Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Friday, July 11, 2014
Monday, June 16, 2014
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Monday, June 9, 2014
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Thursday, May 29, 2014
Unquestioned Revelation
"In that day you will ask Me nothing" (John 16:23).
When is "that day"? It is when the ascended Lord makes you one with the Father. "In that day" you will be one with the Father just as Jesus is, and He said, "In that day you will ask Me nothing." Until the resurrection life of Jesus is fully exhibited in you, you have questions about many things. Then after a while you find that all your questions are gone- you don't seem to have any left to ask. You have come to the point of total reliance on the resurrection life of Jesus, which brings you into complete oneness with the purpose of God. Are you living that life now? If not, why aren't you?
"In that day" there may be any number of things still hidden to your understanding, but they will not come between your heart and God. "In that day you will ask Me nothing"- you will not need to ask, because you will be certain that God will reveal things in accordance with His will. The faith and peace of John 14:1 has become the real attitude of your heart, and there are no more questions to be asked. If anything is mystery to you and is coming between you and God, never look for the explanation in your mind, but look for it in your spirit, your true inner nature- that is where the problem is. Once your inner spiritual nature is willing to submit to the life of Jesus, your understanding will be perfectly clear, and you will come to the place where there is no distance between the Father and you, His child, because the Lord has made you one. "In that day you will ask Me nothing."
[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]
When is "that day"? It is when the ascended Lord makes you one with the Father. "In that day" you will be one with the Father just as Jesus is, and He said, "In that day you will ask Me nothing." Until the resurrection life of Jesus is fully exhibited in you, you have questions about many things. Then after a while you find that all your questions are gone- you don't seem to have any left to ask. You have come to the point of total reliance on the resurrection life of Jesus, which brings you into complete oneness with the purpose of God. Are you living that life now? If not, why aren't you?
"In that day" there may be any number of things still hidden to your understanding, but they will not come between your heart and God. "In that day you will ask Me nothing"- you will not need to ask, because you will be certain that God will reveal things in accordance with His will. The faith and peace of John 14:1 has become the real attitude of your heart, and there are no more questions to be asked. If anything is mystery to you and is coming between you and God, never look for the explanation in your mind, but look for it in your spirit, your true inner nature- that is where the problem is. Once your inner spiritual nature is willing to submit to the life of Jesus, your understanding will be perfectly clear, and you will come to the place where there is no distance between the Father and you, His child, because the Lord has made you one. "In that day you will ask Me nothing."
[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
The Life To Know Him
"...tarry into the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high" (Luke 24:49).
The disciples had to tarry, staying in Jerusalem until the day of Pentecost, not only for their own preparation but because they had to wait until the Lord was actually glorified. And as soon as He was glorified, what happened? "Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear" (Acts 2:33). The statement in John 7:39- "...for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified"-does pertain to us. The Holy Spirit has been given; the Lord is glorified-our waiting is not dependent on the providence of God, but on our own spiritual fitness.
The Holy Spirit's influence and power were at work before Pentecost, but He was not here. Once our Lord was glorified in his ascension, the Holy Spirit came into the world, and He has been here ever since. We have to receive the revealed truth that He is here. The attitude of receiving and welcoming the Holy Spirit into our lives is to be the continual attitude of a believer. When we receive the Holy Spirit, we receive reviving life from our ascended Lord.
It is not the baptism of the Holy Spirit that changes people, but the power of the ascended Christ coming into their lives through the Holy Spirit. We all too often separate things that the new Testament never separates. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is not an experience apart from Jesus Christ-it is the evidence of the ascended Christ.
The baptism of the Holy Spirit does not make you think of time or eternity-it is one amazing glorious now. "This eternal life, that they may know You..." (John 17:3). Begin to know Him now, and never finish.
[From "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]
The disciples had to tarry, staying in Jerusalem until the day of Pentecost, not only for their own preparation but because they had to wait until the Lord was actually glorified. And as soon as He was glorified, what happened? "Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear" (Acts 2:33). The statement in John 7:39- "...for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified"-does pertain to us. The Holy Spirit has been given; the Lord is glorified-our waiting is not dependent on the providence of God, but on our own spiritual fitness.
The Holy Spirit's influence and power were at work before Pentecost, but He was not here. Once our Lord was glorified in his ascension, the Holy Spirit came into the world, and He has been here ever since. We have to receive the revealed truth that He is here. The attitude of receiving and welcoming the Holy Spirit into our lives is to be the continual attitude of a believer. When we receive the Holy Spirit, we receive reviving life from our ascended Lord.
