Thursday, October 31, 2013

The Trial Of Faith

"If you have faith as a mustard seed... nothing will be impossible for you" (Matthew 17:20).


We have the idea that God rewards us for our faith, and it may be so in the initial stages. But we do not earn anything through faith- faith brings us into the right relationship with God and gives Him His opportunity to work. Yet God frequently has to knock the bottom out of your experience as His saint to get you in direct contact with Himself. God wants you to understand that it is a life of faith, not a life of emotional enjoyment of His blessings. The beginning of your life of faith was very narrow and intense, centered around a small amount of experience that had as much emotion as faith in it, and it was full of light and sweetness. Then God withdrew His conscious blessings to teach you to "walk by faith" (2 Corinthians 5:7). And you are worth much more to Him now than you were in your days of conscious delight with your thrilling testimony.

Faith by its very nature must be tested and tried. And the real trial of faith is not that we find it difficult to trust God, but that God's character must be proven as trustworthy in our own minds. Faith being worked out into reality must experience times of unbroken isolation. Never confuse the trial of faith with the ordinary discipline of life, because a great deal of what we call the trial of faith is the inevitable result of being alive. Faith, as the Bible teaches it, is faith in God coming against everything that contradicts Him- a faith that says, "I will remain true to God's character whatever He may do." The highest and the greatest expression‍‍ of faith in the whole Bible is- "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him" (Job 13:15).


[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Faith

"Without faith it is impossible to please Him..." (Hebrews 11:6).


Faith in active opposition to common sense is mistaken enthusiasm and narrow-mindedness, and common sense in opposition to faith demonstrates a mistaken reliance on reason as the basis for truth. The life of faith brings the two of these into the proper relationship. Common sense and faith are as different from each other as the natural life is from the spiritual, and as impulsiveness is from inspiration. Nothing that Jesus Christ ever said is common sense, but is revelation sense, and is complete, where as common sense falls short. Yet faith must be tested and tried before it becomes real in your life. "We know that all things work together for good..." (Romans 8:28) so that no matter what happens, the transforming power of God's providence transforms perfect faith into reality. Faith always works in a personal way, because the purpose of God is to see that perfect faith is made real in His children.

For every detail of common sense in life, there is a truth God has revealed by which we can prove in our practical experience what we believe God to be. Faith is a tremendously active principle that always puts Jesus Christ first. The life of faith says, "Lord, You have said it, it appears to be irrational, but I am going to step out boldly, trusting in Your Word" (for example, see Matthew 6:33). Turning intellectual faith into our personal possession is always a fight, not just sometimes. God brings us into particular circumstances to educate our faith, because the nature of faith is to make the object of our faith very real to us. Until we know Jesus, God is merely a concept, and we can't have faith in Him. But once we hear Jesus say, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father" (John 14:9) we immediately have something that is real, and our faith is limitless. Faith is the entire person in the right relationship with God through the power of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.


[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]



Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Secret Believers!

Substitution

"He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Corinthians 5:21).


The modern view of the death of Jesus is that He died for our sins out of sympathy for us. Yet the New Testament view is that He took our sin on Himself not because of sympathy, but because of His identification with us. He was "made ... to be sin...." Our sins are removed because of the death of Jesus, and the only explanation for His death is His obedience to His Father, not His sympathy for us. We are acceptable to God not because we have obeyed, nor because we have promised to give up things, but because of the death of Christ, and for no other reason. We say that Jesus Christ came to reveal the fatherhood and the lovingkindness of God, but the New Testament says that He came to take "away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29). And the revealing of the fatherhood of God is only to those whom Jesus has been introduced as Savior. In speaking to the world, Jesus Christ never referred to Himself as One who revealed the Father, but He spoke instead of being a stumbling block (see John 15:22-24). John 14:9, where Jesus said, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father," was spoken to His disciples.

That Christ died for me, and therefore I am completely free from penalty, is never taught in New Testament. What is taught in the New Testament is that "He died for all" (2 Corinthians 5:15)- not, "He died my death"- and that through identification with His death I can be free from sin, and have His very righteousness imparted as a gift to me. The substitution which is taught in the New Testament is twofold- "For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." The teaching is not Christ for me unless I am determined to have Christ formed in me ( see Galatians 4:19).


[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]

Saturday, October 26, 2013

.... mold me and make me....

What Is A Missionary?

"Jesus said to them again, '... As the Father has sent Me, I also send you'" (John 20:21).

A missionary is someone sent by Jesus Christ just as He was sent by God. The great controlling factor is not the needs of people, but the command of Jesus. The source of our inspiration in our service for God is behind us, not ahead of us. The tendency today is to put the inspiration out in front- to seep everything together in front of us and make it conform to our definition of success. But in the New Testament the inspiration is put behind us, and is the Lord Jesus Himself. The goal is to be true to Him- to carry out His plans.
Personal attachment to the Lord Jesus and to His perspective is the one thing that must not be overlooked. In missionary work the great danger is that God's call will be replaced by the needs of the people, to the point that human sympathy for those needs will absolutely overwhelm the meaning of being sent by Jesus. The needs are so enormous, and the conditions so difficult, that every power of the mind falters and fails. We tend to forget that the one great reason underneath all missionary work is not primarily the elevation of the people, their education, nor their needs, but is first and foremost the command of Jesus Christ- "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations..." (Matthew 28:19).
When looking back on the lives of men and women of God, the tendency is to say, "What wonderfully keen and intelligent wisdom they had, and how perfectly they understood all that God wanted!" But the keen and intelligent mind behind them was the mind of God, not human wisdom at all. We give credit to human wisdom when we should give credit to the divine guidance of God being exhibited through childlike people who were "foolish" enough to trust God's wisdom and His supernatural equipment.

