Bryan Fraser - The Hidden Life: Living Inside-Out to Release Gods Blessing

The Hidden Life

Living Inside-Out to Release God's Blessing

Bryan Fraser

Copyright 20 05 by Bryan Fraser

The Hidden Life: Living Inside-Out to Release Gods Blessing

by Bryan Fraser

All rights reserved solely by the author. The author guarantees all contents are original and do not infringe upon the legal rights of any other person or work. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the permission of the author.

Unless otherwise indicated, Bible quotations are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Also by Bryan Fraser:

Because You Are Sons: Gods Heart for Men in Recovery

Gospel Without Law: How the Apostles Won the Western Mind

No Demons, Please... We're Evangelical: The Spiritual Roots of Addiction

To Ellenor,

who lives the hidden life

Table of Contents

Preface

But My servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit in him and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land where he went, and his descendants shall inherit it. Numbers 14:24

The Christian life is a struggle to make the unknown a reality. It is a struggle to an upward call that is completely beyond human experience and imagination. We are called to attain what we have not seen using powers we do not comprehend. Over and over again, the Bible teaches us that the key to spiritual victory is winning the battle within; that is, living openly, consistently and transparently before God. All the forces of hell are bent on preventing us from achieving this one thing. For to the degree that we neglect the inner man to focus on the external and the superficial, our efforts in spiritual work are futile and powerless.

This book is about who we are in our secret places; in other words, who we really are as opposed to who we think we are, who we say we are, who we wish we were or who we plan to be. It is about who we are when all the outer layers are stripped away and the hidden life is laid bare before God. Confronting who we are can be acutely painful, almost overwhelming. But it is only when we approach the cross as who we really are that our pain intersects the grace of Christ's blood and He can transform us into who He means us to be.

The pages following contain many challenges, but few words of comfort. I do not apologize for my conviction that the evangelical landscape is overcrowded with much misplaced comfort in these days, comfort that too easily allows us to settle for so much less than our Lord calls us to be. I instead commend the reader into the care of the true Comforter. For He is more severe, yet more gracious; more demanding, yet more patient; more intolerant, yet more understanding than the well-intentioned voice of human comfort could ever be.

Bryan Fraser

Fort Nelson, British Columbia

August 2005

Chapter 1. The Mystery of Fruitfulness

For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil. Ecclesiastes 12:14

WHAT HAVE YOU GOT BURIED UNDER YOUR TENT?

A Christians true identity is revealed in the hidden life. He reveals it in the choices he makes when there is no recognition to be had and no reputation to gain. He reveals it when he can choose the right thing or the wrong thing and no one else sees what he does. These are the choices that reveal the genuine person. Transparency before God is a high calling. Many will exhibit acts of sacrifice, of selfless labor, of every form of Christian virtue when they are in the public eye. But few attain to that lofty status of character where they are truly impartial to whether their conduct is public or not. Achieving consistency between our hidden and public lives is one of the greatest challenges facing the Christian and is, in fact, the ultimate confession of belief in God.

As much as our spirits desire to live openly before God, the flesh compels us to follow a double standard and is quick to exploit any opportunity it finds to lead us in that direction. It prompts us to readily remember our acts of obedience and to quickly forget our hidden sins. The flesh prompts us to compartmentalize the various areas of our lives, deluding us into thinking that hidden sin in one area will not affect the others. But the Apostle tells us that the body is knit together by what every joint supplies (Ephesians 4:16). Things that have no apparent connection in the natural world are knit together in the heavenlies. Israel was scattered on the battlefield of Ai because of the secret sin of Achans family (Joshua 7). Even though their sin had no natural connection to the logistics of the battle, Israels entire effort was rendered ineffective. The flesh also lulls us into complacency because of Gods delay in bringing our secrets to light. Even though we formally confess that the Lord will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts (1 Corinthians 4:5), this judgment often seems far off and unreal.

Living in this world, we are attuned to its laws of causation and consequence. We have learned what things we must do in the natural world to achieve results in the natural world. But Jesus calls us to bear fruit that remains, that is, His genuine fruit that will withstand the fire of judgment (John 15:16). When we apply natural strategies to spiritual objectives, the result is either barrenness or perishable fruit. Using earthly methods and techniques, the clever workman can achieve any result he desires. He can gather, build, harvest and in every way appear to be bearing the fruit that remains. Our natural eyes cannot distinguish perishable fruit from that which remains, so similar do they often appear. But, the Day will show each ones fruit for what it is (1 Corinthians 3:13).

The purpose of this book is to consider the goal of fruitfulness in our lives and bring about in the reader a shift of perspective from the natural to the revelatory. For if we desire to see genuine fruit in our lives, we must submit to Gods revealed conditions for fruitfulness. To the great distress of the flesh, what this ultimately means is that we bear fruit in accordance with our faithfulness in those matters where men hurry past but where our Lord waits and watches.

WHY WE NEED TO SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF

We bear fruit through faithfulness in the small, obscure details of obedience. The disciple who bears fruit is the one who makes no distinction in his heart between small and large matters or between hidden and visible matters. He submits to the heavenly equation stating that he who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much (Luke 16:10). He is faithful when the matter seems trivial, he is faithful even to his own apparent disadvantage and he is faithful when no one else will ever know. He understands that it is the hidden life, not the outward presentation, that moves God to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him (2 Chronicles 16:9). For if we disregard small things while attending to large things, then it is plain that our first priority is pleasing men rather than serving our Lord Who sees all things.

Yet, it is easier to accept this principle as a formal theological premise than to apply it as a working, hands-on lifestyle. For every fibre of our beings compels us to live as if we must work to bear fruit. But the truth is just the opposite: that we must actually work to become barren. When, through our hidden sin, we break fellowship with Christ, we can bear no fruit. Our Lord plainly teaches us that without Me you can do nothing (John 15:5). Here is the stumbling block that leaves so many Christians in a condition of barrenness. Our secret compromises and shortcuts move us away from His presence. We try to compensate for this separation by multiplying our outward efforts to bear fruit, but to no avail for without Me you can do nothing.