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CLOSE THE DOOR TO SATANāS PLACES OF ENTRY INTO OUR LIVES. Letās get down to us today. Roy Hession writing a great little book, Calvary Road in 1950 to Christians says it well, p. 14-18:
āAnything that springs from self, however small it may be, is sin. Self-energy or self-complacency in service is sin. Self-pity in trials or difficulties, self-seeking in business or Christian work, self-indulgence in oneās spare time, sensitiveness, touchiness, resentment and self-defense when we hurt or injured by others, self-consciousness, reserve, worry, fear, all spring from self and all are sin and make our cups unclean. But all of them can see how much of this self there is in each of us. It is so often self who tries to live the Christian life (the mere fact that we use the word ātryā indicates that it is self who has the responsibility). It is self, too, who is often doing Christian work. It is always self who gets irritable and envious and resentful and critical and worried. It is self who is hard and unyielding in its attitudes to others. It is self who is shy and self-conscious and is in control, God can do little with us, for all the fruits of the Spirit (they are enumerated in Galatians 5), with which God longs to fill us, are the complete antithesis of the hard, unbroken spirit within us and presupposes that it has been crucified.
āBeing broken is both Godās work and ours. He brings His presence to bear, but we have to make the choice. If we are really open to conviction as we seek fellowship with God (and willingness for the light is the prime condition of fellowship with God), God will show us the expressions of this proud, hard self that cause Him pain. Then it is, we can stiffen our necks and refuse to repent or we can bow the head and say, āYes, Lord.ā Brokenness in daily experience is simply the response of humility to the conviction of God. And inasmuch as this conviction is continuous, we shall need to be broken continually. And this can be very costly when we see all the yielding of rights and selfish interests that this will involve, and the confessions and restitutions that maybe sometimes necessary.
āFor this reason, we are not likely to be broken except at the Cross of Jesus. The willingness of Jesus to be broken for us is the all-compelling motive in our being broken too. We see Him, Who is in the form of God, counting not equality with God a prize to be grasped at….ā
God even looks at the home. Think of revival in the home (Hession p. 47):