[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]

Friday, October 25, 2013

Submitting To God's Purpose

"I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some" (1 Corinthians 9:22).


A Christian workers has to learn how to be God's man or woman of great worth and excellence in the midst of a multitude of meager and worthless things. Never protest by saying, "If only I were somewhere else!" All of God's people are ordinary people who have been made extraordinary by the purpose He has given them. Unless we have the right purpose intellectually in our minds and lovingly in our hearts, we will very quickly be diverted from being useful to God. We are not workers of God by choice. Many people deliberately choose to be workers, but they have no purpose of God's almighty grace or His mighty Word in them. Paul's whole heart, mind, and soul were consumed with the great purpose of what Jesus Christ came to do, and he never lost sight of that one thing. We must continually confront ourselves with one central fact- "... Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2).

"I chose you..." (John 15:16). Keep these words as a wonderful reminder in your theology. It is not that you have gotten God, but that He has gotten you. God is at work bending, breaking, molding, and doing exactly as He chooses. And why is He doing it? He is doing it for only one purpose- that He may be able to say, "This is My man, and this is My woman." We have to be in God's hand so that He can place others on the rock, Jesus Christ, just as He has placed us.

Never choose to be a worker, but once God has placed His call upon you, woe be to you if you "turn aside... to the right or left..." (Deuteronomy 28:14). He will do with you what He never did before His call came to you, and He will do with you what He is not doing with other people. Let Him have His way.


[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]

Thursday, October 24, 2013

The Proper Perspective

"Thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ..." (2 Corinthians 2:14).


The proper perspective of a servant of God must not simply be as near to the highest as he can get, but it must be the highest. Be careful that you vigorously maintain God's perspective, and remember that it must be done everyday, little by little. Don't think on a finite level. No outside power can touch the proper perspective.

The proper perspective to maintain is that we are here for only one purpose- to be captives marching in the procession of Christ's triumphs. We are not on display in God's showcase- we are here to exhibit only one thing- the "captivity [of our lives] to the obedience of Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5). How small all the other perspectives are! For example, the ones that say, "I am standing all alone, battling for Jesus," or, "I have to maintain the cause of Christ and hold down this fort for Him." But Paul said, in essence, "I am in the procession of a conqueror, and it doesn't matter what the difficulties are, for I am always led in triumph." Is this idea being worked out practically in us? Paul's secret joy was that God took him as a blatant rebel against Jesus Christ, and made him a captive- and that became his purpose. It was Paul's joy to be a captive of the Lord, and he had no other interest in heaven or on earth. It is a shameful thing for a Christian to talk about getting the victory. We should belong so completely to the Victor that it is always His victory, and "we are more than conquerors through Him..." (Romans 8:37).

"We are to God the fragrance of Christ..." (2 Corinthians 2:15). We are encompassed with the sweet aroma of Jesus, and wherever we go we are a wonderful refreshment to God.


[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Nothing Of The Old Life!

"If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new"

(1 Corinthians 5:17).


Our Lord never tolerates our prejudices- He is directly opposed to them and puts them to death. We tend to think that God has some special interest in our particular prejudices, and are very sure that He will never deal with us as He has to deal with others. We even say to ourselves, "God has to deal with other people in a very strict way, but of course He knows that my prejudices are alright." But we must learn that God accepts nothing of the old life! Instead of being on the side of our prejudices, He is deliberately removing them from us. It is part of our moral education to see our prejudices put to death by His providence, and to watch how He does it. God pays no respect to anything we bring to Him. There is only one thing God wants of us, and that is our unconditional surrender.

When we are born again, the Holy Spirit begins to work His new creation in us, and there will come a time when there is nothing remaining of the old life. Our old gloomy outlook disappears, as does our old attitude toward things, and "all things are of God" (5:18). How are we going to get a life that has no lust, no self-interest, and is not sensitive to the ridicule of others? How will we have the type of love that "is kind... is not provoked, [and] thinks no evil"? (1 Corinthians 13:4-5). The only way is by allowing nothing of the old life to remain, and by having only simple, perfect trust in God- such a trust that we no longer want God's blessing, but only want God Himself. Have we come to the point where God can withdraw His blessings from us without our trust in Him being affected? Once we truly see God at work. we will never be concerned again about the things that happen, because we are actually trusting in our Father in heaven, whom the world cannot see.


[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Epicenter

The Witness Of The Spirit

"The Spirit Himself hears witness with our spirit..." (Romans 8:16).


We are in danger of getting into a bargaining spirit with God when we come to Him- we want the witness of the Spirit before we have done what God tells us to do.

