Well, good afternoon, brothers and sisters.
As we come to the study of God’s Word, there is a principle of Bible study that is absolutely indispensable: total reliance upon God’s Holy Spirit. This is God’s Word. He revealed it, and now He must give us a revelation of the revelation.
The Bible, like our Lord Jesus, has a human side and a divine side. We need both. We need the human side, but only God can reveal the divine side.
In 2 Kings 4:3, Elisha was with the widow. You remember that he told her and her sons to gather vessels—empty vessels. He said, “Go, borrow vessels, not a few.” They went out to the neighbors and gathered all these empty vessels.
Then verse 6 says that, when she asked for another vessel, one of her sons said, “There is not one vessel more.” And we read, “The oil stopped.”
Among the many things we learn from this passage is this: God is prepared to pour out as much as we are prepared to receive. You say, “How can I be prepared to receive?” Bring an empty vessel. That is what our part is.
When God created the universe, He created it out of nothing. That is the raw material. Bring Him the raw material, and watch what He will do.
Let us bow before the Lord.
Our heavenly Father, how we thank You this afternoon that we have the privilege of opening Your Word and beholding, by Your light, our Lord Jesus Christ. We know that, if we are to receive a transforming look at Him, it must be Your working. Open our eyes; take the veil away, we pray, that we might behold the Lord Jesus Christ.
I pray that You would deliver all of Your people from everything that is not from You, and that You would bring home to their spirits everything that is from You. To this end, we give this session to You, in the matchless name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Well, I have been given the privilege again to address you for the next few minutes. You have been given the privilege to listen. I hope your privilege does not run out before mine.
I want to continue to consider this great reality that God has called us to consider this weekend: spiritual perfection in our Lord Jesus Christ. I want to review a little of what we touched on yesterday afternoon, and that will prepare our hearts for this next section.
We will begin in Hebrews and finally, somewhere along the way, end up in Colossians 2. You might want to mark that passage.
Hebrews 7:19 says:
For the law made nothing perfect;
and a bringing in thereupon of a better hope,
through which we draw nigh to God.
Then Hebrews 10:1 says:
For the law having a shadow of the good things to come,
not the very image of the things,
can never with the same sacrifices year by year,
which they offer continually,
make perfect them that draw nigh.
Yesterday we discussed the fact that there was no possibility of spiritual perfection—no possibility of completeness, maturity, or development—in the old covenant. If we are ever to have spiritual perfection, it cannot be in the old covenant.
Remember, the old covenant was God’s covenant with His people: “If you do this, I will do this. If you obey unto spiritual perfection, I will grant you life.” Well, you know it did not work.
Hebrews 7:19 tells us that the law brought nothing to spiritual perfection. It could not. Why did it fail? Look again at Hebrews 8:7-8: God found fault with them, not with it. God had to correct the people, not the law.
The law was good, holy, perfect, spiritual, and acceptable. But Romans 8:3 says that the weakness of the law—what the law could not do—was that it was weak through the flesh. That was the fault of the first covenant: they tried to keep it in the flesh.
They tried to become perfect in their own determination, willpower, discipline, zeal, sincerity, and self-righteousness. It could not be done.
If there were ever to be anything that would bring us to spiritual perfection, there had to be another covenant. There had to be a better hope. The old covenant could not do it because something was wrong with them—not it; them, us, the people.
So God, in His great grace, made another covenant. This time it was not a covenant that God made with His people. It was a covenant that God made with His Son on behalf of His people—as their representative, as their substitute, and as their Head.
It was a covenant between the Father and the Son. Because He was not weak in the flesh, because there was no fault in Him, and because He did not fail, He lived perfectly and satisfied all the demands of a thrice-holy God.
Having completed that command, God could look at His Son and say, “This is My Son, your representative. This is My Son, the second Man. This is My Son, the last Adam. In Him I am well pleased.”
And because He did it as your substitute, God keeps the conditions of the covenant, because He dealt with the fault. He says, “Now I will give you a covenant that is absolutely unconditional as far as you are concerned.”
