Beauty For Ashes: The Christ-life for the Self-life by Zac Poonen
God had a great and glorious purpose for man when He created him. Of all created beings, man alone was created with the capacity to share in God’s life and to partake of the Divine nature. But he could enjoy this privilege only as he voluntarily chose to live a life centred in God.
The two trees in the garden of Eden were symbolic of two ways of living. Adam could either partake of the tree of life (which symbolized God Himself) and live by the Divine life, or else he could choose the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and thus develop his own self-life and live independently of God. As we all know, he chose the latter. Having descended from Adam, we all have this over-developed self-life now.
But God’s purpose for man did not change when Adam fell. The coming of Christ into the world was in order that we might be delivered from this self-centred life that we have inherited, and once again have the opportunity to partake of the tree of life. This is the abundant life that Christ offers us.
Isaiah had prophesied (Isaiah 61:1-3) that Christ, when He came, would set people free from bondage. Man is bound not only by the Devil but also by his self-life. Christ came to set us free from both. Isaiah said that Christ would give those He liberated, beauty to replace their ashes. Ashes are a most appropriate symbol of the self-life – picturing its ugliness and its uselessness.
Christ offers to give us the beauty of His own life to replace the ashes of our self-life.
What a privilege! Yet many Christians do not enjoy this fully. Why not?
How can we enjoy it?
That is the subject of this book.
These messages were given at the Nilgiris Keswick (Deeper Life) Convention held at Coonoor, South India, in May 1971.
We shall look at four characters from the Bible in the pages that follow; and each of them will have something to teach us.
Zac Poonen – Bangalore, India
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.