Week 12 Sunday
Week 12 Sunday
The Old and the New Side by Side
Luke 9:18-25
This fact of the old and the new side by side and unrelated to each other can be seen in the case of the disciples. As we study them we may see ourselves. Read carefully Luke 9:18-62.
Jesus took them to Caesarea Philippi, where there was a white rock with a grotto and temple in which the image of Caesar was worshiped as God in the flesh. He came here to ask them the great question, Who am I? Here the great battle was joined: Is Caesar God manifest in the flesh? Is might the final word? Or is Jesus God manifest in the flesh? Is love the final word?
When Jesus asked the question, upon the lips of Peter trembled the great confession: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16). At last the great revelation had dawned. It was a great moment. We would have thought that from this moment on to the end everything in their lives would have adjusted to that fact, and that their spiritual lives would have taken on harmony and power as they organized around it. On the contrary, there is nothing done right in the rest of Luke’s chapter. Everything seems out of harmony. Jesus does nothing in the rest of the chapter but correct their mistakes.
What is wrong? Have they not seen this glorious fact of Christ, the Son of the living God? Yes, the conscious mind accepted that fact, but the subconscious mind did not. They had been converted, but their instincts had not, particularly the instinct of self. It was at the place of the self-instinct that the battle had to be fought and won if they were to be Christian. Jesus immediately took the task in hand and said to them, “All who want to come after me must say no to themselves, take up their cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23 CEB). He launched a dart straight at the self.
O Christ, we come to you. You have your finger upon our problem; it is this inmost self. Heal us there and we are healed everywhere. Then heal us there. Amen.
Week 12 Monday
The Revelation of the Central Difficulty
Luke 9:28-45
Yesterday we saw that the central problem in the lives of the disciples before Pentecost was the unconverted instincts, particularly the self. Jesus undertook to let them see it. He showed, first of all, that he was going to the cross to lay down himself, and that self would rise again. And he taught them that they must do the same; they must go through spiritually what he was going through physically. The central thing in their being sons of God must be a self-losing. But in losing themselves they would find themselves.
They did not catch this profoundest of spiritual lessons. So he took them to the mountain to show them the same thing in a kindergarten way. As he looked out toward the cross and talked with Moses and Elijah about his death, his face began to shine. The lesson is this: Life will shine only as it faces its cross. The self will shine with higher light as it surrenders to higher life.
They still did not get the meaning. At the foot of the mountain, the disciples were fumbling. Divided in inner allegiance, they were defeated in outer attempts.
The next day, Jesus cast out an evil spirit with a word. “And all were astonished at the majesty of God” (Luke 9:43). But as they marveled, Jesus said to his disciples, “Let these words sink into your ears; for the Son of man is to be delivered into the hands of men” (v. 44). You think my “majesty” is in performing miracles of healing, but my “majesty” lies in the miracle of self-losing. That is the central thing I have come to do in myself and in you.
“But they did not understand this saying” (v. 45). They did not understand this saying because they did not understand this attitude. We really think more with our emotions than with our minds, and the emotions still fasten themselves about the self. The disciples were not surrendered.
O Christ, we thank you that you have blazed the way for us. We see your amazing self-losing turn into an amazing self-finding. We would follow you. Amen.
Week 12 Tuesday
The Consequences of This Attitude
Luke 9:45-48; 1 Corinthians 8:3
This attitude of the unchanged self-instinct began to show itself in social consequences for the disciples. The clashes began. For where there is a group of people who have unsurrendered, and therefore unsocialized selves, the stage is set for clash and strife. If the self is supreme within, it will try to be supreme without. It may try to do it in subtle, refined, even religious ways, but it will strive to do it. The clashes began: “And an argument rose among them as to which of them was the greatest” (Luke 9:46).
Here was Christian disciple clashing with Christian disciple, and all were clashing with the whole outlook of the Master. Moreover, each was inwardly clashing with himself. The conscious mind must have been ashamed, but the unregenerate self-instincts demanded that “number one” be looked after. Of course they all fought for principle! For the self soon learns that it cannot get its way in the presence of religious scruples unless its assertions are clothed with religious principles. Each convinced himself that the interests of the kingdom demanded that he be first. “I am the oldest,” said Peter, “and, besides, I made the great confession of his Messiahship—the interests of the kingdom demand that age and insight be first.”
