How Can We Arrive at the Goal of Inward Unity?

E. Stanley Jones was a missionary, a theologian, and a prolific writer. He wrote the following in his devotional book Victorious Living about the conflict between the conscience and the spirit who works in the children of disobedience (Eph. 2:1-2) and the tremendous difference Christ makes when He comes and casts that old indwelling usurper out and replaces him with Himself (Rom. 6:16-18):

"If there is one thing that both modern psychology and the way of Christ agree on, it is this: Apart from inward unity there can be no personal happiness and no effective living.

"Jesus said, 'Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation.' That simple statement has within it all the depths of wisdom that modern psychology has discovered from the facts of the inner life. Divided personality, inward clash--these are the things that bring desolation to human personality.

"Many say to a distracted soul, 'Pull yourself together.' Futile advice when there are mutually exclusive things within us. They won't be pulled together. Experience taught Old Testament lawgivers the futility of trying to plow with an ox and an ass yoked together. It was forbidden. Experience forbids us from attempting to pull ourselves together when there are conflicting selves.

"'Exert your will,' counsels another. But suppose the will, which expresses the personality in action, is itself divided? Again futility.

"The psychoanalyst, after getting hold of the distracting place in a disordered life, and after relating it to the rest of life, says that to be held together there must be something upon which you can fasten your affections. This will lift you out of yourself and keep you unified. But often he has nothing to offer--except, perhaps himself, a professional trestle upon which the patient can twine the vines of affection. To say the least--unsatisfactory.

"So we toil in rowing, trying to get to the land of inward unity. We are tossed by many a wind and many a wave. And it gets very dark. Then Jesus quietly comes. We more easily let Him in this time, for there seems no other alternative. The soul seems instinctively to feel, 'the Master has come.' He gathers up the inward distinctions, cleanses away the points of conflict, and unifies life around Himself. We have arrived."