The Futility of Natural Man

This Psalm is the cry of a person who, in the midst of a trial of their faith, is operating out of the natural man. God never forgets us, or hides His face from us. But to natural man, it will sometimes SEEM like it.

If I am in Christ, my spiritual union with Him does not eliminate the possibilities of the flesh or natural man. Rather, Christ in me – received from above; received from the outside of me INTO me from the outside at salvation – exists along side of my natural man. The new creation in Christ Jesus is the result of Jesus Christ joining us to Himself. (see I Cor. 6:17) But all that is outside of that spiritual union remains natural – it remains the old man in Adam.
We cannot walk with God – we cannot fellowship with God – on the basis, or by using, the assets of natural man. Indeed, God allows trials of faith to set us free from trying to do so. Rather, God wants us to learn to abide in Christ as our life. But in order to achieve this, we usually have to be shown the futility of trying to live from out of natural man. We must see the Truth: There is NOTHING in natural man.

While we are in this learning process we will do as this Psalmist did: Take counsel in his own soul – using our own natural mind and natural man to try to figure things out; to try to find God. This won’t work. But even our failure is unto the end that we might learn Christ – and see that through Christ alone we can walk with God and discern His will. Jesus is to be our Light and our Truth – there is no other for us.