“But who brought you here?” demanded Andrew. “First here, first in authority.”
“But I belong to the best family,” replied John. “After all, if we are to influence these big people for the kingdom, I must lead, for I am known to the high priest.”
“But the kingdom depends on solid financial sense, and I am treasurer and therefore first,’’ said Judas with an air of finality.
And thus probably it went. The kingdom was in their words, but self was in their intentions. Nine-tenths of the difficulties in Christian service come out of clashes among Christian workers, and nine-tenths of these clashes come out of the unregenerate self-instinct of otherwise converted people.
O Christ, you who did show the nature of the kingdom through a little child, make me a child again. I must be reborn deeper this time. Amen.
Week 12 Wednesday
Group Consequences of This Attitude
Luke 9:49-50; 1 Corinthians 1:10-13; Ephesians 4:1-3
We saw yesterday that the first clash was the clash between individuals. The clashes have just begun, for when the unregenerate self-instinct drops into human relationships, it sends out waves of clash in widening circles to the far shores of society.
As Jesus was dealing with his disciples over this matter, John felt the sting of it and was constrained to bring up another: “Master, we saw a man casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him, because he does not follow with us” (Luke 9:49). Here was the second clash: one group of workers with another group of workers. The unregenerate self-instinct may want to fight with individual members of its own group for place and power, but it is quite ready to combine with them in standing against the encroachments of another group. For the self sees in the threatened position of the group a threat to its own self. It is ready to stand up and fight—for principle, of course! The interests of the kingdom are endangered. “Who are these unauthorized people? They are dangerous. They are not in the proper line. Besides, did they say the formula for casting out devils properly as we do? It must be stopped.”
The unregenerate self-instinct is behind religious party spirit, and it is at the basis of a great deal of denominational refusal to unite with other Christians.
I was trying to heal a breach within a church, a breach that had resulted in spending the equivalent of two hundred thousand dollars in court costs for the right to manage an endowment of four thousand dollars. A high ecclesiastic, one of the leaders of the parties concerned, said, “We must defend the faith.” I think he really thought he was defending the faith, for the self often stands concealed in the shadows of the unconscious. But anyone could see that the defense of the faith meant only that the self was defending and asserting itself into power through group supremacy. The faith was really in the mud.
O Christ, how our narrowness and bigotry must recrucify you, for your heart is kingdom-wide, and beyond. Make us like that. Amen.
Week 12 Thursday
Racial Consequences of This Attitude
Luke 9:51-55; Galatians 3:27-28
Yesterday we saw the group consequences of the unchanged self-instinct. I am persuaded that a part of the opposition to the group movements, such as the “Oxford Group”* movement, is sheer jealousy that an upstart movement like this can get the devils of gloom and defeat out of people, when we of the regular Christian churches cannot and do not. Search your heart and see.
But we must go on. The clashes do not end here. Jesus sent his disciples to a Samaritan village to prepare for him. The Samaritans refused to accept them because his face was set in the direction of Jerusalem. John was furious. “Lord, do you want us to bid fire come down from heaven and consume them [as Elijah did]?” (Luke 9:54). The self is ready to assert itself through one race against another race. Again, it does so religiously. But underneath all this religious verbiage was the stark fact that the inner Jewish self hated Samaritans, for they were in a struggle for position and power. We dress up our prejudices in religious garments in order to conceal the naked selfishness beneath.
But these race prejudices are not inborn. The self learns through social heredity. Missionary children, born in other lands, grow up among children of another race and know no racial prejudices. Deep and abiding friendships are formed. If, later, they absorb race prejudice, it is from surroundings, and is not inherited. In all of us, these prejudices are dropped into the subconscious, and the self-instinct absorbs them there. We wonder why we are critical about other races, easily find their faults, and glory in their weaknesses. The reason is that the subconscious mind has absorbed the prejudices, and the subconscious mind is still unregenerate. The self-instinct has never bowed to the yoke of the kingdom.