Why doesn't God reveal Himself to you? He cannot. It is not that He will not, but He cannot, because you are in the way as long as you won't abandon yourself to Him in total surrender. Yet once you do, immediately God witnesses to Himself- He cannot witness to you, but He instantly witnesses to His own nature in you. If you received the witness of the Spirit before the reality and truth that comes from obedience, it would simply result in sentimental emotion. But when you act on the basis of redemption, and stop the disrespectfulness of debating with God, He immediately gives His witness. As soon as you abandon your own reasoning and arguing, God witnesses to what He has done, and you are amazed at your total disrespect in having kept Him waiting. If you are debating as to whether or not God can deliver from sin, then either let Him do it or tell Him that He cannot. Do not quote this or that person to Him. Simply obey Matthew 11:28, "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden...." Come, if you are weary, and ask, if you know you are evil (see Luke 11:9-13).

The Spirit of God witnesses to the redemption of our Lord, and to nothing else. He cannot witness to our reason. We are inclined to mistake the simplicity that comes from our natural commonsense decisions for the witness of the Spirit, but the Spirit witnesses only to His own nature, and to the work of redemption, never to our reason. If we are trying to make Him witness to our reason, it is no wonder that we are in darkness and uncertainty. Throw it all overboard, trust in Him, and He will give you the witness of the Spirit.


[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]


Monday, October 21, 2013

Impulsiveness or Discipleship

"But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith..." (Jude 20).


There was nothing of the nature of impulsive or thoughtless action about our Lord, but only a calm strength that never got into a panic. Most of us develop our Christianity along the lines of our own nature, not along the lines of God's nature. Impulsiveness is a trait of the natural life, and our Lord always ignores it, because it hinders the development of the life of a disciple. Watch how the Spirit of God gives a sense of restraint to impulsiveness, suddenly bringing us a feeling of self-conscious foolishness, which makes us instantly want to vindicate ourselves. Impulsiveness is all right in a child, but is disastrous in a man or woman- an impulsive adult is always a spoiled person. Impulsiveness needs to be trained into intuition through discipline.

Discipleship is built entirely on the supernatural grace of God. Walking on water is easy to someone with impulsive boldness, but walking on dry land as a disciple of Jesus Christ is something altogether different. Peter walked on the water to go to Jesus, but he "followed Him at a distance" on dry land (Mark 14:54). We do not need the grace of God to withstand crises- human nature and pride are sufficient for us to face the stress and strain magnificently. But it does require the supernatural grace of God to live twenty-four hours of every day as a saint, going through drudgery, and living an ordinary, unnoticed, ignored existence as a disciple of Jesus. It is ingrained in us that we have to do exceptional things for God- but we do not. We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things of life, and holy on the ordinary streets, among ordinary people- and this is not learned in five minutes.


[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Is God's Will My Will?

"This is the will of God, your sanctification..." (1 Thessalonians 4:3).


Sanctification is not a question of whether God is willing to sanctify me- is it my will? Am I willing to let God do in me everything that has been made possible through the atonement of the Cross of Christ? Am I willing to let Jesus become sanctification to me, and to let His life be exhibited in my human flesh? (see 1 Corinthians 1:30). Beware of saying, "Oh, I am longing to be sanctified." No, you are not. Recognize your need, but stop longing and make it a matter of action. Receive Jesus Christ to become sanctification for you by absolute unquestioning faith, and the great miracle of the atonement of Jesus will become real in you.

All that Jesus made possible become mine through the free and loving gift of God on the basis of what Christ accomplished on the cross. And my attitude as a saved and sanctified soul is that of profound, humble holiness (there is no such thing as proud holiness). It is a holiness based on agonizing repentance, a sense of inexpressible shame and degradation, and also on the amazing realization that the love of God demonstrated itself to me while I cared nothing about Him (see Romans 5:8). He completed everything for my salvation and sanctification. No wonder Paul said that nothing "shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:39).

Sanctification makes me one with Jesus Christ, and in Him one with God, and it is accomplished only through the magnificent atonement of Christ. Never confuse the effect with the cause. The effect in me is obedience, service, and prayer, and is the outcome of inexpressible thanks and adoration for the miraculous sanctification that has been brought about in me because of the atonement through the Cross of Christ.


[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]

Saturday, October 19, 2013

The Unheeded Secret

"Jesus answered, 'My kingdom is not of this world'" (John 18:36).


The great enemy of the Lord, Jesus Christ today is the idea of practical work that has no basis in the New Testament but comes from the systems of the world. This work insists upon endless energy and activities, but no private life with God. The emphasis is put on the wrong thing. Jesus said, "The kingdom of God does not come with observation.... For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:20-21). It is a hidden, obscure thing. An active Christian workers too often lives to be seen by others, while it is the innermost, personal area that reveals the power of a person's life.

We must get rid of the plague of the spirit of this religious age in which we live. In our Lord's life there was none of the pressure and the rushing of tremendous activity that we regard so highly today, and a disciple is to be like His Master. The central point of the kingdom of Jesus Christ is a personal relationship with Him, not public usefulness to others.

It is not the practical activities that are the strength of this Bible training College- its entire strength lies in the fact that here you are immersed in the truths of God to soak in them before Him. You have no idea of where or how God is going to engineer your future circumstances, and no knowledge of what stress and strain is going to be placed on you either at home or abroad. And if you waste your time in overactivity, instead of being immersed in the great fundamental truths of God's redemption, then you will snap when the stress and strain do come. But if this time of soaking before God is being spent in getting rooted and grounded in Him, which may appear to be impractical, then you will remain true to Him whatever happens.


