Make a Habit of Having No Habits
Make a Habit of Having No Habits
For as these qualities exist and increase with you, they render you active and fruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 1:8 (Moffatt)
When we are forming a habit we are conscious of it, but in the real Christian life, habits do not appear, because by practice we do the thing unconsciously. As Christians, we have to learn the habit of waiting upon God as He comes to us through the moments, and to see that we do not make common-sense our guide; we do until we have seen the Lord. When we realise that God’s order comes to us in the haphazard, our life will manifest itself in the way our Lord indicates in the Sermon on the Mount. The illustrations our Lord uses there are “the fowls of the air,”† “the lilies of the field.”† Birds and flowers obey the law of their lives in the setting in which they are placed; they have no consciousness of being conscious; it is not their own thought that makes them what they are, but the thought of the Father in heaven. If our childlike trust in God is giving place to self-consciousness and self-depreciation, it is a sign that there is something wrong; and the cure for it is to reach the place where every habit is so practised that there is no conscious habit at all. Watch how God will upset our programmes if we are in danger of making our little Christian habits our god. Whenever we begin to worship our habit of prayer or of Bible reading, God will break up that time. We say—“I cannot do this, I am praying; it is my hour with God.” No, it is our hour with our habit; we pray to a habit of prayer.
1. Exercising Habits until Each Habit Is Lost
For as these qualities exist and increase with you . . . (Moffatt)
Are they existing in us? There are times when we are conscious of becoming virtuous and patient and godly, but they are only stages; if we stop there we get the strut of the “pi” person. A “pi” person is one who does his level best to be what he would like to be but knows he is not. Our Christian life continually resolves itself into consciousness and introspection because there are some qualities we have not added yet. Ultimately, the relationship is to be a completely simple one.
Consciousness of a defect is a disease spiritually; yet it is produced by the finger of God because we have neglected to add some quality. We must acknowledge the defect, and then look out for the opportunity of exercising ourselves along the line of the quality to be added—patience, godliness, love. We have to exercise the quality until the habit is merged in the simplicity of a child’s life.
We have to beware of singling out one quality only. Peter says “as these qualities,” faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, charity, “exist and increase with you” (Moffatt). Our Lord is the type of all Christian experience, and He cannot be summed up in terms of natural virtues, but only in terms of the supernatural. “Come unto Me,” says Jesus, “and I will give you rest,” the rest of the perfection of activity that is never conscious of itself. This perfection of activity can be illustrated by the spinning of a coloured top; if the top spins quickly, all the colours merge and a musical sound is heard; but if it spins slowly, it wobbles and sighs and every colour is conspicuous. If we are conscious of a defect it is because the Lord is pointing out that there is a quality to be added; and until it is added we are conscious of a black streak here, and a coloured streak there. But when the particular quality has been added we are no longer conscious of the defect, all the qualities are merged and the whole life is at rest in the perfection of activity.
The dominant thing about a saint is not self-realisation, but the Lord Himself; consequently a saint can always be ignored because to the majority of eyes our Lord is no more noticeable in the life of a saint than He was to men in the days of His flesh. But when a crisis comes the saint is the one to whom men turn; and the life which seemed colourless is seen to be the white light of God.
2. Expressing Holiness until Conscious Holiness Is Lost
they render you active and fruitful . . . (Moffatt)
It is an utter mistake to fix our eyes on our own whiteness, for all we are conscious of then is a passionate longing for a holy relationship to God. We have to come to the place where conscious holiness ceases to be because of the presence of the One Who is holiness. When we have been made partakers of the Divine nature we are taken up into God’s consciousness, we do not take God into our consciousness. If we are consciously holy we are far from simple in certain relationships, for there will be certain things we imagine we cannot do; whereas in reality we are the only ones who ought to be able to do those things. Once we come into simple relationship with God, He can put us where He pleases and we are not even conscious of where He puts us. All we are conscious of is an amazing simplicity of life that seems to be a haphazard life externally. The only supernatural life ever lived on earth was the life of our Lord, and He was at home with God anywhere. Wherever we are not at home with God, there is a quality to be added. We have to let God press through us in that particular until we gain Him, and life becomes the simple life of a child in which the vital concern is putting God, first.
3. Experiencing Knowledge until Knowledge Is Lost
. . . in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
“Then shall I know even as also I am known”—love abides, and knowledge is merged. Knowledge is faith perfected, and faith in turn passes into sight. We experience knowledge until knowledge is swallowed up in the fact of God’s presence—“Why He is here!” Knowledge is an expression of the nature of God, and is the practical outcome of the life of God in us, but if we isolate knowledge we are in danger of criticising God. We look for God to manifest Himself to His children: God only manifests Himself in His children, consequently others see the manifestation, the child of God does not. You say, “I am not conscious of God’s blessing now”—thank God! “I am not conscious now of the touches of God”—thank God! “I am not conscious now that God is answering my prayers”—thank God! If you are conscious of these things it means you have put yourself outside God. “That the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh”—“I am not conscious that His life is being manifested,” you say, but if you are a saint it surely is. When a little child becomes conscious of being a little child, the child-likeness is gone; and when a saint becomes conscious of being a saint, something has gone wrong. “Oh but I’m not good enough.” You never will be good enough! that is why the Lord had to come and save you. Go to your own funeral and ever after let God be all in all, and life will become the simple life of a child in which God’s order comes moment by moment.
Never live on memories. Do not remember in your testimony what you once were; let the word of God be always living and active in you, and give the best you have every time and all the time.