It is not the baptism of the Holy Spirit that changes people, but the power of the ascended Christ coming into their lives through the Holy Spirit. We all too often separate things that the new Testament never separates. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is not an experience apart from Jesus Christ-it is the evidence of the ascended Christ.
The baptism of the Holy Spirit does not make you think of time or eternity-it is one amazing glorious now. "This eternal life, that they may know You..." (John 17:3). Begin to know Him now, and never finish.
[From "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]
Monday, May 26, 2014
Thinking Of Prayer As Jesus Taught
"Pray without ceasing..." (1 Thessalonians 5:17).
Our thinking about prayer, whether right or wrong, is based on our mental conception of it. The correct concept is to think of prayer as the breath in our lungs and the blood from our hearts. Our blood flows and our breathing continues "without ceasing"; we are not even conscious of it, but it never stops. And we are not always conscious of Jesus keeping us in perfect oneness with God, but if we are obeying Him, He always is. Prayer is not an exercise, it is the life of the saint. Beware of anything that stops the offering up of prayer. "Pray without ceasing..."- maintain the childlike habit of offering up prayer in your heart to God all the time.
Jesus never mentioned unanswered prayer. He had the unlimited certainty of knowing that prayer is always answered. Do we have through the Spirit of God that inexpressible certainty that Jesus had about prayer, or do we think of the times when it seemed that God did not answer our prayer? Jesus said, "... everyone who asks receives..." (Matthew 7:8). Yet we say, "But..., but...." God answers prayer in the best way- not just sometimes, but every time. However, the evidence of the answer in the area we want it may not always immediately follow. Do we expect God to answer prayer?
The danger we have is that we want to water down what Jesus said to make it mean something that aligns with our common sense. But if it were only common sense, what He said would not even be worthwhile. The things Jesus taught about prayer are supernatural truths He reveals to us.
[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]
Our thinking about prayer, whether right or wrong, is based on our mental conception of it. The correct concept is to think of prayer as the breath in our lungs and the blood from our hearts. Our blood flows and our breathing continues "without ceasing"; we are not even conscious of it, but it never stops. And we are not always conscious of Jesus keeping us in perfect oneness with God, but if we are obeying Him, He always is. Prayer is not an exercise, it is the life of the saint. Beware of anything that stops the offering up of prayer. "Pray without ceasing..."- maintain the childlike habit of offering up prayer in your heart to God all the time.
Jesus never mentioned unanswered prayer. He had the unlimited certainty of knowing that prayer is always answered. Do we have through the Spirit of God that inexpressible certainty that Jesus had about prayer, or do we think of the times when it seemed that God did not answer our prayer? Jesus said, "... everyone who asks receives..." (Matthew 7:8). Yet we say, "But..., but...." God answers prayer in the best way- not just sometimes, but every time. However, the evidence of the answer in the area we want it may not always immediately follow. Do we expect God to answer prayer?
The danger we have is that we want to water down what Jesus said to make it mean something that aligns with our common sense. But if it were only common sense, what He said would not even be worthwhile. The things Jesus taught about prayer are supernatural truths He reveals to us.
[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]
Sunday, May 25, 2014
The Good Or The Best?
"If you take the left, then I will go to the right; or, if you go to the right, then I will go to the left" (Genesis 13:9).
As soon as you begin to live the life of faith in God, fascinating and physically gratifying possibilities will open up before you. These things are yours by right, but if you are living the life of faith you will exercise your right to waive your rights, and let God make your choice for you. God sometimes allows you to get into place of testing where your own welfare would be the appropriate thing to consider, if you were not living the life of faith. But if you are, you will joyfully waive your right and allow God to make your choice for you. This is the discipline God uses to transform the natural into the spiritual through obedience to His voice.
Whenever our right becomes the guidance factor of our lives, it dulls our spiritual insight. The greatest enemy of the life of faith in God is not sin, but good choices which are not quite good enough. The good is always the enemy of the best. In this passage, it would seem that the wisest thing in the world for Abram to do would be to choose. It was his right, and the people around him would consider him to be a fool for not choosing.
Many of us do not continue to grow spiritually because we prefer to choose on the basis of our rights, instead of relying on God to make the choice for us. We have to learn to walk according to the standard which has its eyes focused on God. And God says to us, as He did to Abram, "... walk before Me..." (Genesis 17:1).
