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The Christian life from start to finish is based upon this principle of utter dependence upon the Lord Jesus. There is no limit to the grace God is willing to bestow upon us. He will give us everything, but we can receive none of it except as we rest in Him. “Sitting” is an attitude of rest. Something has been finished, work stops and we sit. It is paradoxical, but true, that we only advance in the Christian life as we learn first of all to sit down.
So also in the spiritual realm, to sit down is simply to rest our whole weight—our load, ourselves, our future, everything—upon the Lord. We let Him bear the responsibility and cease to carry it ourselves.
for God works before He rests, while man must first enter into God’s rest, and then alone can he work.
And here is the gospel: that God has gone one stage further and has completed also the work of redemption, and that we need do nothing whatever to merit it, but can enter by faith directly into the values of His finished work.
But because of that triumphant cry, the analogy we have drawn is a true one.
Our keyword here is not of course, in its context, a command to “sit down,” but to see ourselves as “seated” in Christ.
Our Christian life begins with the discovery of what God has provided.
Every new spiritual experience begins with an acceptance by faith of what God has done—with a new “sitting down,” if you like.
I receive everything not by walking, but by sitting down; not by doing, but by resting in the Lord.
Hence, just as there is no need to wait for the initial experience of salvation, so there is no need to wait for the Spirit’s outpouring. Let me assure you that you need not plead with God for this gift, nor agonize, nor hold “tarrying meetings.”
Our deliverance from sin is based not on what we can do, nor even on what God is going to do for us, but on what He has already done for us in Christ. When that fact dawns upon us, and we rest back upon it (Rom. 6:11), then we have found the secret of a holy life.
The secret of deliverance from sin is not to do something, but to rest on what God has done.
So I explained, “The solution of your problem lies here, that when the Lord Jesus died on the cross, He not only bore your sins away, but He bore you away too. When He was crucified, your old man was crucified in Him, so that that unforgiving ‘you,’ who simply cannot love those who have wronged you, has been taken right out of the way in His death. God has dealt with the whole situation in the cross, and there is nothing left for you to deal with. Just say to Him, ‘Lord, I cannot love, and I give up trying, but I count on Thy perfect love. I cannot forgive, but I trust Thee to forgive instead
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“God is waiting till you cease to do,” I said. “When you cease doing, then God will begin. Have you ever tried to save a drowning man? The trouble is that his fear prevents him trusting himself to you. When that is so, there are just two ways of going about it. Either you must knock him unconscious and then drag him to the shore, or else you must leave him to struggle and shout until his strength gives way before you go to his rescue. If you try to save him while he has any strength left, he will clutch at you in his terror and drag you under, and both he and you will be lost. God is waiting
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Just you stop “giving,” and you will prove what a Giver God is! Stop “working,” and you will discover what a Worker He is!
Sitting describes our position with Christ in the heavenlies. Walking is the practical outworking of that heavenly position here on earth.
We do not begin from the matter of ethical right and wrong. We do not start from that other tree. We begin from Him; and the whole question for us is one of life.
Nothing has done greater damage to our Christian testimony than our trying to be right and demanding right of others.
You ask me, “Is it right for someone to strike my cheek?” I reply, “Of course not!” But the question is, do you only want to be right?
So, my brethren, don’t stand on your right. Don’t feel that because you have gone the second mile you have done what is just.
The all-important rule is not to “try,” but to “trust,” not to depend upon our own strength, but upon His.
Nothing is so hurtful to the life of a Christian as acting; nothing so blessed as when our outward efforts cease and our attitudes become natural—when our words, our prayers, our very life all become a spontaneous and unforced expression of the life within.
Have we discovered how good the Lord is? Then in us He is as good as that! Is His power great? Then in us it is no less great! Praise God, His life is as mighty as ever, and in the lives of those who dare to believe the Word of God, the divine life will be manifest in a power not one whit less mighty than was manifest of old.
Our Savior is a Savior to the uttermost. No Christian believer will be “half saved” at the end, even if now that might be said of us in any sense. God
5:17). The Lord always loves desperate souls.
Our task is one of holding, not of attacking. It is a matter not of advance, but of sphere—the sphere of Christ. In the person of Jesus Christ, God has already conquered. He has given us His victory to hold. Within the
Only those who sit can stand. Our power for standing,
Let me say again: In Christ we are already conquerors. Is it not obvious then, since this is so, that for us merely to pray for victory—unless that prayer is shot through with praise—must be to court defeat by throwing away our fundamental position?
Secondly, all work that is going to be effective in the divine purpose must be conceived by God. If we
plan work and then ask God to bless it, we need not expect God to commit Himself to it. God’s name can never be a “rubber stamp” to authorize work that is ours in conception. True, there may be blessing upon such work, but it will be partial and not full. There can be no “in His name” there; only, alas, our name!
