“Let us go to Judea again.” The disciples said to Him, “…are You going there again?” —John 11:7-8
Just because I don’t understand what Jesus Christ says, I have no right to determine that He must be mistaken in what He says. That is a dangerous view, and it is never right to think that my obedience to God’s directive will bring dishonor to Jesus. The only thing that will bring dishonor is not obeying Him. To put my view of His honor ahead of what He is plainly guiding me to do is never right, even though it may come from a real desire to prevent Him from being put to an open shame. I know when the instructions have come from God because of their quiet persistence. But when I begin to weigh the pros and cons, and doubt and debate enter into my mind, I am bringing in an element that is not of God. This will only result in my concluding that His instructions to me were not right. Many of us are faithful to our ideas about Jesus Christ, but how many of us are faithful to Jesus Himself? Faithfulness to Jesus means that I must step out even when and where I can’t see anything (see Matthew 14:29). But faithfulness to my own ideas means that I first clear the way mentally. Faith, however, is not intellectual understanding; faith is a deliberate commitment to the Person of Jesus Christ, even when I can’t see the way ahead.
Are you debating whether you should take a step of faith in Jesus, or whether you should wait until you can clearly see how to do what He has asked? Simply obey Him with unrestrained joy. When He tells you something and you begin to debate, it is because you have a misunderstanding of what honors Him and what doesn’t. Are you faithful to Jesus, or faithful to your ideas about Him? Are you faithful to what He says, or are you trying to compromise His words with thoughts that never came from Him? “Whatever He says to you, do it” (John 2:5).
If you become a necessity to someone else’s life, you are out of God’s will. As a servant, your primary responsibility is to be a “friend of the bridegroom” (John 3:29). When you see a person who is close to grasping the claims of Jesus Christ, you know that your influence has been used in the right direction. And when you begin to see that person in the middle of a difficult and painful struggle, don’t try to prevent it, but pray that his difficulty will grow even ten times stronger, until no power on earth or in hell could hold him away from Jesus Christ. Over and over again, we try to be amateur providences in someone’s life. We are indeed amateurs, coming in and actually preventing God’s will and saying, “This person should not have to experience this difficulty.” Instead of being friends of the Bridegroom, our sympathy gets in the way. One day that person will say to us, “You are a thief; you stole my desire to follow Jesus, and because of you I lost sight of Him.”
Beware of rejoicing with someone over the wrong thing, but always look to rejoice over the right thing. “…the friend of the bridegroom…rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:29-30). This was spoken with joy, not with sadness— at last they were to see the Bridegroom! And John said this was his joy. It represents a stepping aside, an absolute removal of the servant, never to be thought of again.
Listen intently with your entire being until you hear the Bridegroom’s voice in the life of another person. And never give any thought to what devastation, difficulties, or sickness it will bring. Just rejoice with godly excitement that His voice has been heard. You may often have to watch Jesus Christ wreck a life before He saves it (see Matthew 10:34).
Where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal…? —1 Corinthians 3:3
The natural man, or unbeliever, knows nothing about carnality. The desires of the flesh warring against the Spirit, and the Spirit warring against the flesh, which began at rebirth, are what produce carnality and the awareness of it. But Paul said, “Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16). In other words, carnality will disappear.Are you quarrelsome and easily upset over small things? Do you think that no one who is a Christian is ever like that? Paul said they are, and he connected these attitudes with carnality. Is there a truth in the Bible that instantly awakens a spirit of malice or resentment in you? If so, that is proof that you are still carnal. If the process of sanctification is continuing in your life, there will be no trace of that kind of spirit remaining.If the Spirit of God detects anything in you that is wrong, He doesn’t ask you to make it right; He only asks you to accept the light of truth, and then He will make it right. A child of the light will confess sin instantly and stand completely open before God. But a child of the darkness will say, “Oh, I can explain that.” When the light shines and the Spirit brings conviction of sin, be a child of the light. Confess your wrongdoing, and God will deal with it. If, however, you try to vindicate yourself, you prove yourself to be a child of the darkness.What is the proof that carnality has gone? Never deceive yourself; when carnality is gone you will know it— it is the most real thing you can imagine. And God will see to it that you have a number of opportunities to prove to yourself the miracle of His grace. The proof is in a very practical test. You will find yourself saying, “If this had happened before, I would have had the spirit of resentment!” And you will never cease to be the most amazed person on earth at what God has done for you on the inside.
