Where sin and sorrow stops, and the song of the saint starts. Do I really want to get there? I can right now. The questions that truly matter in life are remarkably few, and they are all answered by these words— “Come to Me.” Our Lord’s words are not, “Do this, or don’t do that,” but— “Come to me.” If I will simply come to Jesus, my real life will be brought into harmony with my real desires. I will actually cease from sin, and will find the song of the Lord beginning in my life.
Have you ever come to Jesus? Look at the stubbornness of your heart. You would rather do anything than this one simple childlike thing— “Come to Me.” If you really want to experience ceasing from sin, you must come to Jesus.
Jesus Christ makes Himself the test to determine your genuineness. Look how He used the word come. At the most unexpected moments in your life there is this whisper of the Lord— “Come to Me,” and you are immediately drawn to Him. Personal contact with Jesus changes everything. Be “foolish” enough to come and commit yourself to what He says. The attitude necessary for you to come to Him is one where your will has made the determination to let go of everything and deliberately commit it all to Him.
“…and I will give you rest”— that is, “I will sustain you, causing you to stand firm.” He is not saying, “I will put you to bed, hold your hand, and sing you to sleep.” But, in essence, He is saying, “I will get you out of bed— out of your listlessness and exhaustion, and out of your condition of being half dead while you are still alive. I will penetrate you with the spirit of life, and you will be sustained by the perfection of vital activity.” Yet we become so weak and pitiful and talk about “suffering” the will of the Lord! Where is the majestic vitality and the power of the Son of God in that?
Seek if you have not found. “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss…” (James 4:3). If you ask for things from life instead of from God, “you ask amiss”; that is, you ask out of your desire for self-fulfillment. The more you fulfill yourself the less you will seek God. “…seek, and you will find….” Get to work— narrow your focus and interests to this one thing. Have you ever sought God with your whole heart, or have you simply given Him a feeble cry after some emotionally painful experience? “…seek, [focus,] and you will find….”“Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters…” (Isaiah 55:1). Are you thirsty, or complacent and indifferent— so satisfied with your own experience that you want nothing more of God? Experience is a doorway, not a final goal. Beware of building your faith on experience, or your life will not ring true and will only sound the note of a critical spirit. Remember that you can never give another person what you have found, but you can cause him to have a desire for it.“…knock, and it will be opened to you” (Luke 11:9). “Draw near to God…” (James 4:8). Knock— the door is closed, and your heartbeat races as you knock. “Cleanse your hands…” (James 4:8). Knock a bit louder— you begin to find that you are dirty. “…purify your hearts…” (James 4:8). It is becoming even more personal— you are desperate and serious now— you will do anything. “Lament…” (James 4:9). Have you ever lamented, expressing your sorrow before God for the condition of your inner life? There is no thread of self-pity left, only the heart-rending difficulty and amazement which comes from seeing what kind of person you really are. “Humble yourselves…” (James 4:10). It is a humbling experience to knock at God’s door— you have to knock with the crucified thief. “…to him who knocks it will be opened” (Luke 11:10).
Lord, thank You once again for this lesson and song that bring us to the point of seeking a deeper connection and relationship with You before we bring our requests. Thank You for reminding us to seek the Holy Spirit and the spiritual “knowing” before we even consider how we want You to act on our behalf. David and I both agreed that today we will find our quiet place to pray and seek You and a very strong connection before we hold up our requests and step out into our day. Thank You for this insight.
And God says…”Seek first the kingdom of God, which is Jesus. Acknowledge Me in all your ways and I will make your paths straight. Love Your God with all your heart mind and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself, and then check on yourself a number of times today after your intimate prayer time. See how your day has progressed and how your uncertainty simply does not matter because you know that I am God and I have a plan for you, for good and not for evil; for fulfillment instead of anxiety and concern. Trust in Me with all your heart, do not rely on your own understanding and I will make your paths straight. I have come that you may have life and life more abundant. Simply surrender your own notions of how this is to be done, and what the outcomes will be; be connected via the Holy Spirit and remain curious about how I will respond as you expect Me to act and you find my strength for obedience.”
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Ask if you have not received. There is nothing more difficult than asking. We will have yearnings and desires for certain things, and even suffer as a result of their going unfulfilled, but not until we are at the limit of desperation will we ask. It is the sense of not being spiritually real that causes us to ask. Have you ever asked out of the depths of your total insufficiency and poverty? “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God…” (James 1:5), but be sure that you do lack wisdom before you ask. You cannot bring yourself to the point of spiritual reality anytime you choose. The best thing to do, once you realize you are not spiritually real, is to ask God for the Holy Spirit, basing your request on the promise of Jesus Christ (see Luke 11:13). The Holy Spirit is the one who makes everything that Jesus did for you real in your life.