O Lord, who made every person of every race, forgive me that I do not love every person, of every race. I cannot do it unless this self within bends its head and accepts your yoke. Help me to do it. Amen.
*The Oxford Group was a Christian movement, organized in 1931 around standards of absolute honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love. The group was influential in European resistance to Nazism and in the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous (see http://www.iofc.org/fuller-history, accessed April 15, 2014).
Week 12 Friday
The Contrast
Ephesians 2:14-18; Colossians 1:17 (Weymouth)
We have seen how the unchanged self-instinct is at the base of most of our difficulties of adjustment with ourselves and others. We agree with Alfred Adler that “the unsublimated ego stands in the way of the individual’s attainment of a happy adjustment to life and to his fellows.”
We must remind ourselves that these disciples were changed in very large measure. Most of the conscious mind was under the sway of Christ, most of the unconscious was not.
Now note these contrasts. We saw in Luke 9 that the recognition of Christ as the Son of God solved very few of their spiritual problems. It left the problems of inner adjustment, adjustment of individual with individual, of group with group, and of race with race, untouched. But those four problems were later solved so easily and majestically that we scarcely see that they were solved. Now look at Acts 2:46 (Weymouth): “They took their meals with great happiness and single-heartedness.” That solved problem number one—they were no longer at war with themselves in the inner life. They were “single-hearted,” no longer double-hearted.
Now see Acts 2:14 (CEB): “Peter stood with the other eleven apostles.” That was their attitude; they stood together. That solved problem number two—they were no longer competitive, they were cooperative.
Now Acts 2:44 (Weymouth): “And all the believers kept together.” This brought together all groups of believers and made them into a living community, where they rejoiced in one another’s successes. That solved problem number three—there was no longer suspicion among groups of believers.
Now look at Acts 8:17: “Then they [Peter and John] laid their hands on them [the Samaritans], and they received the Holy Spirit.” Instead of calling down fire from heaven to consume the Samaritans, they tenderly laid hands on their heads that they might receive the Holy Spirit. That solved problem number four—their race prejudices had vanished.
All four of their problems had vanished. How? It can be answered in one phrase: the Holy Spirit!
O God, our Lord, we thank you that you have provided for the depths. You are not leaving us unhealed there. We thank you. Amen.
Week 12 Saturday
The Secret
Romans 8:13; 2 Corinthians 3:17; Galatians 5:25; Ephesians 3:16
We saw yesterday that the coming of the Holy Spirit into the lives of the disciples solved their fourfold problem. Most of Christendom stands with the disciples and confesses that Jesus Christ is the Son of God but is appalled and dismayed that this does not solve their spiritual problems. It leaves practically all their great problems intact. To recognize Christ as the Son of God is a more-or-less outer thing, a matter of the perceptive intelligence, a matter of our conscious minds. This may not touch the subconscious at all. But the Holy Spirit does.
The area of the Holy Spirit’s work is in the subconscious as well as the conscious. This is important, for it brings salvation where we need it. The subconscious can be cleansed, converted, controlled, and united with the purposes of the conscious mind by, and only by, the Holy Spirit.
Following Christ as an example will not do it, for this is more or less outward. It has to be deeply inward and permanently inward. Even seeing the Holy Spirit as an influence coming now and again into the life will not do it. The Holy Spirit as a living person must permanently abide in the depths of our being, assuming full control, and cleansing, directing, and coordinating the powers of the instincts to the purposes of the kingdom of God.
The disciples after Pentecost were not mechanically trying to copy Christ in their actions; they were joyously expressing a new life that welled up from within. The Christian life was not a force pump, but an artesian well. Therefore their lives were not mechanically and jerkily trying to copy an example; they were rhythmically and harmoniously giving vent to an inner Life. Nothing, absolutely nothing, was left out of the control of the Divine. Therefore they were no longer double-minded—conscious and subconscious warring with each other—they were single-minded. They were Spirit-filled people.
O God our Lord, we thank you that we need not go through life with an inner contradiction. You can bring everything under your sway. Then there will be no part dark. Amen.