__________________________________________________
March 23, 2016
Journal Entry for Today-JDV
Good morning Lord and thank you for this devotional. This one, like so many of the others, confirms Your teaching of many months; namely that our sanctification, growth and stability as children of God comes about through our surrender and connection to You; that the changes in our lives are truly an inside job, and that gritting out teeth and trying harder is not the way. Thank You for that confirmation and reassurance.
And God says…”When you read the Sermon on the Mount you begin to understand that it is not possible for you to measure up. When you read Paul’s cry in Romans 7 you realize that even the Apostle Paul struggled to make the right choices and then you grasp the notion that the Bible is full of stories about men and women that made wrong choices. Imperfect people living imperfect lives. But inside of that awareness you also come to understand that even though you cannot and do not “measure up” the Holy Spirit can and does change you, over time, from the inside out, and that you can only measure up as you allow Jesus to live through you. The Holy Spirit can and does make you a man after My own heart when you give up your rights to yourself; when you live in surrender to Jesus.”
We need to learn this secret of the burning heart. Suddenly Jesus appears to us, fires are set ablaze, and we are given wonderful visions; but then we must learn to maintain the secret of the burning heart— a heart that can go through anything. It is the simple, dreary day, with its commonplace duties and people, that smothers the burning heart— unless we have learned the secret of abiding in Jesus.
Much of the distress we experience as Christians comes not as the result of sin, but because we are ignorant of the laws of our own nature. For instance, the only test we should use to determine whether or not to allow a particular emotion to run its course in our lives is to examine what the final outcome of that emotion will be. Think it through to its logical conclusion, and if the outcome is something that God would condemn, put a stop to it immediately. But if it is an emotion that has been kindled by the Spirit of God and you don’t allow it to have its way in your life, it will cause a reaction on a lower level than God intended. That is the way unrealistic and overly emotional people are made. And the higher the emotion, the deeper the level of corruption, if it is not exercised on its intended level. If the Spirit of God has stirred you, make as many of your decisions as possible irrevocable, and let the consequences be what they will. We cannot stay forever on the “mount of transfiguration,” basking in the light of our mountaintop experience (see Mark 9:1-9). But we must obey the light we received there; we must put it into action. When God gives us a vision, we must transact business with Him at that point, no matter what the cost.
We cannot kindle when we will
The fire which in the heart resides,
The spirit bloweth and is still,
In mystery our soul abides;
But tasks in hours of insight willed
Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled.
The inescapable spiritual need each of us has is the need to sign the death certificate of our sin nature. I must take my emotional opinions and intellectual beliefs and be willing to turn them into a moral verdict against the nature of sin; that is, against any claim I have to my right to myself. Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ….” He did not say, “I have made a determination to imitate Jesus Christ,” or, “I will really make an effort to follow Him” —but— “I have been identified with Him in His death.” Once I reach this moral decision and act on it, all that Christ accomplished for me on the Cross is accomplished in me. My unrestrained commitment of myself to God gives the Holy Spirit the opportunity to grant to me the holiness of Jesus Christ.“…it is no longer I who live….” My individuality remains, but my primary motivation for living and the nature that rules me are radically changed. I have the same human body, but the old satanic right to myself has been destroyed.“…and the life which I now live in the flesh,” not the life which I long to live or even pray that I live, but the life I now live in my mortal flesh— the life which others can see, “I live by faith in the Son of God….” This faith was not Paul’s own faith in Jesus Christ, but the faith the Son God had given to him (see Ephesians 2:8). It is no longer a faith in faith, but a faith that transcends all imaginable limits— a faith that comes only from the Son of God.____________________________________________________
March 21 2016
Journal Entry for Today-JDV
Good morning Lord and thank you for this day and this devotional. Once more we read Chambers’ words and fit them into the lessons You keep teaching us. Where he says we are to give up the right to ourselves, our rights to look good, feel good, be right and be in control, we read this as surrender; a daily and issue by issue decision to give our lives over to You, to let go of our rights to our own ideas, motivations and perceptions. We have experienced the “peace that passes understanding” when we do this, and long for ways to stay in this surrendered condition.