“Everyone who asks receives….” This does not mean that you will not get if you do not ask, but it means that until you come to the point of asking, you will not receive from God (seeMatthew 5:45). To be able to receive means that you have to come into the relationship of a child of God, and then you comprehend and appreciate mentally, morally, and with spiritual understanding, that these things come from God.
“If any of you lacks wisdom….” If you realize that you are lacking, it is because you have come in contact with spiritual reality— do not put the blinders of reason on again. The word ask actually means “beg.” Some people are poor enough to be interested in their poverty, and some of us are poor enough spiritually to show our interest. Yet we will never receive if we ask with a certain result in mind, because we are asking out of our lust, not out of our poverty. A pauper does not ask out of any reason other than the completely hopeless and painful condition of his poverty. He is not ashamed to beg— blessed are the paupers in spirit (see Matthew 5:3).
Journal DJR
Good Morning Lord,
We could really use some clarification about asking. How to, when to, how specific, etc. Because we have plenty of experience with asking somehow incorrectly. Perhaps the request came from our own lusts or as Chambers says, “the blinders of reason.” It “seemed logically” like the right thing to ask for… Perhaps by getting too specific, we stop holding the issue in the “open palm” and remove ourselves from letting you be God and surprise us with your perfect answer? But, here, in Luke 11 the man asks specifically and with audacity and gets what he came for.
5 Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; 6 a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ 7 And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity[e] he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.
We are then admonished to ask, seek, & knock, and encouraged that our Heavenly Father will answer our requests better than we do as earthly parents …but at this point specific answers to specific requests, like bread, is replaced with “the Holy Spirit.”
13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
Are you saying, just ask for the Holy Spirit and He will take care of our specific requests? Or should we make the specific requests and let you sort them out? Like when you added, “Nevertheless, your will be done?” Maybe if we, “Seek ye first…” it will all work out? As you can see, we need your help here.
Dont feel bad, it’s normal for humans to not get it. You are using worldly thinking while I am offering heavenly answers (which are bigger than the world and include the world and all that is in it, including the physical answers.) Notice what I said to the woman at the well?
John 4:10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
So take the same advice that I gave her. Ask for the Living Water. It will contain the H2O that you need.
Come to me, and keep on coming and you will be satisfied. Do you seek the answer first and then me? Or me first and then the answer. If you truly seek me first, the answer will be clear. So seek me first. Ask, Seek, Knock, and know that the answer is in me.
If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. —John 13:17
Be determined to know more than others. If you yourself do not cut the lines that tie you to the dock, God will have to use a storm to sever them and to send you out to sea. Put everything in your life afloat upon God, going out to sea on the great swelling tide of His purpose, and your eyes will be opened. If you believe in Jesus, you are not to spend all your time in the calm waters just inside the harbor, full of joy, but always tied to the dock. You have to get out past the harbor into the great depths of God, and begin to know things for yourself— begin to have spiritual discernment.
When you know that you should do something and you do it, immediately you know more. Examine where you have become sluggish, where you began losing interest spiritually, and you will find that it goes back to a point where you did not do something you knew you should do. You did not do it because there seemed to be no immediate call to do it. But now you have no insight or discernment, and at a time of crisis you are spiritually distracted instead of spiritually self-controlled. It is a dangerous thing to refuse to continue learning and knowing more.
The counterfeit of obedience is a state of mind in which you create your own opportunities to sacrifice yourself, and your zeal and enthusiasm are mistaken for discernment. It is easier to sacrifice yourself than to fulfill your spiritual destiny, which is stated in Romans 12:1-2. It is much better to fulfill the purpose of God in your life by discerning His will than it is to perform great acts of self-sacrifice. “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice…” (1 Samuel 15:22). Beware of paying attention or going back to what you once were, when God wants you to be something that you have never been. “If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know…” (John 7:17).
Good morning Lord. This sentence from Chambers’ devotional; “If you believe in Jesus, you are not to spend all your time in the calm waters just inside the harbor, full of joy, but always tied to the dock. You have to get out past the harbor into the great depths of God, and begin to know things for yourself…” really caught my attention. The notion that we are to strike out in faith operating in the great unknown is very difficult for me Lord. I want the uncertainties to be more certain, the risks to be mitigated, and the outcomes to be more calculated and predictable. How do we obtain and live in that kind of faith? The kind of faith where we step out of the boat, not knowing if we will sink or not? How do we obtain the kind of faith that allows us to trust You and step out? How do we live day to day, hour by hour with a willingness and actions to actually leave the safe harbor and operate outside our comfort zones and desires to control the outcomes of our hopes and prayers?
