The time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God… —1 Peter 4:17
The Christian servant must never forget that salvation is God’s idea, not man’s; therefore, it has an unfathomable depth. Salvation is the great thought of God, not an experience. Experience is simply the door through which salvation comes into the conscious level of our life so that we are aware of what has taken place on a much deeper level. Never preach the experience— preach the great thought of God behind the experience. When we preach, we are not simply proclaiming how people can be saved from hell and be made moral and pure; we are conveying good news about God.
In the teachings of Jesus Christ the element of judgment is always brought out— it is the sign of the love of God. Never sympathize with someone who finds it difficult to get to God; God is not to blame. It is not for us to figure out the reason for the difficulty, but only to present the truth of God so that the Spirit of God will reveal what is wrong. The greatest test of the quality of our preaching is whether or not it brings everyone to judgment. When the truth is preached, the Spirit of God brings each person face to face with God Himself.
If Jesus ever commanded us to do something that He was unable to equip us to accomplish, He would be a liar. And if we make our own inability a stumbling block or an excuse not to be obedient, it means that we are telling God that there is something which He has not yet taken into account. Every element of our own self-reliance must be put to death by the power of God. The moment we recognize our complete weakness and our dependence upon Him will be the very moment that the Spirit of God will exhibit His power.
Journal DJR
Good Morning Lord,
The last two sentences summarize the message and points toward something “actionable.” You know my tendency to get myself overloaded and distracted. This is where I’m tempted to crank up my self reliance and power thru and wind up getting stressed out and doing a poor job at all the tasks that I was failing at multi tasking. Chambers says, Every element of our own self-reliance must be put to death by the power of God.
That is foreign to my “human nature” … so give me some pointers here, on how to do this.
For starters, consider the story of Mary and Martha. Martha got overloaded and distracted (and judgmental of her sister who didn’t join in on the stress) Mary, you’ll remember, chose the really important part. Which was connection with me. Too often you choose Martha’s long list of obligations and get stressed out like she did. Our connection gets lost and you stress out. There is a better way to live. It’s OK to make your long lists of the things that should or might be done. But choose the one that I show you is for now and we’ll go do it together. And set your list aside. You can keep a couple in the background, but if you try to do and think about 27 items at a time, you will stress yourself out and the first things that you will lose are your peace and our connection.
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