Romans – The Play Part 9, Ep 2

He managed that by His Father’s life. Jesus Christ could not live the Christian life in the face of the cross. The Father gave Him that in the Father’s life. Say it’s okay to dread the cross and not want the cross. And you can’t go to the cross, and the cross can’t come to you, except by a dispensing of the grace of the divine nature of God within you. Do not despise the soul’s unwillingness to go to the cross, but honor the life of God that can. This is living by divine life. In the face of hell, in the face of everything in you screaming out, “I won’t, I can’t,” to yield by that grace of His divinity, of His divine nature.

And then I have to add one other thing about this business of living by the Lord’s life and not your own, and that is: it was never intended to be individual. It’s always intended to be corporate. Hear me, saints, hear me and be impressed that everything that I’ve spoken of tonight, and everything I’ve spoken of to you in the last two or three months, was never ever written to, nor even conceived in the mind of the writer to be written to an individual. And it’s always taken individually. It was written to all those people you’ll find in Romans 16. All of them. And my gospel won’t work for an individual. Hey, listen y’all. My gospel won’t work for an individual; it’ll let you down every time, but my gospel was never preached to an individual. It was always preached to the body of believers.

Now, one of these days in the near future, I’m going to ask you to do a most unusual thing. I’m going to ask you in the quietness of the morning to get up all alone and spend 15 minutes trying to disconnect your mind. And you’re going to make a discovery that your mind is like an old automobile that has the accelerator pedal, the gas pedal, stuck to the floor. And I know every one of you has had this experience, have you not? You beat on it, you kick it, you threaten it, you get out under the hood, you bang, and you pull and you disconnect. That thing is just running wide open.

And you are going to find out you have virtually no spiritual history, because you can’t sit in the presence of God and turn down or turn off your mind. That doesn’t mean you’re living in sin. Doesn’t mean you’re living in the flesh. It doesn’t even mean you’re living in the soul. It just means you’re a human being, but sister and brother, we will learn as a people to gradually move that thing over toward your Lord. And that’s why tonight I won’t say to you, “This is how to live by the Spirit. This is how to live by the higher life. This is how a Christian lives the Christian life.” Because you’re going to go out and do it. And I’m going to say to you tonight: it’s going to be a long process, and we will go on a great adventure together. And those of you listening on the tape, it’s why I won’t share these things except in the body of believers, because you and I can’t on our own, and even shouldn’t to some degree on our own. For the whole Christian life was part and parcel in the church; as sure as it is in Christ, it is in the church.

Now, I’m going to ask you, brother, one of these days, to get up really early. You’re going to just go crazy trying to do what I’m going to ask you, and you’re going to think you can’t do it, and you can’t. And then again. And again. And again. Then I’m going to ask you to get up with some brothers and sisters. I remember one morning somebody knocked on my door, and I had forgotten my appointment, and I came to the door in my pajamas, and I said, “I forgot. Go home.” He came back the next week. The same thing happened. He came back the next week, and the same thing happened. Three weeks in a row—I forgot. I’m a spiritual giant, saints.

So, the next thing you’re going to discover is you don’t want to get up in the morning, and the next thing you’re going to discover is that you don’t want to get up in the presence of God because of what you did yesterday or this morning or whenever. And that’s all got to go. Now live. You can live by a life not your own. Don’t ask me how. It must be Christ in you instead of you. Don’t ask me how. There will never be a book written on the how. There’s a long adventure, and we will learn it little by little. And we will change

Saints, we’re not going to change as much as we ought to. It’s going to be slow, it’s going to be small, it’s going to be long. We’re going to join the brothers and sisters in Rome on Sunday. And from Romans 8 on, and from this point on, I will be giving you early morning assignments to do, that you will cultivate this other realm in you, and this other life form in you, but never will I give you a formula. Never will I give you a formula. I’ll give you a hint: we will begin by learning how to set our mind upon the Spirit. Praise the Lord. This is where we will begin.

Now, will you remember from now on, and as long as we are together, that it is from here that is our departure? When I ask you to pair up, when I ask you to do these things, it is that you might learn more about this other realm and this other life. Will you keep that in mind, please? This is what we’re doing. And don’t ever ask me how, because I don’t know how. It’s a process. And I don’t know when you arrive there. It’s up, and it’s down, but I will tell you, there will be change. And then I will tell you that there will be times when there will be growth in you when you think there is loss. And there will be times when there will be so much retreat, you will feel that you never once was a believer. And I will tell you that Jesus Christ will come at you from areas you never dreamed He would come at you from.

And I will tell you that there will be times of glory that you never believed was humanly possible, and I will tell you there will be times of gore that you never believed a human would have to wallow in, and it is all the Lord’s work in your life, and in all of it, God is for you. And He is working in you. And you are in a good place to learn a little bit about Jesus Christ. And I have been as honest with you tonight as I know how.