And God says…”Inside of your own heart, mind and capabilities you can accomplish none of this. When you rely on your self-discipline, faith, training and spiritual preparedness, you are unable to trust completely. Your fear and uncertainty will always win out. You cannot get “prayed up or studied up” enough. However, you can always be surrendered enough. You can always acknowledge your weakness and give your hopes, dreams, fears and uncertainty to Me. Trust in Me with all your heart and do not rely on your own capabilities and or understanding, and I will make your paths straight. Seek first the kingdom of God, which is Jesus, and I will give you everything else you require for your daily living. Your own faith, knowledge, understanding, strength, and power can sustain you when you surrender them to Me and operate out of the Spirit of God.”
He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” —Hebrews 13:5
What line of thinking do my thoughts take? Do I turn to what God says or to my own fears? Am I simply repeating what God says, or am I learning to truly hear Him and then to respond after I have heard what He says? “For He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ So we may boldly say: ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?’ ” (Hebrews 13:5-6).
“I will never leave you…”— not for any reason; not my sin, selfishness, stubbornness, nor waywardness. Have I really let God say to me that He will never leave me? If I have not truly heard this assurance of God, then let me listen again.
“I will never…forsake you.” Sometimes it is not the difficulty of life but the drudgery of it that makes me think God will forsake me. When there is no major difficulty to overcome, no vision from God, nothing wonderful or beautiful— just the everyday activities of life— do I hear God’s assurance even in these?
We have the idea that God is going to do some exceptional thing— that He is preparing and equipping us for some extraordinary work in the future. But as we grow in His grace we find that God is glorifying Himself here and now, at this very moment. If we have God’s assurance behind us, the most amazing strength becomes ours, and we learn to sing, glorifying Him even in the ordinary days and ways of life.
The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him… —Psalm 25:14
What is the sign of a friend? Is it that he tells you his secret sorrows? No, it is that he tells you his secret joys. Many people will confide their secret sorrows to you, but the final mark of intimacy is when they share their secret joys with you. Have we ever let God tell us any of His joys? Or are we continually telling God our secrets, leaving Him no time to talk to us? At the beginning of our Christian life we are full of requests to God. But then we find that God wants to get us into an intimate relationship with Himself— to get us in touch with His purposes. Are we so intimately united to Jesus Christ’s idea of prayer— “Your will be done” (Matthew 6:10)— that we catch the secrets of God?
What makes God so dear to us is not so much His big blessings to us, but the tiny things, because they show His amazing intimacy with us— He knows every detail of each of our individual lives.“Him shall He teach in the way He chooses” (Psalm 25:12). At first, we want the awareness of being guided by God. But then as we grow spiritually, we live so fully aware of God that we do not even need to ask what His will is, because the thought of choosing another way will never occur to us.
If we are saved and sanctified, God guides us by our everyday choices. And if we are about to choose what He does not want, He will give us a sense of doubt or restraint, which we must heed. Whenever there is doubt, stop at once. Never try to reason it out, saying, “I wonder why I shouldn’t do this?” God instructs us in what we choose; that is, He actually guides our common sense. And when we yield to His teachings and guidance, we no longer hinder His Spirit by continually asking, “Now, Lord, what is Your will?”
Good morning God and thank you for this new devotional. Well, it seems new even though we have been using this book My Utmost for His Highest, for over five years. You continue to make the devotionals fresh and alive through the direction of the Holy Spirit. You remind us here of the intimate relationship You seek with us, and that notion overwhelms me. I am reminded of the lyric, “who am I that the Lord of all the world would care to know my name.” Thank You for Your love and the intimate way You have of reaching out to us.
And God says…”Since the beginning, man has tried to worship Me in the ways He believes will please Me. But I do not seek your worship first. I seek our intimate relationship. Your appropriate worship will follow, as you allow the Holy Spirit that is the result of your surrender, to guide your thoughts and actions. You then have the love, power, grace, insight and motivation to worship in ways that will support and sustain our intimate and loving relationship. Seek first the Kingdom of God, which is Jesus, and I will provide everything else you require in this life; including the love, power, grace, insight and motivation for you to surrender, be connected, curious, expectant and obedient. And when you cannot be all these things, my grace and love fills the gaps.”
Are you obsessed by something? You will probably say, “No, by nothing,” but all of us are obsessed by something— usually by ourselves, or, if we are Christians, by our own experience of the Christian life. But the psalmist says that we are to be obsessed by God. The abiding awareness of the Christian life is to be God Himself, not just thoughts about Him. The total being of our life inside and out is to be absolutely obsessed by the presence of God. A child’s awareness is so absorbed in his mother that although he is not consciously thinking of her, when a problem arises, the abiding relationship is that with the mother. In that same way, we are to “live and move and have our being” in God (Acts 17:28), looking at everything in relation to Him, because our abiding awareness of Him continually pushes itself to the forefront of our lives.
If we are obsessed by God, nothing else can get into our lives— not concerns, nor tribulation, nor worries. And now we understand why our Lord so emphasized the sin of worrying. How can we dare to be so absolutely unbelieving when God totally surrounds us? To be obsessed by God is to have an effective barricade against all the assaults of the enemy.
