Being and Doing

BEING AND DOING By: Major W. Ian Thomas
This is divine vocation into which you have been redeemed, as "His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained that you should walk in them" (Ephesians 2:10) can only be fulfilled in the energy and power of the One who indwells you now by His Spirit, as He walked once only in the energy and power of the Father who indwelt Him through the Spirit. Of Himself He said, "I can of mine own self do nothing" (John 5:19), and of you He says, in John 15:5, "Without me you can do nothing."
How much can you do without Him? Nothing!
It is amazing how busy you can be doing nothing! Did you ever find that out? "The flesh ­ everything that you do apart from Him ­ "profiteth nothing" (John 6:63), and there is always the awful possibility, if you do not discover this principle, that you may spend a lifetime in the service of Jesus Christ doing nothing! You would not be the first, and you would not be the last ­ but that, above everything else, we must seek to avoid!
So you discover that the life which you possess as a born-again Christian is of Him, and it is to Him, and every moment that you are here on earth it must be through Him ­ of Him, through Him, to Him all things! "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice" (Romans 12:1).
The Lord Jesus Christ claims the use of your body, your whole being, your complete personality so that as you give yourself to Him through the eternal Spirit, He may give Himself to you through the eternal Spirit, that all your activity as a human being on earth may be His activity in and through you; that every step you take, every word you speak, everything you do, everything you are, may be an expression of the Son of God, in you as man.
If it is of Him and through Him and to Him, where do you come in? You do not! That is just where you go out! That is what Paul meant when he said, "For me to live is Christ" (Philippians 1:21). The only Person whom God credits with the right to live in you is Jesus Christ; so reckon yourself to be dead to all that you are apart from what He is, and alive unto God only in all that you are because of what He is (Romans 6:1 1).
It is for you to BE ­ it is for Him to DO! Rest fully available to the Saving Life of Christ.
From: The Saving Life of Christ. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House. ©1961.

The Exchanged Life

EXCHANGED LIFE By: Major W. Ian Thomas
Christian living is not a method or technique; it is an entirely different, revolutionary principle of life. It is the principle of an exchanged life" not I, but Christ liveth in me" (Galatians 2:20).
This is all part of our Gospel - it is not the Gospel plus! We must not get our terminology wrong. To divorce the behavior of the Christian from the Gospel is entirely false and is not true to the Word of God, yet all too often such is the characteristic of gospel preaching.
I would like to explore with you what is the true spiritual content of our Gospel ­ not just heaven one day, but Christ right now! Christ in you, on the grounds of redemption ­ this is the Gospel! To preach anything less than this must inevitably produce "Evan-jellyfish" ­ folk with no spiritual vertebrae, whose faith docs not "behave!"
Do you remember what James says in his epistle? "As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead" (chapter 2:26). The "spirit" there means breath, and a body without breath is dead. Stop breathing ­ and folk will bury you! In other words, a living body breathes, and a living faith breathes, and a living faith breaths with divine action. A living faith breathes with the activity of Jesus Christ. That is why the Lord Jesus, in John 6:29, said, "This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent."
That is the work of God. It is your living faith in the adequacy of the One who is in you, which releases His divine action through you. It is the kind of activity that the Bible calls "good works," as opposed to "dead works."
"Good works" are those works that have their origin in Jesus Christ - - whose activity is released through your body, presented to Him as a living sacrifice by a faith that expresses total dependence, as opposed to the Adamic independence (Romans 12: 1,2).
It is only the life of the Lord Jesus -- His activity, clothed with you and displayed through you, that ultimately will find the approval of God.
From: The Saving Life of Christ. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House. ©1961.

The Mystery of Godliness by Maj. Ian Thomas

A life changing book that gives you an understanding of the simplicity of man and why he does what he does. Chrsitianity is God's plan of restoring to man what he lost in the garden of eden. This book explains how God restores to man the life that he lost and the reason God has done this.

Finding God by Larry Crabb

Is God good no matter what? You will be challenged in the way you think about God regardless of what is happening in your life. We have a tendancy to think that God is good only when good things are happening to us. This book will broaden your perspective of God and who He is.

"The Will of God as a Way of Life" by Jerry Sittser

What a great book that challenges our thoughts on the will of God. There is a lot of freedom here with regard to the will of God and the choices that we make.

Sidetracked in the Wilderness by Michael Wells

This is a book that has been very challenging with regard to understanding the origin of sin in ones life. The old man and the new man. Is the sin in our lives a result of the old man in us now, or the result of the residue left over from the old man in our lives? Is the old man presently alive in the soul of man or are the remnants of the old man still in our members?