God did not direct His call to Isaiah— Isaiah overheard God saying, “…who will go for Us?” The call of God is not just for a select few but for everyone. Whether I hear God’s call or not depends on the condition of my ears, and exactly what I hear depends upon my spiritual attitude. “Many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14). That is, few prove that they are the chosen ones. The chosen ones are those who have come into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ and have had their spiritual condition changed and their ears opened. Then they hear “the voice of the Lord” continually asking, “…who will go for Us?” However, God doesn’t single out someone and say, “Now, you go.” He did not force His will on Isaiah. Isaiah was in the presence of God, and he overheard the call. His response, performed in complete freedom, could only be to say, “Here am I! Send me.”Remove the thought from your mind of expecting God to come to force you or to plead with you. When our Lord called His disciples, He did it without irresistible pressure from the outside. The quiet, yet passionate, insistence of His “Follow Me” was spoken to men whose every sense was receptive (Matthew 4:19). If we will allow the Holy Spirit to bring us face to face with God, we too will hear what Isaiah heard— “the voice of the Lord.” In perfect freedom we too will say, “Here am I! Send me.”

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January 14 2015

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

Lord, thank you for this day and this devotional. This devotional reminds us that You are communicating with us, all of us, all the time. Our ability to hear is the issue. And we hear you clearly when we are connected. Help me to get connected, stay connected and to live it out this day Lord.  And Lord, You know that I am not together enough to say send me; but I know that whatever I face in the journey is already dealt with by You. Thank you for the reminder that we can all say “send me” because the Holy Spirit that opens our ears also prepares and protects us as we step out.

And God says…” Your surrender is all that is required to develop ears that can hear. My sheep know My voice.  Occasionally you will have to “wait”, trust and believe before you can hear Me clearly. But do not stop surrendering and listening. Do not step out on your own thinking you have it all figured out in advance…..you know…I show you a slice of the journey so that you can then grab hold and say…”Thank You Lord for showing me, now I’ve got this”. Trust in Me and wait on Me until the next steps are very bright and clear. Do not say…”Here I am send me” and then rush out on your own. When I send you, I send you knowing your next steps, only lighting your way a few steps at a time. The key is to get and stay connected, knowing all things work for the good of those that love the Lord.”

Thank You Lord, but how long will I have to wait on You?  How long will you keep me waiting?  How long before I know it is You that is speaking, guiding and directing my steps? How long before you act? How long before you actually show and equip me for my connection and the next steps?

Spend your “waiting time” in surrender, worship and prayer, and you will never wait again.  You will simply be connected to the moment…with Me. Delight yourself in the Lord and I will give you the desires of your heart.

Our Solitude with Him. Jesus doesn’t take us aside and explain things to us all the time; He explains things to us as we are able to understand them. The lives of others are examples for us, but God requires us to examine our own souls. It is slow work— so slow that it takes God all of time and eternity to make a man or woman conform to His purpose. We can only be used by God after we allow Him to show us the deep, hidden areas of our own character. It is astounding how ignorant we are about ourselves! We don’t even recognize the envy, laziness, or pride within us when we see it. But Jesus will reveal to us everything we have held within ourselves before His grace began to work. How many of us have learned to look inwardly with courage?We have to get rid of the idea that we understand ourselves. That is always the last bit of pride to go. The only One who understands us is God. The greatest curse in our spiritual life is pride. If we have ever had a glimpse of what we are like in the sight of God, we will never say, “Oh, I’m so unworthy.” We will understand that this goes without saying. But as long as there is any doubt that we are unworthy, God will continue to close us in until He gets us alone. Whenever there is any element of pride or conceit remaining, Jesus can’t teach us anything. He will allow us to experience heartbreak or the disappointment we feel when our intellectual pride is wounded. He will reveal numerous misplaced affections or desires— things over which we never thought He would have to get us alone. Many things are shown to us, often without effect. But when God gets us alone over them, they will be clear.

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January 12 2015

 

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

Good morning Lord.  Once again Chambers writes about our spiritual frailties. And I suspect he was (and is) still trying to help us understand that without You we can are unable to see ourselves clearly. And that is certainly true.  When you taught us to get connected to You, stay connected and then live it out, we came to understand that this is the way to be led and shaped by You.  That Your Spirit would lead, guide and direct us in all things, as long as we seek You first.  Is this the case?

And God says…”Yes this is the case. The scriptures are clear about this as well. Seek and you shall find. Knock and the door will be opened. Come near to Me and I will come near to you. Acknowledge Me in all your ways and I will make your paths straight.  Seek first the kingdom of God, which is Jesus, and everything else you want or need will be provided. When you seek Me you will find Me. Try this…..Seek Me first in everything and anything you do this day, and then recall your day and the way it rolled out as you get ready for bed in the evening.  The peace and progress of your life and activities will astound you.”