In this covenant, He promised that He would write His will in our minds so that we would know it. He promised that He would write His will in our hearts so that we would love it. He promised that He would choose to remember our sins no more so that we could walk in unbroken union. He could be our God, and we could be His people.
That is where we left off yesterday—with that better hope. I hope it encourages your heart and gives you confidence, so that when you hear a phrase like spiritual perfection, you do not throw your hands up in despair and say, “Woe is me. No hope for that for me.” Oh, there is hope. There is a better hope. There is hope in the new covenant.
As I said yesterday, perhaps not in these words, but this is the reality: if all you had was that new covenant, it would mock you. It would mock you. We need more than the new covenant. We need Someone to mediate that new covenant.
Yesterday we spoke about the gospel, the mystery of the gospel. You prayed that I might, as Paul prayed, when I handled the mystery of the message, speak with boldness. I will ask again, according to Colossians 4:3-4: this afternoon we are touching the mystery of Christ.
When we touch the mystery of Christ, Paul says, “Pray that I speak as I ought to speak”—clearly, plainly. We need to see the simplicity of this. It needs to be delivered with clearness and plainness. May God help us.
Hebrews 7:11 says:
If there were perfection through the Levitical priesthood
(for under it the people received the law),
what further need was there
that another priest should arise after the order of Melchizedek,
and not after the order of Aaron?
There was a need not only for another covenant, but for another priest.
Hebrews 8:6 says:
But now hath He obtained a ministry the more excellent,
by so much as He is also the mediator of a better covenant,
which hath been enacted upon better promises.
It is not the new covenant alone that can bring us to spiritual perfection. It is a Person, and His name is the Lord Jesus Christ. We cannot separate the ministry from the Minister. He is the One who makes this thing real.
How can I get those wonderful promises into my heart? Hebrews 8:6 says that He has obtained a more excellent ministry. That is His ministry. He is the Mediator of a better covenant.
I love that expression, “by so much.” That is a measurement; that is a comparison. The entire book of Hebrews begins by telling us how great Jesus is. The word used over and over is: better.
He is better than the prophets. How much better—ten times better, fifty times better, a hundred times better? Infinitely better than the prophets. Then it says He is better than the angels. How much better? A billion times better? Infinitely better than the angels.
He is infinitely better than Moses, infinitely better than Joshua, infinitely better than Aaron and that entire priesthood. How great is the new covenant? By as much as Jesus is better. What a covenant. What a comparison God gives us.
The measure of the ministry is given in terms of the measure of the Minister. Hebrews 7:22 says:
So much the more also Jesus
hath become the surety of a better covenant.
Darby translates it, “the surety of the better covenant.” It is the Person. It is Christ who lives to guarantee that covenant.
The logical step, then, is to look above and see His present ministry in heaven. What is He doing up there now? As an Advocate after you sin; as an Intercessor before you sin; as a Mediator of the covenant so that you might not sin.
I do not know if you are familiar with the way God has laid out His New Testament, but it is marvelous. The book of Romans is the great foundation: that is what Jesus has done.
After Romans, you have eight church epistles built on that foundation. If you really believe what He has done, what will your life look like? Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians—that is what you look like if you enter into what He has done.
Then He gives us the book of Hebrews, the great foundation of what He is doing now. What is His present ministry? Then He gives us eight more reality epistles: what will my life look like if I enter into what He is doing now?
Many Christians have entered into what He has done, and how that has changed their lives. But they have only begun to see what He is doing now.
When our Lord Jesus lived on earth, He lived as our substitute. Many times we just say, “Yes, on the cross He was my substitute.” But was He my substitute in His life as well as in His death, or was He merely my example?
He was my substitute when He was born. He was my substitute when He was circumcised. He was my substitute in His baptism, in His death, and in His resurrection. He did that as the representative Man. He was my substitute.
Now He is glorified in heaven, and He is still your substitute. Hebrews 6:20 says that Christ entered heaven as a forerunner for us. Hebrews 8:1 says, “The main point in what has been said is this: We have such a high priest.” We have Him.
Hebrews 9:24 says:
Christ entered not into a holy place made with hands,
a mere copy of the true one,
but into heaven itself,
now to appear before the face of God for us.
