WHILE the Christian’s standing is immovable, Christ risen being the guarantee of his security, and Christ Himself the measure of his acceptance before God, the state of the Christian is subject to continual change, and is frequently as variable as the proverbial weather. The reason is that his standing rests absolutely and exclusively upon what Christ did for him upon the cross, and what Christ is for him in the glory, while his state has to do with himself, with his walk, his prayer, his communion. Christian standing relates to what the believer is in Christ in heaven; the state of the Christian relates to what the believer is in this world.
Very frequently the people of God, finding their state to be poor and miserable, begin to question their standing, and hesitate to accept all that which God says they are in Christ; Hence the enemy gets an advantage, and levels, them down to the low estate of their own experiences. But we are not accepted according to our love to Christ, but “in the Beloved” Himself.
When Israel in the wilderness was sinning shamefully, and joining in wickedness with Moab, God would from those mountain-tops, where the accuser sought to curse them, see no iniquity in Jacob, or, perverseness in Israel. He spake of the people according to His own purposes of them—great, glorious, and unalterable. They stood in His mind according to the measure of His counsels respecting them. But He did not pass over their evil state; nay, He laid His heavy hand upon them, and that because they were His people―His sinning people.
If the believer lets go faith respecting his standing in Christ, he is like a ship without an anchor, caught by the storm upon a lee shore—every trial from without, every weakness within drives him nearer and nearer to the rocks of despair. Self-occupation becomes his soul’s shipwreck. His sense of his utter inability to do anything or be anything good―which when Christian standing in Christ is known becomes the most wholesome of experiences―is to him utter misery. His eye being off Christ and on himself, his soul having lost sight of strength in Christ and finding none in himself, he is driven on to dejection, and to doubt whether he was ever in Christ at all.
It must be Christ first, Christ last, Christ all. No hope in self; no help in self. All confidence a Christ, and no confidence in the flesh ever makes us strong. Yet, Christian, while you boast of being “in Christ” take heed that “Christ be formed in you.”