 

“Your whole spirit….” The great, mysterious work of the Holy Spirit is in the deep recesses of our being which we cannot reach. Read Psalm 139. The psalmist implies— “O Lord, You are the God of the early mornings, the God of the late nights, the God of the mountain peaks, and the God of the sea. But, my God, my soul has horizons further away than those of early mornings, deeper darkness than the nights of earth, higher peaks than any mountain peaks, greater depths than any sea in nature. You who are the God of all these, be my God. I cannot reach to the heights or to the depths; there are motives I cannot discover, dreams I cannot realize. My God, search me.”Do we believe that God can fortify and protect our thought processes far beyond where we can go? “…the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). If this verse means cleansing only on our conscious level, may God have mercy on us. The man who has been dulled by sin will say that he is not even conscious of it. But the cleansing from sin we experience will reach to the heights and depths of our spirit if we will “walk in the light as He is in the light” (1 John 1:7). The same Spirit that fed the life of Jesus Christ will feed the life of our spirit. It is only when we are protected by God with the miraculous sacredness of the Holy Spirit that our spirit, soul, and body can be preserved in pure uprightness until the coming of Jesus-no longer condemned in God’s sight.We should more frequently allow our minds to meditate on these great, massive truths of God.

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January 9 2015

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

Lord, when we are alone and talking I can often sense your love and peace and that deep sense of belonging. And even though I know that Your Spirit is embedded in me there are other times when I cannot feel You at all, and it seems that you have abandoned me.  If your spirit is embedded within me then why does this happen?

And God says…” There are those that would say that you have done something wrong, committed some transgression to cause our communication to be broken. They would say that this is the reason you often can’t feel or sense my presence. But that is not accurate. I will never leave you or forsake you. My love and grace are much greater than your wrong doing or thinking. You often cannot hear or sense my presence because your faith and spiritual muscles need to grow, and they grow best when you are in the midst of trying times. During these times you learn more about Me and yourself. I am God and my ways are not your ways.  Many believe that a good parent should remove their child from pain and suffering immediately. But the best news in history came from letting my Son endure the pain and suffering of the cross.  When I allow time and suffering to leave their mark on you, these are signs that I am loving and blessing you.  Trust Me, acknowledge Me in all your ways, do not lean on your own understanding, and I will make your paths straight. Delight yourself in Me and I will give you the desires of your heart.  If I gave up My son for you, I would certainly not withhold any good thing”.   When I am quiet, I am letting the trial, pain and hurt to have its perfect result. And the result is that you  are shaped into a more perfect likeness of Jesus.”

This event is a picture of the mistake we make in thinking that the ultimate God wants of us is the sacrifice of death. What God wants is the sacrifice through death which enables us to do what Jesus did, that is, sacrifice our lives. Not— “Lord, I am ready to go with You…to death” (Luke 22:33). But— “I am willing to be identified with Your death so that I may sacrifice my life to God.”We seem to think that God wants us to give up things! God purified Abraham from this error, and the same process is at work in our lives. God never tells us to give up things just for the sake of giving them up, but He tells us to give them up for the sake of the only thing worth having, namely, life with Himself. It is a matter of loosening the bands that hold back our lives. Those bands are loosened immediately by identification with the death of Jesus. Then we enter into a relationship with God whereby we may sacrifice our lives to Him.

It is of no value to God to give Him your life for death. He wants you to be a “living sacrifice”— to let Him have all your strengths that have been saved and sanctified through Jesus (Romans 12:1). This is what is acceptable to God.

These words were not spoken as a rebuke, nor even with surprise; Jesus was encouraging Philip to draw closer. Yet the last person we get intimate with is Jesus. Before Pentecost the disciples knew Jesus as the One who gave them power to conquer demons and to bring about a revival (see Luke 10:18-20). It was a wonderful intimacy, but there was a much closer intimacy to come: “…I have called you friends…” (John 15:15). True friendship is rare on earth. It means identifying with someone in thought, heart, and spirit. The whole experience of life is designed to enable us to enter into this closest relationship with Jesus Christ. We receive His blessings and know His Word, but do we really know Him?Jesus said, “It is to your advantage that I go away…” (John 16:7). He left that relationship to lead them even closer. It is a joy to Jesus when a disciple takes time to walk more intimately with Him. The bearing of fruit is always shown in Scripture to be the visible result of an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ (see John 15:1-4).

Once we get intimate with Jesus we are never lonely and we never lack for understanding or compassion. We can continually pour out our hearts to Him without being perceived as overly emotional or pitiful. The Christian who is truly intimate with Jesus will never draw attention to himself but will only show the evidence of a life where Jesus is completely in control. This is the outcome of allowing Jesus to satisfy every area of life to its depth. The picture resulting from such a life is that of the strong, calm balance that our Lord gives to those who are intimate with Him.

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January 7 2015

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

Good morning Lord, and thank You for this day and this devotional.  This is a message You have been teaching us for some time; be intimate with Jesus. And as we learned yesterday, the day to day message is for us to get connected to Jesus, stay connected, and live it out.  Therein lies the rub, how we do that. Lord, it seems as if every distraction in the world gets in my way daily and hourly.  Even as I seek out a quiet time to meditate, my mind wanders. Even as I turn my day over to You my spirit is often hijacked by day to day, hour to hour fears, distractions, responsibilities, and interruptions.  It seems that I can only stop my wandering mind and spirit when I am in desperate need, and You are the only answer”.