He is there for us. He is still our representative, our federal Head.
As far as I can trace it back, the first one who used the expression the exchanged life was Hudson Taylor. That is the key to this whole idea of spiritual perfection. There has to be an exchange.
He is the One who entered and attained spiritual perfection. He is the only One who has ever attained it, and He is the only One who is going to attain it again—in you and in me.
If we miss the truth of His substitute life, then we have to throw away forever every hope of spiritual perfection. He is there for you. He is there for me.
Some have this idea—they would not say it exactly like this, but it boils down to this—that when our Lord Jesus ascended into glory, He just sat around waiting to return. They have a vague idea; they do not understand His present ministry.
He has a ministry. Part of it is becoming the Surety of the new covenant. But some people have the idea that He is exalted merely to mind the store. He has little bottles of joy up there on His shelf, and when someone prays in faith, the Mediator of the covenant takes a little bottle of joy and hands it down.
Or, if they have more faith, they can get a jug of joy. If they have still more, perhaps they can have a gallon of joy. That is not how you get joy.
God gave us that great parable of the vine and the branches. The general principle of that parable is that there is no fruit-bearing apart from abiding in Him. Would you agree with that?
Here is the first application of that principle. Fruit is too general. John 15:11 says:
These things have I spoken unto you,
that My joy may be in you,
and that your joy may be made full.
He told us how to abide in the Vine so that His joy may be in us and our joy may be full. He is not up there handing down something called joy. He says, “You want joy? You had better learn to abide in the Vine. Then My joy will be yours.”
He does not have joy, power, patience, and wisdom up there in little packages waiting for someone to order them. “Send a hundred days of patience to Ed Miller; he is going to need it. Three weeks’ supply of strength to Christian A. Six months’ supply to Christian B. Christian D needs a gallon of grace and half a gallon of love.” Package it up and send it down. That is not His ministry at all.
Since God’s covenant is not with me, but with His Son; since God’s covenant is not with you, but with His Son; since God’s covenant is not with us, but with His Son—we had better learn how to tap into His Son.
He is the Mediator of the new covenant. It is not so much the new covenant that we have; it is Him. Hebrews 8:1 does not say that the chief point of everything we have said is that we have a new covenant. That would be such a cheap point.
It says, “We have such a high priest.” It does not say that we understand Him. I do not want to be irreverent, but it does not even say that we follow Him, obey Him, or surrender to Him. It says that the main point of everything we have said is: we have Him.
We have Him—not something called grace, power, love, hope, or fruit. Hebrews 5:9 says:
Having been made perfect,
He became unto all them that obey Him
the author of eternal salvation.
There is spiritual perfection. He has it, and He wants to be the source of that salvation to us. He is not there as the proprietor of a store. He is there as the source of life. He does not give me joy; He gives Himself. He gives His life.
If we are to be sanctified, we have to understand Hebrews 2:11:
He that sanctifieth
and they that are sanctified
are all of one.
In His high-priestly prayer, John 17:19, He says, “For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.” Our perfection is in His perfection.
Do not think, “He is way up there, and I am way down here.” It is true that He is way up there, but He is also way down here. You say, “I am down here; He is up there.” It is true that you are down here, but you are also up there—risen with Him and seated with Him in heavenly places.
We need to understand that He is up there and He is down here. He is giving His life. He is pouring out. He is still our substitute. The way we enter in is that He mediates the new covenant by letting us partake of His life.
I had planned to give this whole message from Hebrews, but it was too theological. It was driving me crazy. It is there, but I could not get it down to where you could get a handle on it.
Hebrews teaches life from heaven for life on earth, but in a theological way. Colossians teaches the same thing in a more practical way, at least with the light I have now. So I am going to ask you to turn to Colossians.
Let us begin in Colossians 3:1:
If then ye were raised together with Christ,
seek the things that are above,
where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God.
Verse 3 says, “For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” Then verse 4: “When Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with Him be manifested in glory.”
Colossians is talking about the Lord Jesus exalted in the heavens. That is what Hebrews was talking about.