[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]

Friday, October 18, 2013

The Key To The Missionary's Devotion

"... they went forth for His name's sake..." (3 John 7).


Our Lord told us how our love for Him is to exhibit itself when He asked, "Do you love Me?" (John 21:17). And then He said, "Feed My sheep." In fact, He said, "Identify yourself with My interests in other people," not, "Identify Me with your interests in other people." First Corinthians 13:4-8 shows us the characteristics of this love- it is actually the love of God expressing itself. The true test of my love for Jesus is a very practical one, and all the rest is sentimental talk.

Faithfulness to Jesus Christ is the supernatural work of redemption that has been performed in me by the Holy Spirit- "the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit..." (Romans 5:5). And it is that love in me that effectively works through me and comes in contact with everyone I meet. I remain faithful to His name, even though the commonsense view of my life may seemingly deny that, and may appear to be declaring that He has no more power than the morning mist.

The key to the missionary's devotion is that he is attached to nothing and to no one except our Lord Himself. It does not mean simply being detached from the external things surrounding us. Our Lord was amazingly in touch with the ordinary things of life, but He had an inner detachment except toward God. External detachment is often an actual indication of a secret, growing, inner attachment to the things we stay away from externally.

The duty of a faithful missionary is to concentrate on keeping his soul completely and continually open to the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ. The men and women our Lord sends out in His endeavors are ordinary human people. but people who are controlled by their devotion to Him, which has been brought about through the work of the Holy Spirit.


[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]


Thursday, October 17, 2013

Andrea Bocelli - The Lord's Prayer

The Key Of The Greater Work

"... I say to you, he who believes in Me, ... greater works than he will do, because I go to My Gather" (John 14:12).


Prayer does not equip us for greater works- prayer is the greater work. Yet we think of prayer as some commonsense exercise of our higher powers that simply prepares us for God's work. In the teachings of Jesus Christ, prayer is the working of the miracle of redemption in me, which produces the miracle of redemption in others, through the power of God. The way fruit remains firm is through prayer, but remember that it is prayer based on the agony of Christ in redemption, not on my agony. We must go to God as His child, because only a child gets his prayers answered; a "wise" man does not (see Matthew 11:25).

Prayer is the battle, and it makes no difference where you are. However God may engineer your circumstances, your duty is to pray. Never allow yourself this thought, "I am of no use where I am," because you certainly cannot be used to where you have not yet been placed. Wherever God has placed you and whatever your circumstances, you should pray, continually offering up prayers to Him. And He promises, "Whatever you ask in my name, that I will do..." (14:13). Yet we refuse to pray unless it thrills or excites us, which is the most intense form of spiritual selfishness. We must learn to work according to God's direction, and He says to pray. "Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest" (Matthews 9:38).

There is nothing thrilling about a laboring person's work, but it is the laboring person who makes the ideas of the genius possible. And it is the laboring saint who makes the ideas of his Master possible. When you labor at prayer, from God's perspective there are always results. What an astonishment it will be to see, once the veil is finally lifted, all the souls that have been reaped by you, simply because you have been in the habit of taking your orders from Jesus Christ.


[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

The Key To The Master's Order

"Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest" (Matthew 9:38).


The key to the missionary's difficult task is in the hand of God, and that key is prayer, not work- that is, not work as the word is commonly used today, which often results in the shifting of our focus away from God. The key to the missionary's difficult task is also not the key of common sense, nor is it the key of medicine, civilization, education, or even evangelization. The key is in following the Master's orders- the key is prayer. "Pray the Lord of the harvest...." In the natural realm. prayer is not practical but absurd. We have to realize that prayer is foolish from the common sense point of view.

From Jesus Christ's perspective, there are no nations, but only the world. How many of us pray without regard to the persons, but with regard to only one Person- Jesus Christ? He owns the harvest that is produced through distress and through conviction of sin. This is the harvest for which we have to pray that laborers be sent out to reap. We stay busy at work, while people all around us are ripe and ready to be harvested; we do not reap even one of them, but simply waste our Lord's time in overenergized activities and programs. Suppose a crisis were to come into your father's or your brother's life- are you there as a laborer to reap the harvest for Jesus Christ? Is your response, "Oh, but I have a special work to do!" No Christian has a special work to do. A Christian is called to be Jesus Christ's own, "a servant [who] is not greater than his master" (John 13:16), and someone who does not dictate to Jesus Christ what he intends to do. Our Lord calls us to no special work- He calls us to Himself. "Pray the Lord of the harvest," and He will engineer your circumstances to send you out as His laborer.


[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Is Heaven Truely Yours?

Turned from homosexuality...

The Key To The Missionary's Message

"He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world" (1 John 2:2).


The key to the missionary's message is the propitiation of Christ Jesus- His sacrifice for us that completely satisfied the wrath of God. Look at any other aspect of Christ's work, whether it is healing, saving, or sanctifying, and you will see that there is nothing limitless about those. But- "That Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"- that is limitless (John 1:29). The missionary's message is the limitless importance of Jesus Christ as the propitiation for our sins, and a missionary is someone who is immersed in the truth of that revelation.