[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]
As soon as you begin to live the life of faith in God, fascinating and physically gratifying possibilities will open up before you. These things are yours by right, but if you are living the life of faith you will exercise your right to waive your rights, and let God make your choice for you. God sometimes allows you to get into place of testing where your own welfare would be the appropriate thing to consider, if you were not living the life of faith. But if you are, you will joyfully waive your right and allow God to make your choice for you. This is the discipline God uses to transform the natural into the spiritual through obedience to His voice.
Whenever our right becomes the guidance factor of our lives, it dulls our spiritual insight. The greatest enemy of the life of faith in God is not sin, but good choices which are not quite good enough. The good is always the enemy of the best. In this passage, it would seem that the wisest thing in the world for Abram to do would be to choose. It was his right, and the people around him would consider him to be a fool for not choosing.
Many of us do not continue to grow spiritually because we prefer to choose on the basis of our rights, instead of relying on God to make the choice for us. We have to learn to walk according to the standard which has its eyes focused on God. And God says to us, as He did to Abram, "... walk before Me..." (Genesis 17:1).
[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]
Saturday, May 24, 2014
The Delight Of Despair
"When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead" (Revelation 1:17).
It may be that, like the apostle John, you know Jesus Christ immediately. Yet when He suddenly appears to you with totally unfamiliar characteristics, the only thing you can do is fall "at His feet as dead." There are times when God cannot reveal Himself in any other way than in His majesty, and it is the awesomeness of the vision which brings you to the delight of despair. You experience this joy in hopelessness, realizing that if you are ever to be raised up it must be by the hand of God.
"He laid His right hand on me..." (1:7). In the midst of the awesomeness, a touch comes, and you know it is the right hand of Jesus Christ. You know it is not the hand of restraint, correction, nor chastisement, but the right hand of the everlasting Father. Whenever His hand is laid up on you, it gives inexpressible peace and comfort, and the sense that "underneath are the everlasting arms" (Deuteronomy 33:27), full of support, provision, comfort, and strength. And once His touch comes, nothing at all can throw you into fear again. In the midst of all His ascended glory, the Lord Jesus comes to speak to an insignificant disciple, saying, "Do not be afraid" (Revelation 1:17). His tenderness is inexpressibly sweet. Do I know Him like that?
Take a look at some of the things that cause despair. There is despair which has no delight, no limits whatsoever, and no hope of anything brighter. But the delight of despair comes when "I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells..." (Romans 7:18). I delight in knowing that there is something in me which must fall prostrate before God when He reveals Himself to me, and also in knowing that if I am ever to be raise up it must be by the hand of God. God can do nothing for me until I recognize the limits of what is humanly possible, allowing Him to do the impossible.
[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]
It may be that, like the apostle John, you know Jesus Christ immediately. Yet when He suddenly appears to you with totally unfamiliar characteristics, the only thing you can do is fall "at His feet as dead." There are times when God cannot reveal Himself in any other way than in His majesty, and it is the awesomeness of the vision which brings you to the delight of despair. You experience this joy in hopelessness, realizing that if you are ever to be raised up it must be by the hand of God.
"He laid His right hand on me..." (1:7). In the midst of the awesomeness, a touch comes, and you know it is the right hand of Jesus Christ. You know it is not the hand of restraint, correction, nor chastisement, but the right hand of the everlasting Father. Whenever His hand is laid up on you, it gives inexpressible peace and comfort, and the sense that "underneath are the everlasting arms" (Deuteronomy 33:27), full of support, provision, comfort, and strength. And once His touch comes, nothing at all can throw you into fear again. In the midst of all His ascended glory, the Lord Jesus comes to speak to an insignificant disciple, saying, "Do not be afraid" (Revelation 1:17). His tenderness is inexpressibly sweet. Do I know Him like that?
Take a look at some of the things that cause despair. There is despair which has no delight, no limits whatsoever, and no hope of anything brighter. But the delight of despair comes when "I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells..." (Romans 7:18). I delight in knowing that there is something in me which must fall prostrate before God when He reveals Himself to me, and also in knowing that if I am ever to be raise up it must be by the hand of God. God can do nothing for me until I recognize the limits of what is humanly possible, allowing Him to do the impossible.
[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]
Friday, May 23, 2014
Our Careful Unbelief
"... do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on" (Matthew 6:25).
Jesus summed up commonsense carefulness in the life of a disciple as unbelief. If we have received the Spirit of God, He will squeeze right through our lives, as if to ask, "Now where do I come into this relationship, this vacation you have planned, or these new books you want to read?" And He always presses the point until we learn to make Him our first consideration. Whenever we put other things first, there is confusion.