Turn to Colossians 1, please, so I can show you that we are not leaving the theme. The theme is spiritual perfection. Does Colossians say anything about spiritual perfection? Indeed it does. That is the heartbeat of the book.
Colossians 1:28 says:
Whom we proclaim,
admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom,
that we may present every man perfect in Christ.
The apostle wrote this letter to show the saints how they can be mature, how they can enter into completeness, and how they can have spiritual perfection.
Now turn to Colossians 2. This is where I want to be. The apostle gives two illustrations. I will mention both, but I am going to focus on the second.
Colossians 2:6-7 says:
As therefore ye received Christ Jesus the Lord,
so walk in Him,
rooted and builded up in Him,
and established in your faith,
even as ye were taught,
abounding in thanksgiving.
This is the first picture he gives. Paul, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, presents the Lord Jesus as the believer’s soil. You are rooted in Him, and everything the soil is to the plant, He pictures Christ as being to us.
Those first chapters are so full of Christ because Paul is analyzing the soil. He is telling you what a wonderful soil it is. You are rooted in Him, and you must not let anything, anybody, or any influence break the connection between the root and the soil.
He is your soil. He is adequate. He is sufficient. He is enough. Do not let anything shake those roots and uproot you.
How I love pictures. Perhaps that is just part of my simplicity. I need pictures; they help me see the truth, grasp it, and simplify things. When you come to the Bible and see pictures in the Bible, remember that the reality is always greater than the picture.
No matter how great the picture is, the reality is greater. When the reality is Christ, how much greater is it—ten times, a hundred times? The answer is infinitely greater.
The soil to the plant, and the way the soil provides for the plant, is only a little picture. The reality is infinitely better than that.
But His second illustration absolutely blew me away. The illustration is so big, and then, after you are done with the illustration, you have to multiply it by infinity to get a passing glimpse of how great Jesus is.
He does not change the subject. He is still talking about spiritual perfection. All He changes is the illustration.
Colossians 2:18-19 says:
Let no man rob you of your prize
by a voluntary humility and worshipping of the angels,
dwelling in the things which he hath seen,
vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,
and not holding fast the Head,
from whom all the body,
being supplied and knit together through the joints and bands,
increaseth with the increase of God.
The apostle Paul had this burden on his heart. He said, “I long to bring every believer into maturity, into perfection. I want everyone—nobody to miss it.”
He asked, “How can I illustrate this?” Of course, it was by inspiration. God gave him this illustration. If you are going to grow with a growth that is from God, you must have the same relationship to Him that the body has to the head.
There is no possibility of growing, maturing, or coming to perfection except by what he calls “the increase that is from God.” If you have not discovered the secret of the increase that is from God, you cannot enter into spiritual perfection.
Some dear folks are grace-centered, not Christ-centered. I love the new covenant. I love the message of grace. I love the gospel, and I want to proclaim it boldly. But, as I suggested yesterday, after all, it is not Him. It is not Him.
I must learn to hold fast the Head. If I am ever going to grow with the growth that is from God, I must hold fast the Head.
In the picture, the head is the brain, and the brain is the great giver to the body. As the body lives for the pleasure of the head, and the head is allowed to flow and give life, then the body is able to grow with an increase from God.
There is an increase that is not from God. There is an increase that is death. In my early struggle to understand these wonderful truths, I knew I was supposed to grow. They told me, “Grow!” Like the little child with the flower: “Grow!”
I knew I wanted to advance, but I had not learned God’s wonderful secret of holding fast the Head so that the life of God Himself could flow, causing me to grow with the growth that is from God. I knew I was supposed to grow, so I expanded instead of growing.
An icicle grows. It gets bigger and bigger and bigger, but it is not growing. It is not life. There is no life in that. It just melts and freezes, melts and freezes, and it can get pretty big. We used to break them off the porch and sword-fight with our icicles. But it is dead.
In Newport, they have signs all over the place: “Stay off the dunes.” We have sand dunes all along the beach, and every time I go down there, they are bigger. These things are growing—but they are not growing. They are getting bigger.
