Now if I find it hard to accept the pruning process, I may have to follow the same course that one person followed when God convicted her that meat was not the best food. Initially she ignored the counsel and continued eating meat. This went on for quite some time, and in fact God brought the same message to her three or four times. Eventually she was convicted that meat was to be given up and determined to get rid of it from her diet. She decided she was going to stop eating meat come what may, and told the cook to only serve vegetables and fruit. Coming to the table for the frt time she was repulsed by seeing only vegetables and fruit, and her stomach became upset--so much so that she couldn't eat. So she left the table and went about her business. The next time she came to the table the same thing happened again. Again she was repulsed and her stomach rebelled. "You can wait stomach until you will gladly accept this," and again turned back to other duties. This sent on for three days, until she was finally so hungry that she gladly ate the food that was served. So we see that she willingly accepted Gods purging in spite of the hardship of temporarily going without food. Not only did she accept the purging, she accepted in joyfully--gladly! It was anything but easy, but it worked, and we can follow this same purging process with any of our besetting habits.
DOING MY PART
Notice, however, what normally happens: we come to recognize an evil in our lives, come under conviction about it, and accept God's correcting; but instead of letting God continue dealing with it, we take it back into our own hands to manage, and fall back into temptation again. How did the person respond? "You can wait until you will accept that food gladly;" and victory was eventually gained. When we turn away until it becomes a joy to obey God in whatever area He is bringing conviction, we too will gain the victory.
We find the following instructive quotation in W>W> Prescott's book, Victory in Christ.
"For a long time I tried to gain the victory over sin, but I failed I have since learned the reason. Instead of doing the abiding in the Vine, to use the imagery and language we have been utilizing in these discussions--and which I can do, I was trying to do God's part, which He does not expect me to do, and which I cannot do. Primarily, my part is not to win the victory--and produce the fruit--which has already been won for me by Jesus Christ"--when He took the place of Adam and day by day developed the character which Adam failed to acquire. Jesus won the victory; He won the victory over Satan and sin.
Jesus wants to give us His victory, but He's having an awful time getting us to accept it. Why? Because we are unwilling to do our part, which is abiding in Him, an allowing Him to accomplish the pruning which will result in the development of His character in us. It doesn't sound too difficult, but it is, because as He grafts us into the Vine, and we begin growing, little sprouts have a way of appearing that look suspiciously like the old life. He determines these need to be cut off and proceeds, but we find the cutting exceedingly painful, object to it, which results in His relenting and responding,"I'm not going to continue pruning if you don't allow Me." But the outccome is a turning away, the impeding of His life being lived out in us, and the reemergence of the old life' He can only live in us if we permit Him to!!
Yes, it is difficult to surrender the old life to Christ. We are so ingrained in our habits that they are hard to let go of, but we must if we want to continue abiding in Him. We may have to fall and get up many times and repent of our sin, but wonder of wonders, he is always willing to forgive, pick us up and start on our way again. I know, I have been there and still have trouble abiding all the time, the
devil knows just what to do to trip us up and he is very sneaky doing it and we don't realize what he is doing until we end up in the ditch. I am so glad we serve a loving God who forgives over and over again and again and again. So don't give up we have an eternity with Christ to look forward to and it will be so much more beautiful and perfect than we can even imagine. Grandma Joan
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