"Oh, wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (Romans 7:24).
While both are essential, it is far more difficult to get to know the old man than it is to know the Lord Jesus. Many who know something of Him, know little or nothing of themselves.
"There is not a more difficult lesson in the Christian life than to come to a true knowledge of what the flesh is. Its terrible power, its secret and universal rule, and the blinding it exerts in keeping us from the knowledge of what it is, are the cause of all our sin and evil. Hence it comes that so few really believe in their absolute inability to obey God or to believe in His love. And there is nothing that can deliver us from it but that entire willingness to die to the old man, which comes when by faith we understand that we have died in Christ Jesus." -A.M.
"It seems that God's Spirit has to take every growing believer through a drastic process of self-exposure. That fleshly principle lurking within has to be looked in the face. Its presumptuous claim to be a sufficient source of wisdom and ability has to be exposed in its big lie. Its save-yourself attitude has to be recognized and rejected. And such knowledge can only come through failure, humiliation and despair." -N.G.
"If you come to feel, through ever-recurring misery and defeat, that unless Another shall lead you into the land of fruitful obedience your whole Christian career will be a spiritual and moral chaos, then perhaps you are ready to venture your all upon your union with the Lord Jesus in His death and resurrection."
"There is no joy like that of realizing our nothingness, while at the same time reposing upon the Father's all-sufficiency."
"I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord" (Romans 7:25).
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Miles J. Stanford (1914 - 1999)
Was a Christian author best known for his classic collection on spirituality, The Green Letters, published in 1964. Theologically, Stanford called himself Pauline and Dispensationalism. He drew upon the written ministries of William Newell, Lewis Sperry Chafer, and a number of the original Plymouth Brethren, in particular John Nelson Darby.Because of Stanford's focus upon the doctrinal content of the Pauline Epistles, some evangelicals have erroneously identified him with hyper-dispensationalism. To address this, Stanford published numerous papers during the 1980s and 1990s clarifying the distinctive tenets of "Pauline Dispensationalism." A collection of fourteen papers were collected into his 1993 book of the same name. Stanford typically signed his letters with his hallmark salutation, "Resting in Him."