And God says…”As Paul wrote…”who will rescue me from this circumstance? “Thank God it has already been done; Jesus paid the price for your inability to stay connected.  I know what you can and cannot do. I do not give you hope and connection and then pull it away. I would not show you how to live abundantly and not make the life easily attainable.  This abundant life is not meant to be something you must earn; it is not available to just the disciplined. Our intimacy is not based on your abilities, focus or even your worship and study.  It is not based on your worthiness. Our intimacy is based on the sacrifice of Jesus. Simply reach out to Him knowing that He is all that is required to get and stay connected. And when you notice that you are more closely aligned with your own notions, fears, responsibilities, and interruptions, silently cry out to Jesus, and let Him restore your connection and intimacy. Seek first the kingdom of God, which is Jesus, and everything else you require will be provided. “

Worship is giving God the best that He has given you. Be careful what you do with the best you have. Whenever you get a blessing from God, give it back to Him as a love-gift. Take time to meditate before God and offer the blessing back to Him in a deliberate act of worship. If you hoard it for yourself, it will turn into spiritual dry rot, as the manna did when it was hoarded (see Exodus 16:20). God will never allow you to keep a spiritual blessing completely for yourself. It must be given back to Him so that He can make it a blessing to others.Bethel is the symbol of fellowship with God; Ai is the symbol of the world. Abram “pitched his tent” between the two. The lasting value of our public service for God is measured by the depth of the intimacy of our private times of fellowship and oneness with Him. Rushing in and out of worship is wrong every time— there is always plenty of time to worship God. Days set apart for quiet can be a trap, detracting from the need to have daily quiet time with God. That is why we must “pitch our tents” where we will always have quiet times with Him, however noisy our times with the world may be. There are not three levels of spiritual life— worship, waiting, and work. Yet some of us seem to jump like spiritual frogs from worship to waiting, and from waiting to work. God’s idea is that the three should go together as one. They were always together in the life of our Lord and in perfect harmony. It is a discipline that must be developed; it will not happen overnight.

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January 6 2015

Journal Entry for today-JDV

Lord, today as we prayed, talked and sought your message, we heard you loud and clear.  Our goals are to get connected, stay connected, and then live it, give it and work it out.  Sounds a bit cliché-ish”, but that was the message we learned today.

And God says…”That has been your lesson for many days. Be connected and in relationship with Me and then simply live.  When we are connected you know that I am guiding your life, so you can be curious and expectant, knowing that all things will work together for your good. And when you are connected, you will naturally become a blessing for others. It is impossible to be connected to Me, be truly blessed and NOT be connected to others. Love your God with all your mind, heart and soul and love your neighbor as yourself;  the only commandments given you by Jesus.”

“And when He had spoken this, He said to him, ‘Follow Me’ ” (John 21:19). Three years earlier Jesus had said, “Follow Me” (Matthew 4:19), and Peter followed with no hesitation. The irresistible attraction of Jesus was upon him and he did not need the Holy Spirit to help him do it. Later he came to the place where he denied Jesus, and his heart broke. Then he received the Holy Spirit and Jesus said again, “Follow Me” (John 21:19). Now no one is in front of Peter except the Lord Jesus Christ. The first “Follow Me” was nothing mysterious; it was an external following. Jesus is now asking for an internal sacrifice and yielding (see John 21:18).Between these two times Peter denied Jesus with oaths and curses (see Matthew 26:69-75). But then he came completely to the end of himself and all of his self-sufficiency. There was no part of himself he would ever rely on again. In his state of destitution, he was finally ready to receive all that the risen Lord had for him. “…He breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’ ” (John 20:22). No matter what changes God has performed in you, never rely on them. Build only on a Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, and on the Spirit He gives.

All our promises and resolutions end in denial because we have no power to accomplish them. When we come to the end of ourselves, not just mentally but completely, we are able to “receive the Holy Spirit.” “Receive the Holy Spirit” — the idea is that of invasion. There is now only One who directs the course of your life, the Lord Jesus Christ.

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January 5 2015

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

Lord, on my own I have no power or desire to follow You. On my own I make resolutions and chase visions, hopes and desires that hold no lasting value. Even when I am wildly successful, the victories seem hallow and fleeting. But connected to You I feel a sense of purpose and design.

When you surrender you own notions of life, who you are and what you are to do and are connected to Me, you are connected to My love and a sense of purpose and power that provides a peace that passes all understanding.

Lord I get that, but like Peter when I see the storm waves all around me, my senses overload on what can or could happen. When I sense the impending dangers or risks, and I cannot see or feel You, I get frightened and worried.

There is a simple remedy for that; do not face your days, full of dangers and risks, without Me. Do not step out onto the waters of your days until and unless you are connected and communing with Me. Seek first the kingdom of God and I will provide everything else you require. Acknowledge Me in all you ways and I will make your paths straight. Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.