The real key to the missionary's message is the "remissionary" aspect of Christ's life, not His kindness, His goodness, or even His revealing of the fatherhood of God to us. "... repentance and remission of sins should be preached... to all nations..." (Luke 24:47). The greatest message of limitless importance is that "He Himself is the propitiation for our sins...." The missionary's message is not nationalistic, favoring nations or individuals; it is "for the whole world." When the Holy Spirit comes into me, He does not consider my partialities of preferences; He simply brings me into oneness with the Lord Jesus.

A missionary is someone who is bound by marriage to the stated mission and purpose of his Lord and Master. He is not to proclaim his own point of view, but is only to proclaim "the Lamb of God." It is easier to belong to a faction that simply tells what Jesus Christ has done for me, and easier to become a devotee of divine healing, or of a special type of sanctification, or of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. But Paul did not say, "Woe is me if I do not preach what Christ has done for me," but, ... woe is me if I do not preach the gospel!" (1 Corinthians 9:16). And this is the gospel- "the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"


[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]

Monday, October 14, 2013

The Key To The Missionary's Work

"Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, 'All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations...'" (Matthew 28:18-19).


The key to the missionary's work is the authority of Jesus Christ, not the need of the lost. We are inclined to look on our Lord as one who assists us in our endeavors for God. Yet our Lord places Himself as the absolute sovereign and supreme Lord over His disciples. He does not say that the lost will never be saved if we don't go- He simply says, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations...." He says, "Go on the basis of the revealed truth of My sovereignty, teaching and preaching out of your living experience of Me."

"Then the eleven disciples went... to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them" (28:16). If I want to know the universal sovereignty of Christ, I must know Him myself. I must take time to worship the One whose name I bear. Jesus says, "Come to Me..."- that is the place to meet Jesus- "all you who labor and are heavy laden..." (Matthew 11:28)- and how many missionary's are! We completely dismiss these wonderful words of the universal sovereign of the world, but they are the words of Jesus to His disciples meant for here and now.

"Go therefore...." To "go" simply means to live. Acts 1:8 is the description of how to go. Jesus did not say in this verse, "Go into Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria," but, "... you shall be witnesses to Me in [all these places]." He takes upon Himself the work of sending us.

"If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you..." (John 15:7)- that is the way to keep going. Where we are placed is then a matter of indifference to us, because God sovereignly engineers our goings.

"None of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus..." (Acts 20:24). That is how to keep going until we are gone from this life.


[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Individual Discouragement And Personal Growth

"... When Moses was grown... he went out to his brethren and looked at their burdens."Exodus 2:11).


Moses saw the oppression of his people and felt certain that he was the one to deliver them, and in the righteous indignation of his own spirit he started to right their wrongs. After he launched his first strike for God and for what was right, God allowed Moses to be driven into empty discouragement, sending him into the desert to feed sheep for forty years. At the end of that time, God appeared to Moses and said to him, "'... bring My people... out of Egypt.' But Moses said to God, 'Who am I that I should go...?'" (Exodus 3:10-11). In the beginning Moses had realized that he was the one to deliver the people, but he had to be trained and disciplined by God first. He was right in his individual perspective, but he was not the person for the work until he had learned true fellowship and oneness with God.

We may have the vision of God and a very clear understanding of what God wants, and yet when we start to do it, there comes to us something equivalent to Moses' forty years in the wilderness. It's as if God had ignored the entire thing, and when we are thoroughly discouraged, God comes back and revives His call to us. And then we begin to tremble and say, "Who am I that I should go....?" We must learn that God's great stride is summed up in these words- "I AM WHO I AM... has sent me to you" (Exodus 3:14). We must also learn that our individual effort for God shows nothing but disrespect for Him- our individuality is to be rendered radiant through a personal relationship with God, so that He may be "well pleased" (Matthew 3:17). We are focused on the right individual perspective of things; we have the vision and can say, I know this is what God wants me to do." But we have not yet learned to get into God's stride. If you are going through a time of discouragement, there is a time of great personal growth ahead.


[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]


Saturday, October 12, 2013

Getting Into God's Stride

"Enoch walked with God..." (Genesis 5:24).


The true test of a person's spiritual life and character is not what he does in the extraordinary moments of life, but what he does during the ordinary times when there is nothing tremendous or exciting happening. A person's worth is revealed in his attitude toward the ordinary things of life when he is not under the spotlight (see John 1:35-37 and 3:30). It is painful work to get in

step with God and to keep pace with Him- it means getting your second wind spiritually. In learning to walk with God, there is always the difficulty of getting into His stride, but once we have done so, the only characteristic that exhibits itself is the very life

of God Himself. The individual person is merged into a personal oneness with God, and God's stride and His power alone are exhibited.

It is difficult to get into stride with God, because as soon as we start walking with Him we find that His pace has surpassed us before we have ever taken three steps. He has different ways of doing things, and we have to be trained and disciplined in His ways. It was said of Jesus- "He will not fail not be discouraged..." (Isaiah 42:4) because He never worked from His own individual standpoint, but always worked from the standpoint of His Father. And we must learn to do the same. Spiritual truth is not learned through intellectual reasoning. It is God's Spirit that changes the atmosphere of our way of looking at things, and then things begin to be possible which before were impossible. Getting into God's stride means nothing less than oneness with Him. It takes a long time to get there, but keep at it. Don't give up because the pain is intense right now- get on with it, and before long you will find that you have a new vision and a new purpose.