The wind blows one grain of dead sand upon another grain of dead sand. It grows and grows, but it is death. It is like a crystal: it grows, but it is death. It is accretion, not life. It is not growing.
A coral reef gets larger and larger. It may look beautiful to the natural eye, brightly colored, and it gets bigger and bigger. But no matter how beautiful it appears, how it is cut, or how highly it is polished and turned into jewelry, it is made out of the skeletons of sea animals. It is death.
Nothing is more frightening to my heart than a coral church, a coral Christian, a coral life—expanding, getting bigger and bigger, but knowing nothing about the increase from God.
It just musters up artificial stimulants to cause growth and become bigger, running after one religious excitement and then another, this novelty and that novelty. The desire may be sincere and noble, but it is wrong in principle.
We are not to expand by accretion, just piling one dead thing on another: this program, that activity, this meeting, that work. “Let us add this. Let us add resources. Let us add buildings.” We get bigger and bigger and bigger, but we have never learned to hold fast the Head.
The body must grow with a growth that is from God, an increase from the Lord. Colossians 2:18-19 tells us about that growth, and this is one of the most beautiful pictures of Christ that I know in the New Testament.
It seems to blend everything together: the objective and the subjective; the things we get by gift and the things we get by attainment. It is all here: holding fast the Head.
As the Head, as the brain of the body, Christ is the great Giver. I am not pretending that I understand all of this, but when I began to see this, I looked up the brain just to get some ideas. It became my text for a while. Marvelous—the brain and its nervous system.
This is not my idea. This is God’s illustration. That little brain, weighing three pounds, with its billions of interacting cells—God said, “I think I will create something to picture My Son in His union with My people.”
The brain sends its commands to every part, to every one of the body’s systems. But the brain does not only send the command; it sends the enablement. What a marvelous picture this is.
Without your brain, you could not think, speak, move, or remember. You could not move a little finger without your brain. It controls everything: your heartbeat, whether you smile or frown, whether you blink your eyes, your breathing, and your pulse rate.
Everything—your thirst, your growth, your appetite, whether you shiver or sweat—it is all through the brain. By the brain, you feel pain, heat, cold, and confusion. You digest and assimilate.
In Christ, I do not think the Holy Spirit could have chosen a greater illustration of how to increase with the increase of God and move on into spiritual perfection than this marvelous picture of the member in union with the Head, with the Head giving His life.
When there is a problem in the brain, when something interrupts that union, it is devastation to the body. Perhaps you have known someone with brain tumors, cerebral palsy, Bell’s palsy, epilepsy, or something like that, and you have seen how it affects the body.
My dearest friend is with the Lord now. For twenty-five years, three days a week, three hours a day, I was his therapist. He had multiple sclerosis. He lay on the bed, paralyzed from his neck to his feet. He had a brain-connection problem, and it affected the body. The body was helpless; it could not function.
Let me show you how this illustration yields up the secrets of spiritual perfection. Then, later, God helping you, you can multiply it by infinity.
I do not need to be convinced that the old covenant cannot bring perfection, because my flesh is weak. You do not have to do much to convince me of that. I have known that for sixty-two years, and especially for the last forty-six years.
My heart cries out, “I want a new covenant. I need something unconditional. I need something that does not depend upon me and how well I perform.”
But the cure for the old covenant is not the new covenant. The cure for the old covenant is laying hold of the Head, because God made His covenant with His Son. His Son then became the source of life, and now I must tap into the source.
I am happy to hear that the new covenant is unconditional. I went through what many Christians go through: “Oh, great! That is great news. I have no responsibilities, duties, or obligations. Get away from me with your rules. I am free in Christ.”
“He took it all away, so I can do nothing.” That misses the point. That is not the point. The reason the new covenant is unconditional for you and me is because He has met the conditions, and He lives in me to meet them again.
He has not simply set me free to be unholy, slipshod, and live any way I want. The same Jesus of whom we have a record in the Gospels lived on earth for thirty-three and a half years in the body God gave Him through Mary.