And God says… “When you surrender yourself to Me, as Chambers writes, “It is no longer a faith in faith, but a faith that transcends all imaginable limits— a faith that comes only from the Son of God.” You make one decision to surrender your life to Me when you become My child. Then you face many, many decisions, opportunities and challenges over the course of your lifetime. As these challenges, trials and opportunities appear, you can leverage your intellect, experience, education, and instincts to address them or you can surrender them to Me. You can use your own understanding or mine. You can seek control, your own ideas of the “right outcomes” or you can choose to live a great new adventure, and trust in Me with all your heart. What part of your relationship with Me is asking me to give you control and the outcomes you desire, and what part of our relationship is trusting Me and being willing to step out into great adventures where you have no control or leverage? Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding and I will make your paths straight.”
We make it our aim…to be well pleasing to Him. —2 Corinthians 5:9
“We make it our aim….” It requires a conscious decision and effort to keep our primary goal constantly in front of us. It means holding ourselves to the highest priority year in and year out; not making our first priority to win souls, or to establish churches, or to have revivals, but seeking only “to be well pleasing to Him.” It is not a lack of spiritual experience that leads to failure, but a lack of working to keep our eyes focused and on the right goal. At least once a week examine yourself before God to see if your life is measuring up to the standard He has for you. Paul was like a musician who gives no thought to audience approval, if he can only catch a look of approval from his Conductor.
Any goal we have that diverts us even to the slightest degree from the central goal of being “approved to God” (2 Timothy 2:15) may result in our rejection from further service for Him. When you discern where the goal leads, you will understand why it is so necessary to keep “looking unto Jesus” (Hebrews 12:2). Paul spoke of the importance of controlling his own body so that it would not take him in the wrong direction. He said, “I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest…I myself should become disqualified” (1 Corinthians 9:27).
I must learn to relate everything to the primary goal, maintaining it without interruption. My worth to God publicly is measured by what I really am in my private life. Is my primary goal in life to please Him and to be acceptable to Him, or is it something less, no matter how lofty it may sound?
Journal DJR
Good Morning Lord
Some of these scriptures seem to promote getting back on a squirrel cage or climbing a ladder to prove ourselves worthy enough and our experiences with that mentality have not been good. We’ve come to believe that you don’t use guilt as a motivator with your children… even though some of your servants use it regularly. Can we arrive at the same place, being “approved to God”, well pleasing to you, etc” from a motivation of love instead of a motivation of guilt and penalty avoidance? Perhaps acknowledging these scriptures that seem to invite us to judgement and striving but spend our time and mental energy on the others? Meanwhile placing the “hard to understand” ones at the foot of the cross and wait for you to reveal them further … in your time.
And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Philippians 4:8
“All coins have two sides. You can focus on one while knowing the other exists. You can live and breathe in the scriptures like Romans 8:28 and Jeremiah 29:11. You can preach them and sing them and encourage crowds with them. Leave these other scriptures to me and Holy Spirit to reveal to each person. If you preach about judgement and measuring up… it will be heard by ones who are not ready to hear it and they will default to a “motivation by guilt” and that is not my way. I will show each of my children what I need of them in my time and my way.”
We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ… —2 Corinthians 5:10
Paul says that we must all, preachers and other people alike, “appear before the judgment seat of Christ.” But if you will learn here and now to live under the scrutiny of Christ’s pure light, your final judgment will bring you only delight in seeing the work God has done in you. Live constantly reminding yourself of the judgment seat of Christ, and walk in the knowledge of the holiness He has given you. Tolerating a wrong attitude toward another person causes you to follow the spirit of the devil, no matter how saintly you are. One carnal judgment of another person only serves the purposes of hell in you. Bring it immediately into the light and confess, “Oh, Lord, I have been guilty there.” If you don’t, your heart will become hardened through and through.
One of the penalties of sin is our acceptance of it. It is not only God who punishes for sin, but sin establishes itself in the sinner and takes its toll. No struggling or praying will enable you to stop doing certain things, and the penalty of sin is that you gradually get used to it, until you finally come to the place where you no longer even realize that it is sin. No power, except the power that comes from being filled with the Holy Spirit, can change or prevent the inherent consequences of sin.
“If we walk in the light as He is in the light…” (1 John 1:7). For many of us, walking in the light means walking according to the standard we have set up for another person. The deadliest attitude of the Pharisees that we exhibit today is not hypocrisy but that which comes from unconsciously living a lie.