[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]



Friday, October 11, 2013

Amazing Voice of ...

God's Silence - Then What?

"When He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was" (John 11:6).


Has God trusted you with His silence- a silence that has great meaning? God's silences are actually His answers. Just think of those days of absolute silence in the home at Bethany! Is there anything compared to those days in your life? Can God trust you like that, or are you still asking Him for visible answer? God will give you the very blessings you ask if you refuse to go any further without them, but His silence is the sign that He is bringing you into an even more wonderful understanding of Himself. Are you morning before God because you have not had an audible response? When you cannot hear God, you will find that He has trusted you in the most intimate way possible- with absolute silence, not a silence of despair, but one of pleasure, because He saw that you could withstand an even bigger revelation. If God has given you a silence, then praise Him- He is bringing you into the mainstream of His purpose. The actual evidence of the answer in time is simply a matter of God's sovereignty. Time is nothing to God. For a wile you may have said, "I asked God to give me bread, but He gave me a stone instead" (see Matthew 7:9). He did not give you stone, and today you find that He gave you the "bread of life" (John 6:35).

A wonderful thing about God's silence is that His stillness is contagious- it gets into you, causing you to become perfectly confident so that you can honestly say, "I know that God has heard me." His silence is the very proof that He has. As long as you have the idea that God will always bless you in answer to prayer, He will do it, but He will never give you the grace of His silence. If Jesus Christ is bringing you into the understanding that prayer is for the glorifying of His Father, then He will give you the first sign of His intimacy- silence.


[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]

Thursday, October 10, 2013

How Will I Know?

"Jesus answered and said, 'I thank You, Father... that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes'" (Matthew 11:25).


We do not grow into a spiritual relationship step by step- we either have a relationship or we do not. God does not continue to cleanse us more and more from sin- "But if we walk in the light," we are cleansed "from all sin" (1 John 1:7). It is a matter of obedience, and once we obey, the relationship is instantly perfected. But if we turn away from obedience for even one second, darkness and death are immediately at work again.

All of God's revealed truths are sealed until they are opened to us through obedience. You will never open them through philosophy or thinking. But once you obey, a flash of light comes immediately. Let God's truth work into you by immersing yourself in it, not by worrying into it. The only way you can get to know the truth of God is to stop trying to find out and by being born again. If you obey God in the first thing He shows you, then He instantly opens up the next truth to you. You can read volumes on the work of the Holy Spirit, when five minutes of total, uncompromising obedience would make things as clear as sunlight. Don't say, "I suppose I will understand these things someday!" You can understand them now. And it is not study that brings understanding to you, but obedience. Even the smallest bit of obedience opens heaven, and the deepest truths of God immediately become yours. Yet God will never reveal more truth about Himself to you, until you have obeyed what you know already. Beware of becoming one of the "wise and prudent." "If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know..." (John 7:17).


[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Building On Atonement

"... present... your members as instruments of righteousness to God" (Romans 6:13).


I cannot save and sanctify myself; I cannot make atonement for sin; I cannot redeem the world; I cannot right what is wrong, purify what is impure, or make holy what is unholy. That is all the sovereign work of God. Do I have faith in what Jesus Christ has done? He has made the perfect atonement for sin. Am I in the habit of constantly realizing it? The greatest need we have is not to do things, but to believe things. The redemption of Christ is not an experience, it is the greatest act of God which has performed through Christ, and I have to build my faith on it. If I construct my faith on my own experience, I produce the most unscriptural kind of life- an isolated life, with my eyes focused solely on my own holiness. Beware of that human holiness that is not based on the atonement of the Lord. It has no value for anything except a life of isolation- it is useless to God and a nuisance to man. Measure every kind of experience you have by our Lord Himself. We cannot do anything pleasing to God unless we deliberately build on foundation of the atonement by the Cross of Christ.

The atonement of Jesus must be exhibited in practical, unassuming ways in my life. Every time I obey, the absolute deity of God is on my side, so that the grace of God and my natural obedience are in perfect agreement. Obedience means that I have completely placed my trust in the atonement, and my obedience is immediately met by the delight of the supernatural grace of God.

Beware of the human holiness that denies the reality of the natural life- it is a fraud. Continually bring yourself to the trail or test of the atonement and ask, "What is the discernment of the atonement in this, and in that?"


[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Coming To Jesus

"Come to Me..." (Matthew 11:28).


Isn't it humiliating to be that we must come to Jesus! Think of the things about which we will not come to Jesus Christ. If you want to know how real you are, test yourself by these words- "Come to Me...." In every dimension in which you are not real, you will argue or evade the issue altogether rather than come; you will go through sorrow rather than come; and you will do anything rather than come the last lap of the race of seemingly unspeakable foolishness and say, "Just as I am, I come." As long as you have even the least bit of spiritual disrespect, it will always reveal itself in the fact that you are expecting God to tell you to do something very big, and yet all He is telling you to do is to "Come...."