"... do not worry about your life...." Don't take the pressure of your provision upon yourself. It is not only wrong to worry, it is unbelief; worrying means we do not believe that God can look after the practical details of our lives, and it is never anything but those details that worry us. Have you ever notice what Jesus said would choke the Word He puts in us? Is it the devil? No- "the cares of this world" (Matthew 13:22). It is always our little worries. We say, "I will not trust when I cannot see"- and that is where unbelief begins. The only cure for unbelief is obedience to the Spirit.
The greatest word of Jesus to His disciple is abandon.
[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]
Jesus summed up commonsense carefulness in the life of a disciple as unbelief. If we have received the Spirit of God, He will squeeze right through our lives, as if to ask, "Now where do I come into this relationship, this vacation you have planned, or these new books you want to read?" And He always presses the point until we learn to make Him our first consideration. Whenever we put other things first, there is confusion.
"... do not worry about your life...." Don't take the pressure of your provision upon yourself. It is not only wrong to worry, it is unbelief; worrying means we do not believe that God can look after the practical details of our lives, and it is never anything but those details that worry us. Have you ever notice what Jesus said would choke the Word He puts in us? Is it the devil? No- "the cares of this world" (Matthew 13:22). It is always our little worries. We say, "I will not trust when I cannot see"- and that is where unbelief begins. The only cure for unbelief is obedience to the Spirit.
The greatest word of Jesus to His disciple is abandon.
[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]
Thursday, May 22, 2014
The Explanation For Our Difficulties
"... that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us..." (John 17:21).
If you are going through a time of isolation, seemingly all alone, read John 17. It will explain exactly why you are where you are- because Jesus has prayed that you "may be one" with the Father as He is. Are you helping God to answer that prayer, or do you have some other goal for your life? Since you became a disciple, you cannot be as independent as you used to be.
God reveals in John 17 that His purpose is not just to answer our prayers, but that through prayers we might come to discern His mind. Yet there is one prayer which God must answer, and that is the prayer of Jesus- "... that they may be one just as We are one..." (17:22). Are we as close to Jesus Christ as that?
God is not concerned about our plans; He doesn't ask, "Do you want to go through this loss of a loved one, this difficulty, or this defeat?" No, He allows these things for His own purpose. The things we are going through are either making us sweeter, better, and nobler men and women, or they are making us more critical and fault-finding, and more insistent on our own ways. The things that happen either make us evil, or they make us more saintly, depending entirely on our relationship with God and its level of intimacy. If we will pray, regarding our own lives, "Your will be done" (Matthew 26:42), then we will be encouraged and comforted by John 17, knowing that our Father is working according to His own wisdom, accomplishing what is best. When we understand God's purpose, we will not become small-minded and cynical. Jesus prayed nothing less for us than absolute oneness with Himself, just as He was one with the Father. Some of us are far from this oneness; yet God will not leave us alone until we are one with Him- because Jesus prayed, "... that they all may be one...."
[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]
If you are going through a time of isolation, seemingly all alone, read John 17. It will explain exactly why you are where you are- because Jesus has prayed that you "may be one" with the Father as He is. Are you helping God to answer that prayer, or do you have some other goal for your life? Since you became a disciple, you cannot be as independent as you used to be.
God reveals in John 17 that His purpose is not just to answer our prayers, but that through prayers we might come to discern His mind. Yet there is one prayer which God must answer, and that is the prayer of Jesus- "... that they may be one just as We are one..." (17:22). Are we as close to Jesus Christ as that?
God is not concerned about our plans; He doesn't ask, "Do you want to go through this loss of a loved one, this difficulty, or this defeat?" No, He allows these things for His own purpose. The things we are going through are either making us sweeter, better, and nobler men and women, or they are making us more critical and fault-finding, and more insistent on our own ways. The things that happen either make us evil, or they make us more saintly, depending entirely on our relationship with God and its level of intimacy. If we will pray, regarding our own lives, "Your will be done" (Matthew 26:42), then we will be encouraged and comforted by John 17, knowing that our Father is working according to His own wisdom, accomplishing what is best. When we understand God's purpose, we will not become small-minded and cynical. Jesus prayed nothing less for us than absolute oneness with Himself, just as He was one with the Father. Some of us are far from this oneness; yet God will not leave us alone until we are one with Him- because Jesus prayed, "... that they all may be one...."
[from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers]
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