He is back again. The only difference now is that He has a new body. It is the same Christ. He has come back to live again, but He has a new body. It is Him, and He has come to live again and to live out all the conditions.
Venus shared four burdens for prayer with us as we opened the conference. The fourth was his desire that we could stand, according to Ezra 3:1, “as one man.” What a picture of the corporate Head and the body.
If we are holding fast to the Head, our body will experience the life of God. George Carter recently sent me a devotional that said:
Do we not become members of the body of the divine Person of Christ?
Yes, the same blood which flows in the head flows in the hand;
the same life which quickens Christ quickens His people.
Whatever else is illustrated by this illustration, you must have this: the Head gives life to the body. There can only be one life in the body. It must be a common life.
The life that is in my head is in my hand. The life in my hand is in my fingers. The life in my fingers is in my leg. The life in my leg is in my foot. There is only one life.
My paternal grandmother, Grandma Miller, had an aggravated case of diabetes. First, they had to amputate her right arm, but she continued to live because there was no life center in the right arm. Then they took off her right leg, and she continued to live because there was no life center in the right leg.
Then they took off her left arm, and she continued to live because there was no life center in her left arm. Then they took off her left leg, and she continued to live, even as a stump on that chair, because there was no life center there. Her life was in her head.
My hand does not have a life or a will of its own. In Ephesians 4:18, God calls attention to the unbeliever: “They are excluded from the life of God.” They do not have the life of God; they have only their natural life.
Why do you think Brother Stephen spoke so passionately today about the absolute need for consecration, surrender, and total abandonment? It is because, in the illustration, the body can have only one life. It cannot have more than one life. There cannot be an independent life.
Every time there is a problem in the church, somebody is independent. There can only be one life. We have common life and one will. That is why, when we lay hold of the Head, we consecrate and lay down our lives, so there will not be division.
What if your right hand had a will of its own? What if your left hand had a will of its own? What if your right foot wanted to go left and your left foot wanted to go right at the same time? What if your feet wanted to run and your back wanted to rest, your voice wanted to sing, and your stomach wanted to eat—all at the same time?
That is chaos. If my hand had a will, it would be awful; it would be spastic. It is funny in a body, but it is tragic in the church. We see so many members with a life of their own.
But our Lord wants to give His life through the brain. He is the Head. He wants to supply the body. That is the new covenant: that I experience in my life the life of the Lord Jesus, not so that I can learn to live for Him, but so that He can come and live for Himself in me and in you.
He is your substitute. It is an exchanged life. Christ is the reason the new covenant is unconditional for me, because He lives to keep all the conditions.
My heart also cries out for the internal part of the covenant: “You will write it in my mind.” I want to know. I want to know His will. How can I know? I want to love His will. How can I love it?
Hebrews 7:22 says that Jesus is the guarantee of the new covenant. As I draw from the Head, He communicates His life, and I know it.
Look again at the picture. The members of the body, drawing life from the living Head, automatically function as God created them to function. If this hand is living for the pleasure of the head, and that hand is living for the pleasure of the head, those hands will act like hands.
My ear functions as an ear if it is living for the pleasure of the head. My foot functions as a foot if it is living for the pleasure of the head.
As I meditate on that picture, my hand is stupid. Honestly, it does not even know it is a hand. My foot does not know that it is a foot. But when my hand lives for the pleasure of my head, it works as a hand. It functions as a hand.
We hear so much about advancing in spiritual perfection, and we are told to find out who we are. I may be treading on some private property now, and I apologize for that, but I feel very uncomfortable when I hear undue emphasis on finding your spiritual gift.
“Find your spiritual gift. Find your spiritual gifts. You have to discern your place in the body. Find your gift, and after you discover it, develop it so that you can use it for the Lord.”
I will tell you, there is a more excellent way. You just live in union with your Head, and any gift or gifts God has given you will function. They will function.
You do not even have to know who you are. You just have to draw life from your Head. If you are in union with your Head, it is going to work out.
I remember going under a great cloud of guilt because I did not enter into the sufferings of believers. When Christian A was hurting, I thought, “I am a Christian. I am supposed to feel that.” So I tried to muster something up.