"Come to Me...." When you hear those words, you will know that something must happen in you before you can come. The Holy Spirit will show you what you have to do, and it will involve anything that will uproot whatever is preventing you from getting through to Jesus. And you will never get any further until you are willing to do that very thing. The Holy Spirit will search out that one immovable stronghold within you, but He cannot budge it unless you are willing to let Him do so.

How often have you come to God with your requests and gone away thinking, "I've really received what I wanted this time!" And yet you go away with nothing, while all the time God has stood with His hands outstretched not only to take you but also for you to take Him. Just think of the invincible, unconquerable, and untiring patience of Jesus, who lovingly says, "Come to Me...."


[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]

Monday, October 7, 2013

The Nature Of Reconciliation

"He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him"
(2 Corinthians 5:21).


Sin is a fundamental relationship- it is not wrong doing, but wrong being- it is deliberate and determined independence from God. The Christian faith bases everything on the extreme, self-confident nature of sin. Other faith deal with sins- the Bible alone deals with sin. The first thing Jesus Christ confronted in people was the heredity of sin, and it is because we have ignored this in our presentation of the gospel that the message of the gospel has lost its sting and its explosive power.

The revealed truth of the Bible is not that Jesus Christ took on Himself our fleshly sins, but that He took on Himself the heredity of sin that no man can even touch. God made His own Son "to be sin" that He might make the sinner into a saint. It is revealed throughout the Bible that our Lord took on Himself the sin of the world through identification with us, not through sympathy for us. He deliberately took on His own shoulders, and endured in His own body, the complete, cumulative sin of the human race. "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us..." and by so doing He placed salvation for the entire human race solely on the basis of redemption. Jesus Christ reconciled human race, putting it back to where God designed it to be. And now anyone can experience that reconciliation, being brought into oneness with God, on the basis of what the Lord has done on the cross.

A man cannot redeem himself- redemption is the work of God, and is absolutely finished and complete. And its application to individual people is a matter of their own individual action or response to it. A distinction must always be made between the revealed truth of redemption and the actual conscious experience of salvation in a person's life.


[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]

Sunday, October 6, 2013

The Nature Of Regeneration

"When it pleased God... to reveal His Son in me..." (Galatians 1:15-16).


If Jesus Christ is going to regenerate me, what is the problem He faces? It is simply this- I have a heredity in which I have no say or decision; I am not holy, nor am I like to be; and if all Jesus Christ can do is tell me that I must be holy, His teaching only causes me to despair. But if Jesus Christ is truly a regenerator, someone who can put His own heredity of holiness into me, then I can begin to see what He means when He says that I have to be holy. Redemption means that Jesus Christ can put into anyone the hereditary nature that was in Himself, and all the standards He gives us are based on that nature- His teaching is meant to be applied to the life which He puts within us. The proper action on my part is simply to agree with God's verdict on sin and judged on the Cross of Christ.

The new Testament teaching about regeneration is that when a person is hit by his own sense of need, God will put the Holy Spirit into his spirit, and his personal spirit will be energized by the Spirit of the Son of God- "... until Christ is formed in you" (Galatians 4:19). The moral miracle of redemption is that God can put a new nature into me through which I can live a totally new life. When I finally reach the edge of my need and know my own limitations, then Jesus says, "Blessed are you..." (Matthew 5:11). But I must get to the point. God cannot put into me, the reasonable moral person that I am, the nature that was in Jesus Christ unless I am aware of my need for it.

Just as the nature of sin entered into the human race through one man, the Holy Spirit entered into the human race through another Man (see Romans 5:12-19). And redemption means that I can be delivered from the heredity of sin, and that through Jesus Christ I can receive a pure and spotless heredity, namely the Holy Spirit.


[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]

Saturday, October 5, 2013

The Nature Of Degeneration

"Just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned..." (Romans 5:12).


The Bible does not say that God punished the human race for one man's sin, but that the nature of sin, namely my claim to my right to myself, entered into the human race through one man. But it also says that another Man took upon Himself the sin of the human race and put it away- an infinitely more profound revelation (see Hebrews 9:26). The nature of sin is not immorality and wrongdoing, but the nature of self-realization which leads us to say, "I am my own god." This nature may exhibit itself in proper morality or in improper morality, but it always has a common basis- my claim to my right to myself. When our Lord faced either people with all the forces of evil in them, or people who were clean-living, moral, and upright, He paid no attention to the moral degradation of one, nor any attention to the moral attainment of the other. He looks at something we do not see, namely the nature of man (see 2:25).

Sin is something I am born with and cannot touch- only God touches sin through redemption. It is through the Cross of Christ that God redeemed the entire human race from the possibility of damnation through the heredity of sin. God nowhere holds a person responsible for having the heredity of sin, and does not condemn anyone because of it. Condemnation comes when I begin to get the seal of damnation. "This is the condemnation [and the critical moment], that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light..." (John 3:19).


[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]

Friday, October 4, 2013

The Vision And The Reality

"... to those who are... called to be saints..." (1 Corinthians 1:2).


Thank God for being able to see all that you have not yet seen. You have had the vision, but you are not yet to the reality of it by any means. It is when we are in the valley, where we prove whether we will be the choice ones, that most of us turn back. We are not quite prepared for the bumps and bruises that must come if we are going to be turned into the shape of the vision. We have seen what we are not, and what God wants us to be, but are we willing to be battered into the shape of the vision to be used by God? The beatings will always come in the most common, everyday ways and through common, everyday people.

