Yours difficulties are, I doubt not, the difficulties of many a dear child of God, and I feel as if to point you to the word that would meet your case, would be to settle the question for myself also, for what you say, I can say too; and often have I found myself engaged. on this point, instead of enjoying pure and simple communion with God. I have not, however, found it difficult to find the word suitable to me, but subjection to that word was what I found lacking. The word very plainly told me to cease looking for anything in myself; and to look for all in Christ. 1 Cor. 1:29 is plain enough on the one point, namely, " That no flesh should glory in his presence:" and verse 31 is plain enough on the other point, " He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord." Now I am pretty sure that what lies at the root of our trouble is this-the flesh wants to glory in His presence. It has a wily and subtle way of doing it; taking its stand on responsibility and the need of a good conscience._ Now these things are of weighty importance, but flesh has nothing to do with them; if it has, it is under law, and, it, of course, condemns.. If I have truly apprehended grace, I have seen the end of the flesh at the cross, and reckon myself dead; after that there can be no place for flesh in my responsibility, &c.
But it seems to me that we must go beyond the cross to realize, power. The cross shows me the end of myself, and is the foundation of all blessing to me, as a sinner. But does not Phil. 3 shew us that it is the knowledge of Christ in glory that enables one to count all the excellences of the flesh as dung. Of course, the Holy Spirit is the power of life within us-that is, every action of the new life is by the energy of the Holy Spirit. But there is also the way the Spirit acts; and does He not present to us the glory of Christ, and by that give the power to count flesh in its best form as utterly worthless.
Thus we have two things to help us against the flesh: the cross, which shows God's utter condemnation of it; and the glory, which reveals something infinitely superior to it; so much so as to make " good flesh" to be really bad, and refuse. But we know all this as, truth, yet fail in great measure to walk in it, and then, in mourning over our failures, slip back into the flesh-that is, the effort to be good in the flesh, to glory in His presence; or rather, we mourn, and., regret that we have failed to glory in His presence. This keeps us. dwelling on them, and so we are self-occupied. Is carelessness to take the place of this? Far from it. Nearness to God gives a truer and deeper judgment of self than any amount of failures seen and mourned over. When near Him, we condemn the sin, and turn, from it, glad to know He has put it away, not to be remembered, and instead of self and evil occupying us there, He engages our hearts with Himself.
There is a point I have not noticed yet, but it is one I have found in myself in these exercises, and it is this: my will is yet unbroken (pretty much the same thing as not reckoning oneself dead practically); but this is the way flesh acts, by will, and so it covers this wilfulness by regrets, and mourning the lack of power to walk aright; whereas, the fact is, I do not want the power-my will is against it. I would like the joy of communion with God, but I really shirk the cross, the self-denial, the pains, and sorrows of a path of devotedness and faithfulness to God and Christ. So that, to be honest with myself, I am very insincere in all my regrets and mournings. It is easier to sit and cry over one's faults, than to rise up, and " trust in the Lord, and do good." So I have found it, and I discovered this too: I did not like to go contrary to the known will of God, but I-that is, my flesh-took care to keep far enough away from God, that His will might not be too clearly known. I can see no other way in God's word than honestly, and in simple faith, to go into His presence, as having " no confidence in the flesh„" but owning Christ as all, and self nothing. Even our service, we cannot bring that into His presence. Nothing but Christ.
How often we have talked about putting the cart before the horse, works before life, &c. &c. Yet, while we blame it, practically we are often at it. How can there be any true and happy service for the Lord, if there is not peaceful and happy communion with Him? Yet how anxious we are to have our service right, and constantly exercised about this, and our communion, we seem to think, suffers because we are not right. The fact is, our service suffers because there is no communion to be the spring of it. Of course, I do not refer now to the interruption of communion by the allowance of sin; this is another thing.
The first important thing is to realize our fellowship with the Father, and His Son Jesus Christ. (See 1 John 1) This is the order: That which was from the beginning declared, and the result fellowship. Then the effect of this fellowship. Walk in. the light, and in righteousness, and in love. All the epistles give us our portion in grace, in Christ, first; after this the service. I must be happy in God's presence, before I can be happy in service. Now observe Satan's wile. He says, This is true, but you ought not to be happy in God's presence while you fail in your service. This looks all right, but it denies God's grace. True, I cannot be happy about my failure in service, but my happiness in God's presence was founded upon something apart from my service, or my doing; indeed we are made happy there before service begins. Shall my failure undo that which it had nothing to do with? Rather let me hold fast my place first, and being in it, the failure will be seen in its true light, and judged more sincerely and deeply, than if I allowed it to keep me out of my true place of peace and joy before God. In fact, it will be found that the failure took place as the result of having forgotten the true spring of service, and some other motive was at work.
Now, dear brother, I have sought to help you, not so much by meeting your case, but giving some of my experience, and the lessons learned from the word of God, which you, or rather the Spirit of God, may apply as is suitable. May we both take more simply and boldly our true place in His presence, and surely the result will be, our good, and His glory. though very likely not in just the practical way our wills have looked for.
G. G.