are sanctified by the power of the God of peace, our self life is
blameless before Him, there is nothing to hide; and the more we bring our
soul under the searchlight of God the more we realize the ineffable
comfort of the supernatural work He has done.
Of
ourselves we can never be any of the things God says we must be. We can
never be blameless by thinking about it, or by praying about it, but only
by being sanctified, and that is God’s absolute sovereign work of grace.
“Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to
him for righteousness.” Do I believe God can sanctify me? “Christ
Jesus . . . is made unto us . . . sanctification.” Have we
the quiet confidence of a child that the life of Jesus Christ can be
formed in us until the relationship to God of spirit, soul and body is
without blame before Him? It is not the perfection of attainment in
thinking, or in bodily life, or in worship, but the perfection of a
blameless disposition, nothing in it to censure, and that in the eyes of
God who sees everything.
Is
it possible to be blameless in our self life? Paul says it is, and the
writer to the Hebrews states that it is by sanctification we are made one
with Jesus. “For both He that sanctifieth and
they who are sanctified are all of one” (Hebrews 2:11). That
is the glorious work of Jesus Christ in our life. Has He performed His
work in us or has He not? Do not ask anybody else about it, the Holy
Spirit will show you as clearly as can be. If you are right with God, you
would not thank the angel Gabriel for telling you, because you know it. It
will be the witness not of a word only, but nothing less than absolute
agreement with God’s standard when He brings you up against it.
2.
To Be Blameless in My Social Life?
That
ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the
midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom ye shine as lights
in the world. (Philippians 2:15)
Am
I without blame in relation to my father and mother, to my wife or
husband, my brothers and sisters? If the work of Jesus Christ has had its
way in us, God Almighty can see nothing to censure when He scrutinizes us
by His Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God does not work as our minds do, that
is, He does not work with suspicion, He works silently and gently as
daylight. There will be a check here, an illumination there, a wonderful
all-over realization—“Thank God, He has done it!” There is no need
to protest or to profess. We have to be blameless in all our social
relationships before God, but that will not mean that our relations will
think us blameless! We can always gauge where we are by the teachings of
Jesus Christ.
Is
it possible to be blameless in our social life? The Apostle Paul says it
is, and if we were asked whether we believed God could make us blameless,
we would all say, “Yes.” Well, has He done it? If God has not
sanctified us and made us blameless, there is only one reason why He has
not—we do not want Him to. “This is the will
of God, even your sanctification.” We have not to urge God to
do it, it is His will; is it our will? Sanctification is the work of the
supernatural power of God.
3.
To Be Blameless in My Spiritual Life?
According
as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we
should be holy and without blame before Him in love. (Ephesians
1:4)
Wherefore,
beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be
found of Him in peace, without spot, and blameless. (2 Peter 3:14)
Is
it possible to be blameless in our spiritual relationship to Almighty God,
to Jesus Christ and to the Holy Ghost? It is not only possible, but
God’s word tells us that that is what God does—“If
we walk in the light, as He is in the light, . . .
the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin”
(1 John 1:7). That is cleansing not from conscious sin only but from
infinitely more, it is cleansing to the depths of crystalline purity so
that God Himself can see nothing impure. That is the work of the Lord
Jesus Christ; to make His work anything less would be blasphemous. If God
Almighty cannot do that in your life and mine, we have “followed
cunningly devised fables.” Unless Jesus Christ can re-make
Himself in us, what is the meaning of those thirty years in Nazareth,
those three years of His public life? What is the meaning of the Cross of
Jesus Christ, of His Resurrection and Ascension, if He cannot cleanse us
from all sin? But, bless God, He can! The point is—have we let Him do
it? Beware of praising Jesus Christ whilst all the time you cunningly
refuse to let the Spirit of God work His salvation efficaciously in your
life. Remember, the battle is in the will; whenever we say “I
can’t,” or whenever we are indifferent, it means “I won’t.” It
is better to let Jesus Christ uncover the obstinacy. If there is one point
where we say “I won’t” then we shall never know His salvation. From
the moment that God uncovers a point of obstinacy in us and we refuse to
let Him deal with it, we begin to be skeptical, to sneer and watch for
defects in the lives of others. But when once we yield to Him entirely, He
makes us blameless in our personal life, in our practical life, and in our
profound life. It is not done by piety, it is wrought in us by the
sovereign grace of God, and we have not the slightest desire to trust in
ourselves in any degree, but in Him alone.
“Now
unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you
faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy”
(Jude 24). Can God keep me from stumbling this second? Yes. Can He keep me
from sin this second? Yes. Well, that is the whole of life, you cannot
live more than a second at a time. If God can keep you blameless this
second, He can do it the next. No wonder Jesus Christ said “Let
not your heart be troubled”! We do get troubled when we do
not remember the amazing power of God.
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Now
Is It Possible --