Someone comes to me who has just been divorced, and I say, “Well, I can imagine what that feels like.” I cannot imagine what that feels like. I have Lillian, and I have had her for—I forgot how many years. I am in trouble.
I do not know what it is like. I cannot feel what it is like to have cancer, because I have not had it. I have never broken a bone.
Recently, my son-in-law, a man of youthful zeal, was helping me clean the attic part of my garage. He was on the top, and I was on the bottom—an arrangement that will never happen again.
He was handing things down much faster than I could receive them, and he sent down a missile of a four-by-two that hit me in the elbow. I still feel that.
To be honest with you, my right hand did not feel that pain. But immediately, my right hand went like this and began to embrace and hold the elbow—for a long time, actually.
You know why? My right hand was not supposed to feel the pain. The pain was registered in the head. The head sent a command to the right hand, and the right hand, living for the pleasure of the head, responded to the command.
The right hand was empowered by the head and went over to rescue the left elbow. It still did not know what it was. What a picture. Multiply it by eternity. That is new-covenant living. That is perfection.
Just lay hold of Christ. Draw from your Head. Let Him live. Lay down your life so that He can live. He knows how to live. He has done it before. He wants to do it again. He will meet all the conditions.
He will let you know. It is intuitive. He will work it on the inside. It will become automatic.
Take, for example, the unity of the body. If my right hand lives for the pleasure of the Head and my left hand lives for the pleasure of the Head, they are in perfect union.
I do not need a lesson on unity or how to get along. There will be no clash. There is harmony, unity, fellowship, and oneness. It does not have to be regimented. It is spontaneous, without striving, without trying, even without thinking.
I do not have to have a committee meeting every morning: “Okay, body, here are the rules. Today the left foot will begin the walk, then the right foot will follow. The right hand has to do this.” I do not need to tell my back when to bend.
My head wants to nod, and my arm wants to lift. It is automatic. If you are drawing life from the Head—Paul says, “Hold fast the Head”—you will grow with a growth that is from God.
Learn the secret of laying hold of your risen Head. Lay hold of Him. This is the new covenant. He meets all the conditions. He lives His life. You will automatically fulfill everything God has created and redeemed you to be as you lay hold of Him.
The Head stimulates the members and then provides the power to perform. He is the Giver. He is the Source.
Finally, I told you that the new covenant is intimate. My heart cries out, “I want to walk with God. He is my God; I am His child.” This body-and-head illustration shows it once again. It is so perfect.
Look at the assurance and confidence this gives. Someone once asked me, “Aren’t you afraid you will slip from His fingers and be lost?” I am His finger. I am His finger. I am not going to be lost.
You say, “Satan is going to get you one day. He is going to scratch the heel.” That is all he can do. He cannot reach the Head.
My son thought I was getting too fat. I do not know where he got that. So he bought me a membership at the YMCA so I could swim. I am not a good swimmer, but I do know this: if my head stays above the water, I will not drown.
You cannot drown the body. Brothers and sisters in Christ, your Head is above the water. He ascended on high. How safe you are. This is the new covenant.
The greatest piece of spiritual advice I ever received in my life came from my little four-foot-one-or-two grandmother. My mom and dad were divorced when I was three, and my grandmother brought us up.
They called me Butchy. That was my name. If I heard this once, I heard it a million times: “Butchy, will you use your head?”
Every day: “Butchy, will you use your head?” You want spiritual perfection? Use your Head. Use your Head.
He is the life. Hold fast the Head, from whom the whole body is nourished and grows with the growth that is from God.
Praise God for the new covenant. Praise God for the Mediator, who gives not merely the new covenant but His life, to make that covenant real in your life. May God work this in us.
Let us pray.
Father, thank You so much for this marvelous picture in Colossians of our Savior, the Head. Teach us what it means to hold fast the Head, to abide. Forgive us for the times we have tried to have independent life.
Work consecration in us so that there might be only one life, that there might be unity, that we might grow with a growth that is from God, being conformed to the image of Christ, manifesting Him, and experiencing Your heart’s joy: spiritual perfection.
We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.