Let us continue in our lesson from Wade Taylor’s book, The Secret of The Stairs.
In order to find the entrance of the stairs that lead to deep intimacy with Christ, we must first dig down past the mistakes and failures, (rubble) to the “Rock”. This is important because it is our past that can keep us from intimacy and from growing in grace. As we progress up the stairs, Jesus will become increasingly more personal and real to us and we will begin to see all life from His perspective.
John 3:30 says , He must increase, but I must decrease. In effect, John is saying, “the way up is down. Isaiah states that God’s ways are higher than your ways. Our growth toward maturity and becoming His Bride is always toward a gradual shift from natural thinking and mindsets into the supernatural revelation of who Jesus is. We begin to see past the natural worldly ways and see into His kingdom and heavenly realm. As we learn to rest in the security of His presence and express our desire to commune with Him, our Bridegroom will respond to our desire and draw us closer to Himself. Song of Solomon 2:14.
A fundamental urge of life, (due to eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) is to be in control and direct our own lives. We have a, as Paul puts it, in our soul life, a sin nature, or the law of “self preservation”. Left to ourselves this law will control us. (See Romans 7). We must allow the Lord to deal with this self-perpetuating soul strength in order to bring us to the place where we can truly say; “Lord, I give up my right to my own life. I freely give up my right to make my own daily decisions”. I am completely yours!
One of the Father’s greatest desires is to transform us into the image and likeness of Jesus Christ in order for us to mature and represent God in earth, in much the way Jesus did, especially in this hour. Holy Spirit is ever attempting to draw us into Himself in order to create in us Jesus’ very nature. We must be willing to allow this death to self process, letting God grind our self life to powder so He can re-form us into useful vessels. We must implicitly trust the Lord, realizing that He knows what is best for us, in the process of molding us into His image.
We need to realize and understand as we truly begin to desire to be broken by the Lord, that intense pressure will be allowed and even sent by the Lord, with the intention of breaking our self will. It will seem that everything in our life is falling apart. This is where many will throw in the towel and run from the process. Remember in Luke 4 that it was Holy Spirit who led Jesus into the “wilderness” to be tempted by satan, not so He could fail, but in order for Him to come out VICTORIOUS!
It was after this point that Jesus began His earthly ministry. I encourage you to meditate on that. Heb. 5:8-9 says: Although He was a Son, He learned [active, special ] obedience through what He “suffered” (suffered=to have a sensible experience, in a good sense, to be well off, in good case) And, [His completed experience] making Him perfectly [equipped], He became the Author and Source of eternal salvation to all those who give heed and obey Him. (Isa. 45:17).