Good morning Lord. For years, as a boy and young Christian, I wondered and worried about the judgement seat of Christ. Would I measure up, would Jesus be disappointed in me? Would I hear, “well done my good and faithful servant?” But then You taught me: Believers will not be judged for sin at the judgment seat of Christ. Every sin of every believer was judged at the Cross, when God “made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). At the cross “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us” (Gal. 3:13). As our substitute, “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness” (1 Peter 2:24); “He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God” (Heb. 10:12; cf. Eph. 1:7; 4:32; 1 John 2:1–2). Because of His atoning sacrifice on our behalf, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.… Who is the one who condemns?
So God if this is true, then why is 2 Corinthians 5:10 so explicit? Why do we face the thought of being judged for what we do on earth? Why is it still even a discussion?
And God says…”The judgement is and will always be; “not guilty”. You are not called to live under the threat of judgement, but under the promise of love, grace, and reward. When you surrendered your life to Jesus, you began to live under grace. And as you continue to surrender all your days and issues of your life to Me, you continue to live the abundant life. And in heaven, there is no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. There is only reward.”
At the beginning of our life with Jesus Christ, we were sure we knew all there was to know about following Him. It was a delight to forsake everything else and to throw ourselves before Him in a fearless statement of love. But now we are not quite so sure. Jesus is far ahead of us and is beginning to seem different and unfamiliar— “Jesus was going before them; and they were amazed” (Mark 10:32).
There is an aspect of Jesus that chills even a disciple’s heart to its depth and makes his entire spiritual life gasp for air. This unusual Person with His face set “like a flint” (Isaiah 50:7) is walking with great determination ahead of me, and He strikes terror right through me. He no longer seems to be my Counselor and Friend and has a point of view about which I know nothing. All I can do is stand and stare at Him in amazement. At first I was confident that I understood Him, but now I am not so sure. I begin to realize that there is a distance between Jesus and me and I can no longer be intimate with Him. I have no idea where He is going, and the goal has become strangely distant.
Jesus Christ had to understand fully every sin and sorrow that human beings could experience, and that is what makes Him seem unfamiliar. When we see this aspect of Him, we realize we really don’t know Him. We don’t recognize even one characteristic of His life, and we don’t know how to begin to follow Him. He is far ahead of us, a Leader who seems totally unfamiliar, and we have no friendship with Him.
The discipline of dismay is an essential lesson which a disciple must learn. The danger is that we tend to look back on our times of obedience and on our past sacrifices to God in an effort to keep our enthusiasm for Him strong (see Isaiah 50:10-11). But when the darkness of dismay comes, endure until it is over, because out of it will come the ability to follow Jesus truly, which brings inexpressibly wonderful joy.
…you are that one’s slaves whom you obey… —Romans 6:16
The first thing I must be willing to admit when I begin to examine what controls and dominates me is that I am the one responsible for having yielded myself to whatever it may be. If I am a slave to myself, I am to blame because somewhere in the past I yielded to myself. Likewise, if I obey God I do so because at some point in my life I yielded myself to Him.
If a child gives in to selfishness, he will find it to be the most enslaving tyranny on earth. There is no power within the human soul itself that is capable of breaking the bondage of the nature created by yielding. For example, yield for one second to anything in the nature of lust, and although you may hate yourself for having yielded, you become enslaved to that thing. (Remember what lust is— “I must have it now,” whether it is the lust of the flesh or the lust of the mind.) No release or escape from it will ever come from any human power, but only through the power of redemption. You must yield yourself in utter humiliation to the only One who can break the dominating power in your life, namely, the Lord Jesus Christ. “…He has anointed Me…to proclaim liberty to the captives…” (Luke 4:18 and Isaiah 61:1).
When you yield to something, you will soon realize the tremendous control it has over you. Even though you say, “Oh, I can give up that habit whenever I like,” you will know you can’t. You will find that the habit absolutely dominates you because you willingly yielded to it. It is easy to sing, “He will break every fetter,” while at the same time living a life of obvious slavery to yourself. But yielding to Jesus will break every kind of slavery in any person’s life.
