Here is a note from one of my past journals.
There is a wonderful and precious deeper life that I have seen. I am not walking in it, but I have seen it.
When all that I am can die and Christ can be raised fully in me, I will have it. Much of my growth toward Christ is for me, not for Christ.
There is a very crafty struggle within. A blocked self says to “seek Christ and become a man of God”. This is weak and faulty because my inner heart knows that “the man” is the focus of the attention.
Yet there is another heart, a heart of holy reflection that says, “seek God and obey”. This heart is willing to be the fool, the simple, the trusting. This heart is a heart that is dead to self but alive to Christ Jesus.
Today I see more clearly than ever before that to gain Christ and keep the blocked heart (the self) will end in “godlessness”. It may produce, what appears to be, a real spiritual man, but in truth it will only produce a spiritual shell.
I need not seek to become great in Christ, but seek only to be in Christ Jesus my Lord. In a wonderful, terrible leap of faith I must give everything to Christ, especially my godliness. I have grown in Christ to a place where I can do the most harm for Christ. I am at a place where I could do great treason. To let the man live another moment enhances the probability that the blocked heart will live, live to hurt, kill and destroy.
Yet even my dying is in the hands of Christ. He must bring to me all that I need to cut away and destroy this old heart of mine. He alone can truly put me to death. If I plan my own death it would included a glorious resurrection, ascension and praise. If I kill myself it would result in the praise of others for doing so and possibly some grand song within, filling me with self-praise.
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