“He himself shall dwell in prosperity…” (Psalm 25:13). God will cause us to “dwell in prosperity,” keeping us at ease, even in the midst of tribulation, misunderstanding, and slander, if our “life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). We rob ourselves of the miraculous, revealed truth of this abiding companionship with God. “God is our refuge…” (Psalm 46:1). Nothing can break through His shelter of protection.
Journal DJR
Good morning Lord.
Thank you that you can cause us to live in prosperity (Psalm 25:13) … in all circumstances. Seemingly good ones or bad ones. Like those in the war zones of Syria and Iraq, being martyred and persecuted. Staying in a prosperity mindset in the face of those circumstances is certainly different than most of our “challenges” that we face in our everyday lives. But the source of the power to live in victory and prosperity is the same…. connection with you and living “Hidden with Christ in God” How to do that more consistently is our question today. We’ve learned that starting the day with connection is part of the answer. And reserving some time for what we’re calling a visit to the “holy of holies” is another part. But there must be more…
It is good that you are seeking more. It is a lifetime quest and you will never be totally satisfied. You will be satisfied as a young child rests with his mother after eating. But he is soon hungry again. That is how you are to live, hungering for more of me and what I have for you. And you will never exhaust my storehouse.
How do I keep from stumbling back into self will, self promotion and self preservation … those all come so naturally?
I have provided the answer and demonstrated how to use it. It’s called the Cross. It’s an instrument of death. I used it myself. Remember I said, “nevertheless, your will, not mine, be done.” You can live that way too. Connect with me and discern my heart … and then bring to the cross everything that would hinder you walking in what I am showing you. This might be even harder for you super blessed Americans than for your brothers and sisters in difficult places, because you have so many options. You are overwhelmed with blessings to the extent that you forget to count them.
When you walk with me in the secret place there is peace and no stress and you don’t have to push. The only pushing you have to do is pushing back all the things that distract you away from me and hearing my voice.
He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” —Ezekiel 37:3
Can a sinner be turned into a saint? Can a twisted life be made right? There is only one appropriate answer— “O Lord God, You know” (Ezekiel 37:3). Never forge ahead with your religious common sense and say, “Oh, yes, with just a little more Bible reading, devotional time, and prayer, I see how it can be done.”It is much easier to do something than to trust in God; we see the activity and mistake panic for inspiration. That is why we see so few fellow workers with God, yet so many people working for God. We would much rather work for God than believe in Him. Do I really believe that God will do in me what I cannot do? The degree of hopelessness I have for others comes from never realizing that God has done anything for me. Is my own personal experience such a wonderful realization of God’s power and might that I can never have a sense of hopelessness for anyone else I see? Has any spiritual work been accomplished in me at all? The degree of panic activity in my life is equal to the degree of my lack of personal spiritual experience.“Behold, O My people, I will open your graves…” (Ezekiel 37:12). When God wants to show you what human nature is like separated from Himself, He shows it to you in yourself. If the Spirit of God has ever given you a vision of what you are apart from the grace of God (and He will only do this when His Spirit is at work in you), then you know that in reality there is no criminal half as bad as you yourself could be without His grace. My “grave” has been opened by God and “I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells” (Romans 7:18). God’s Spirit continually reveals to His children what human nature is like apart from His grace.
Lord, thank you for the reminder that You provide the grace, love and mercy we need to live an abundant life. Thank You for showing us one more time that You have provided all we need for the Christian life, including the love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness we need from You as we live day to day “missing the mark”.
And God says…”Seek first the kingdom of God, which is Jesus, and I will provide everything else you need to live. When you seek the things you need by your own efforts, you cannot be fulfilled, regardless of your level of success or failure. And in your own efforts, you engage in life, work, relationships and even church and wonder why you do not feel satisfied, and at peace. Let Me be Lord of your life, through your daily, hourly and minute by minute surrender of your own efforts followed by our connection, your curiosity, expectations and obedience. And with our connection I can and will provide the power for you to live in this fashion. Worry about nothing but pray about everything, and you will know that peace that passes all understanding. And you will learn, know and experience more success and victory than you ever imagined.”
This CO2- (Church Of 2) is where two guys meet each day to tighten up our Connections with Jesus. We start by placing the daily “My Utmost For His Highest” in this WordPress blog. Then we prayerfully select some matching worship music and usually pick out a few lyrics that fit especially well. Then we just start praying and editing and Bolding and adding comments and see where the Spirit takes us.
It’s been a blessing for both of us.
If you’d like to start a CO2, we’d be glad to help you and your partner get started. Also click the link below to see how others are doing CO2.Odds Monkey
Click Image for John White's Original Vision For CO2's
