PARENTHOOD
a divine stewardship

 What they had bragged about, that is, the things in which they thought they were better than other nations, were all false. Actually, they were not one bit better than any other kingdom in this world. Then they knew that God had chosen them, not because they were superior to other nations, but because of His free grace. "I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion." So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy" (Romans 9:15-16). The way God led the children of Israel in the past is the same way He is leading His children today. The lesson God wants to teach His children today is the same lesson He taught the children of Israel, that is, to know the self. God wants His people to know that their self is corrupt, hopeless, incurable, filthy, and weak. God wants to bring the believers to the end of themselves, to have absolutely no hope in themselves, and to know that they are useless. This is so that they will solely trust in God in helplessness, seek His will, and depend on His power to fulfill His purpose. But how many believers really feel this way? How many really know that the self is absolutely useless and is actually filled with corruption and filth? Are there not many believers who think that the self has something, can do something, or knows something? Does not every believer think he is quite reliable and that he is stronger than others? Who really knows himself thoroughly?

THE REASON GOD ALLOWS US TO FAIL

God has no need to know our failure and falling. Whether we are standing up and overcoming or falling down and stumbling, God knows that the flesh is corrupt all the same. God knows our natural form. God has no hope that we will fulfill His righteousness by our flesh. He knows that we have nothing but sin. When we do good, He knows we are corrupt; when we do evil, He also knows we are corrupt. He does not need to wait until we fail or fall to know we are incurable. But we need failures and falling because, if it were not so, we could not know the self. When everything is going smoothly, when favorable winds are in the sails and we are victorious and filled with happiness, we think we are quite good and have what others do not have. Although we dare not boast in an obvious way, when we have a slight advancement in spiritual life or a slight success in spiritual work, it is hard for us not to think of ourselves and consider that we are indeed holy, able, and far superior to others. At such times, we unavoidably lose our trust in God and become careless. Therefore, God allows us to fall from glory to dust. He allows us to sin, fall, and backslide, in order that we would know that the self is unbearably corrupt, beyond cure, and that we ourselves are the same as the worst and most evil sinner in the world. As a result, we dare not assume anything in ourselves or glory in ourselves or boast in ourselves; rather, in everything we trust God with fear and trembling. Brothers, we need failures and fallings to humble us, to cause us to know the self and to know the flesh.

GOD WANTING THE BELIEVERS TO BE DELIVERED FROM SELF

Before we were regenerated and saved, the Holy Spirit caused us to be convicted so that we would know that we were just sinners and that all our goodness and righteousness in the past were simply filthy rags, insufficient to cover our nakedness or to save us. We also knew that even if we tried our best to do good for the rest of our lives, our righteousness would still not be sufficient to satisfy the requirements of the law. As a result, we knew we could not go about establishing our own righteousness outside of Christ (Romans 10:3). We knew we had to come to God helplessly, to receive the righteousness of the Lord Jesus and be saved through Him. That was our past experience. But how forgetful we are!...After we were saved, though we were filled with joy, we were still very humble because we had just received the grace of being forgiven. However, after a while, we forgot the initial principle by which we were saved. Because this new life had new desires, we began again to fulfill the righteousness by ourselves, to meet the outward demand....The self is always useless; it is always judged by God and should be put to death. But it is very regretful that the goodness and righteousness we threw away at salvation is welcomed again by us after a while. The self, which we confessed to be useless when we believed in the Lord, gradually becomes active again. God originally intended that after we were saved we should know the corruption of the self more deeply and, as a result, forsake its goodness and righteousness more deeply. The attitude we had toward the self when we first believed in the Lord was only the beginning of God's good work. God's goal is to work deeper and deeper in such a way that the believer becomes completely freed from the rule of the self. However, the believer destroys the work of God.

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