There are times when we do know what God's purpose is; whether we will let the vision be turned into actual character depends on us, not on God. If we prefer to relax on the mountaintop and live in the memory of the vision, then we will be of no real use in the ordinary things of which human life is made. We have to learn to live in reliance upon what we saw in the vision, not simply live in ecstatic delight and conscious reflection upon God. This means living the realities of our lives in the light of the vision until the truth of the vision is actually realized in us. Every bit of our training is in that direction. Learn to thank God for making His demands known.

Our little "I am" always sulks and pouts when God says do. Let your little "I am" be shriveled up in God's wrath and indignation- "I AM WHO I AM... has sent me to you" (Exodus 3:14). He must dominate. Isn't it piercing to realize that God not only knows where we live, but also knows the gutters into which we crawl! He will hunt us down as fast as a flash of lightening. No human human being knows human beings as God does.


[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]

Thursday, October 3, 2013

The Place Of Ministry

"He said to them, 'This kind [of unclean spirit] can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting'" (Mark 9:29).


His disciples asked Him privately, 'Why could we not cast it out?'" (9:28). The answer lies in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. "This kind can come out by nothing but" concentrating on Him, and then doubling and redoubling that concentration on Him. We can remain powerless forever, as the disciples were in this situation, by trying to do God's work without concentrating on His power, and by following instead the ideas that we draw from our own nature. We actually slander and dishonor God by our very eagerness to serve Him without knowing Him.

When you are brought face to face with a difficult situation and nothing happens externally, you can still know that freedom and release will be given because of your continued concentration on Jesus Christ. Your duty in service and ministry is to see that there is nothing between Jesus and yourself. Is there anything between you and Jesus even now? If there is, you must get through it, not by ignoring it as an irritation, or by going up and over it, by facing it and getting through it into the presence of Jesus Christ. Then that very problem itself, and all that you have been through in connection with it, will glorify Jesus Christ in a way that you will never know until you see Him face to face.

We must be able to "mount up with wings like eagles" (Isaiah 40:31), but we must also know how to come down. The power of the saint lies in the coming down and in the living that is done in the valley. Paul said, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13) and what he was referring to were mostly humiliating things. And yet it is in our power to refuse to be humiliated and to say, "No, thank you, I much prefer to be on the mountaintop with God." Can I face things as they actually are in the light of the reality of Jesus Christ, or do things as they really are destroy my faith in Him, and put me into a panic?


[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]



Wednesday, October 2, 2013

The Place Of Humuliation

"If You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us" (Mark 9:22).


After every time of exaltation, we are brought down with a sudden rush into things as they really are, where it is neither beautiful, poetic, nor thrilling. The height of the mountaintop is measure by the dismal drudgery of the valley, but it is in the valley that we have to live for the glory of God. We see His glory on the mountain, but we never live for His glory there. It is in the place of humiliation that we find our true worth to God- that is where our faithfulness is revealed. Most of us can do things if we are always at some heroic level of intensity, simply because of the natural selfishness of our own hearts. But God wants us to be at the drab everyday level, where we live in the valley according to our personal relationship with Him. Peter thought it would be a wonderful thing for them to remain on the mountain, but Jesus Christ took the disciples down from the mountain and into the valley, where the true meaning of the vision was explained (see 9:5-6, 14-23).

" If You can do anything...." It takes the valley of humiliation to remove the skepticism from us. Look back at your own experience and you will find that until you learned who Jesus really was, you were a skillful skeptic about His power. When you were on the mountaintop you could believe anything, but what about when you were faced with the facts of the valley? You may be able to give a testimony regarding your sanctification, but what about the thing that is a humiliation to you right now? The last time you were on the mountain with God, you saw that all the power in heaven and on earth belonged to Jesus- will you be skeptical now, simply because you are in the valley of humiliation?


[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]


Tuesday, October 1, 2013

The Place Of Exaltation

"... Jesus took... them up on a high mountain apart by themselves..." (Mark 9:2).


We have all experienced times of exaltation on the mountain, when we have seen things from God's perspective and have wanted to stay there. But God will never allow us to stay there. The true test of our spiritual life is in exhibiting the power to descend from the mountain. If we only have the power to go up, something is wrong. It is a wonderful thing to be up on the mountain with God, but a person only gets there so that he may later go down and lift up the demon-possessed people in the valley (see 9:14-18). We are not made for the mountains, for sunrises, or for the other beautiful attractions in life- those are simply intended to be moments of inspiration. We are made for the valley and the ordinary things of life, and that is where we have to prove our stamina and strength. Yet our spiritual selfishness always wants repeated moments on the mountain. We feel that we could talk and live like perfect angels, if we could only stay on the mountaintop. Those times of exaltation and exceptional and they have their meaning in our life with God, but we must beware to prevent our spiritual selfishness from wanting to make them the only time.

We are inclined to think that everything that happened is to be turned into useful teaching. In actual fact, it is to be turned into something even better than teaching, namely, character. The mountaintop is not meant to teach us anything, it is meant to make us something. There is a terrible trap in always asking, "what's the use of this experience?" We can never measure spiritual matters in that way. The moments on the mountain top are rare moments, and they are meant for something in God's purpose.


[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]