Victorious Living. E. Stanley Jones
of evil.
O Christ, we thank you for what this opens up to us. It is the open door—the one open door out of our inner divisions, our inner strifes and confusions to harmony—to just what we want. We thank you. Amen.
* Clifford Barbour, Sin and the New Psychology (New York: Abingdon Press, 1930), 136.
Week 10 Friday
What the Victorious Life Is Not
Luke 22:28; 1 Corinthians 10:13; Hebrews 2:17-18; James 1:2-4
In order that we may see what the victorious life is, we must first see what it is not.
It is not freedom from temptation. Sin results from using a good thing in a wrong way. As dirt is misplaced matter, so sin is misplaced good. Sex is natural and right—adultery is sin. Self-respect pushed too far becomes pride, hence sin. Self-love is normal; pushed beyond limits it becomes selfishness. The herd instinct is right, but when against our ideals, we make the herd the final arbiter, it is sin.
James says, “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God. . . .Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own [desires], and enticed.” Note the phrase “drawn away”—the natural is drawn away, pushed too far into the sinful.
Now, the natural is always with us. Every moment it will be pressing upon the boundaries we set up for it. Every moment, therefore, we shall be tempted. But temptation is not sin. It is only when we yield that it becomes sin. “You cannot help the birds flying over your head, but you can help them building nests in your hair.” You cannot help the suggestion of evil coming, but you can help holding it, harboring it, and allowing it to rest in your mind until it hatches its brood. Dismissed at once it leaves no stain. Thoughts of evil become evil thoughts only when we invite them in, offer them a chair, and entertain them.
Moreover, temptation is the place where a tension is set up between the lower and the higher. When we throw our will on the right side of that tension, we actually become stronger. Temptation, therefore, can be the ladder to the higher life. We sublimate the moral tension into a moral triumph.
Constant temptation may be consistent with victorious living.
O Christ of the wilderness struggle, we thank you that you are in our struggles, lifting, saving, and turning the tide of the battle. You will go with me today as I turn temptation into character. I thank you. Amen.
Week 10 Saturday
What the Victorious Life Is Not (continued)
Galatians 2:11; 6:1; Philippians 3:12-15
Yesterday we saw that victorious living does not mean freedom from temptation.
Nor does it mean freedom from mistakes. We are personalities in the making, limited and grappling with things too high for us. Obviously, we, at our very best, will make many mistakes. But these mistakes need not be sins. Our actions are the result of our intentions and our intelligence. Our intentions may be very good, but because the intelligence is limited the action may turn out to be a mistake—a mistake, but not necessarily a sin. For sin comes out of a wrong intention. Therefore, the action carries a sense of incompleteness and frustration, but not of guilt. Victorious living does not mean perfect living in the sense of living without flaw. It does mean adequate living, and that can be consistent with many mistakes.
Nor does it mean maturity. It does mean a cleansing away of things that keep from growth, but it is not full growth. In addition to many mistakes in our lives, there will be many immaturities. Purity is not maturity. This gospel of ours is called the Way. Our feet are on that Way, but only on that Way; we have not arrived at the goal.
Nor does it mean that we may not occasionally lapse into a wrong act, which may be called a sin. At that point we may have lost a skirmish, but it doesn’t mean we may not still win the battle. We may even lose a battle and still win the war. One of the differences between a sheep and a swine is that when a sheep falls into a mud hole, it bleats to get out, while the swine loves it and wallows in it.
In saying that an occasional lapse is consistent with victorious living I am possibly opening the door to provide for such lapses. This is dangerous and weakening. There must be no such provision in the mind. There must be an absoluteness about the whole thing. Nevertheless, victorious living can be consistent with occasional failure.
O Christ, we thank you that you know our frame. And yet we know that you cannot remake that frame after your likeness. We put ourselves under its processes. Gladly we do so. Amen.
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