Humility and crushing on the way of the cross (spiritual awakening)
Humility and crushing on the way of the cross (spiritual awakening)
We want to explain spiritual awakening very simply. Awakening is simply that the life of Jesus enters the human heart. Jesus is always victorious. They praise him in the sky because of his victory. In our life we face failure and despair, but He is invincible. His power is limitless. The only thing we have to do is to establish a right relationship with him and it is at this time that we will see his power appearing in our hearts, lives and works, and his victorious life fills us and through us to others. also flows. This is the essence and principle of spiritual awakening.
But if we want to improve our relationship with him, the first thing we should learn is: our will to submit to his will. Falling or crushing and complete surrender is the beginning of spiritual awakening. This is painful and requires shrinking, but there is no other way. That is, we should be able to say, like Paul in Galatians 20:2, “not I, but Christ.” When the letter I in English, which means “I”, is bent, it will become the letter C, which is the first word of Christ. Lord Jesus cannot fully live in us and reveal himself through us unless our proud existence is broken and humbled. This means that the stubborn and disobedient soul that always wants to justify itself and always seeks its own interests and wants to get its right and be praised, this soul must finally surrender to the will of God and to its mistakes. confess and give up self-praise until Jesus Christ is everything. In other words, the soul must be dead to itself and its desires.
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Humility and crushing on the way of the cross (spiritual awakening)
When we impartially look at our Christian life, we realize how much the ego or “I” is involved in our life. Often it is the same soul that tries to be a Christian. Also, it is often the same soul that tries to do Christian things. It is the same ego that always gets angry, jealous, hurt, criticizes and is worried. It is the ego that is stubborn and disobedient to others. It is the ego that is shy and selfish and conservative. So it is not surprising that we say that we need to fall and be crushed. As long as we are under the authority of the soul, God is less able to work in us because the fruit of the spirit means love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility and self-control, which are mentioned in the fifth chapter of Galatians, and which God wants to grant. To all of us, the exact opposite of the spirit is disobedient, stubborn and unbroken, and in order to find these spiritual fruits, our soul must be crucified with Christ.
Falling down and falling apart is the work of both God and ourselves. God obliges us, but the final decision is with us. If we, who are seeking friendship with God, pay attention to the requirement of the Holy Spirit (and of course, the readiness to receive light is the first condition of friendship with God), then God will show us the manifestations of this arrogance, this stubborn ego. Here we are, deciding to be hard and not to repent, or to lower our heads and say: “Yes, Lord.” »
The meaning of falling down and surrendering in daily life is to repent of every mistake that God shows us and when our mistakes are revealed, to continue to repent and to be crushed in His presence every day. This action may be very expensive because it requires us to hand over all our powers and rights to him and to turn a blind eye to selfish interests and, whenever necessary, to confess our mistakes and try to compensate for them. That is why we cannot fall and be broken until we come to the cross of Jesus. When we see that Jesus willingly fell and crumbled for our sake, we crumble in his presence whether we like it or not. Jesus, who had the position of divinity, left his position for our sake and became a servant. He became the servant of God and the servant of the people, and we see that he did not claim any right for himself, he did not consider himself entitled to have a house, property, and residence, and he allowed people to curse him, but he did not curse himself. They trampled him, but he neither tried to retaliate nor defend himself. But the most amazing thing is that we see him going to Golgotha, the place of execution, with humility and humility, to bear all the sins of mankind on the cross as atonement.
Humility and crushing on the way of the cross (spiritual awakening)
In one of the psalms, we can see the characteristic of these moving words: “I am a worm, and man is a reed” (Psalm 22:6). Those who have lived in tropical areas say that if we try to hit a snake or a worm, their reactions are very different. The snake stands straight and hisses and tries to counterattack. This is a perfect example of the ego. But the cream does not resist, but allows you to do whatever you want, kick or crush it under your feet. This is a perfect example of falling and crushing. Jesus was willing to become a worm for us. The reason why he was ready to become like a worm was that he saw that we all lost all human benefits due to sin and instead of remaining in the highest position of creatures, we are like worms and hellish. He wants us to be like worms with him and for him. The sermon teaches us that our true position is to be kind, because the summary of his teachings is that we should do good against evil, love our enemies and serve others with humility. But only when we are willing to fall like this and become crushed to understand how Christ’s love made him become like a worm.
In one of the spiritual hymns, we read: Oh God, crush my proud and stubborn soul, help me to bow down and die for my soul and look at the one who will throw his head down on the cross for me.
Humility and crushing on the way of the cross (spiritual awakening)
But it should be known that it is not enough for us to deny our self once and die for it. Of course, when God shows us these facts for the first time. Once we deny our ego and die, but from then on we must constantly die to our ego. Because it is only in this way that Jesus Christ can constantly reveal himself through us (2 Corinthians 10:4). Besides, we have to make thousands of decisions every day. This kind of life will prevent us from planning as we wish, or using our money and time as we wish and pursuing our pleasures. The requirement for this is that we constantly humble ourselves in front of those around us and submit to them, because the criterion of our submission to God is our submission to people. Every kind of humiliation and discomfort that comes to us from people is in the hands of God a means to crush us until the life of Christ appears in us more deeply.
Therefore, as we see, only Christ’s life can be pleasing to God and be called a victorious life, and no matter how hard we try, our life will never be like that. Because our selfish life is completely opposite to Christ’s life. We can never accept his life abundantly in us unless we are ready for God to die us constantly. For this, we must cooperate with God through our moral decisions.
Taken from the book of the Way of the Cross
Today in the article : Humility and crushing on the way of the cross (spiritual awakening) We reviewed useful information about the Bible and the way of Jesus. If you wish, you can view other articles of Ali Vahidi about Christianity