Good Afternoon God, and thank you for waiting on me as I tried to plow through my workday yesterday and today….trying to get to writing my journal entry. But I know that reaching out and up to you is not something I can put off or wait to do. It is like “manna”, it is to be fresh every day. And thank you for the reminder. This devotional seems to say that yielding is synonymous with surrender. And Chambers asks the question; do we surrender to You or do we surrender to other things like ourselves, or our personal dreams and desires. Do we yield to temptations, and or church activities that “seem” valuable and worthwhile but have their roots in our own ideas and perceptions? It seems to me that You have been teaching us to yield, or rather surrender to You all that we are and do and allow You to lead, guide and direct us. That we have no worries as long as we surrender to You and wait for your direction thereafter.
And God says…”Your ability to yield to Me and not to your own notions, feelings and understanding is manifest when you first surrender to Me. Trust in Me with all your heart and do not rely on your own understanding. Seek first the kingdom of God, which is Jesus and I will provide everything else you require, including the ability to surrender the rest of your personal agenda. Acknowledge Me in all your ways and I will make your paths straight. Delight yourself in the Lord and I will give you the desires of your surrendered and yielded heart.”
We are not saved only to be instruments for God, but to be His sons and daughters. He does not turn us into spiritual agents but into spiritual messengers, and the message must be a part of us. The Son of God was His own message— “The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63). As His disciples, our lives must be a holy example of the reality of our message. Even the natural heart of the unsaved will serve if called upon to do so, but it takes a heart broken by conviction of sin, baptized by the Holy Spirit, and crushed into submission to God’s purpose to make a person’s life a holy example of God’s message.
There is a difference between giving a testimony and preaching. A preacher is someone who has received the call of God and is determined to use all his energy to proclaim God’s truth. God takes us beyond our own aspirations and ideas for our lives, and molds and shapes us for His purpose, just as He worked in the disciples’ lives after Pentecost. The purpose of Pentecost was not to teach the disciples something, but to make them the incarnation of what they preached so that they would literally become God’s message in the flesh. “…you shall be witnesses to Me…” (Acts 1:8).
Allow God to have complete liberty in your life when you speak. Before God’s message can liberate other people, His liberation must first be real in you. Gather your material carefully, and then allow God to “set your words on fire” for His glory.
Journal DJR
Good morning Lord,
What about “Bold Strokes?” …Chambers concludes, “Gather your material carefully, and then allow God to “set your words on fire” for His glory.” Other language might be, “Grab life by the horns…” or “Carpe Diem.” We see that Paul certainly lived that way, both before and after your meeting with him on the Damascus Road. And you yourself took Bold Strokes a few times like tipping over the tables and driving out the merchants. I have two questions about Bold Strokes. The first comes from the times I’ve stepped out boldly in a direction, and it turned out to be the wrong direction. I assume, with the benefit of hindsight, that if I had been surrendered and connected, as we are now learning, that I wouldn’t have made those mistakes?
Yes, you’ve got that right. You can even think that you are doing right or doing good, but if you are not surrendered and connected with me, your own mind can easily lead you astray. And remember, there is an enemy that wants you astray. He has sweet sounding words, logical sounding words…
OK, I see that surrender and connection and Carpe Diem with Bold Strokes, when the time is right, is something that I’ll be working on for the rest of my days here. And maybe there. but we’ll talk about that another time.
The background of the other question is Saul-Paul’s life before and after Damascus Road. Before Damascus, he took bold strokes, albeit misdirected, like some of my initiatives. And after his surrender, connection and re-direction, he continued to take bold strokes. The question is what about the person who doesn’t naturally take bold strokes? In any direction, either good or bad? Should we aspire to do so? Can we change such seemingly hardwired personality traits?
You cannot, but I can. So the answer is, “Yes, We Can” Together, through surrender and connection, I can empower the most timid saint in bold strokes. In fact, if you read history, you will see many timid souls who became bold when I needed them. Moses and Jeremiah and others said they were unqualified and not ready… But with surrender and connection to my Spirit, they boldly “spoke truth to power” and changed history. You may not see a Pharaoh in your life that needs to be spoken to with bold strokes… Set my people free, like Moses did. But expand your thinking into metaphor and parallels, and you will see that there may indeed be Pharaohs in your life that need exactly those same bold strokes. Pharaohs and Kings, like addictions and destructive habits, need bold strokes. But don’t bother in your own will power. You’ve tried that and have experienced the same success as 95% of the New Year’s Resolutions that are made. Wait for my empowerment. That comes thru surrender and connection. Only then can you take those words and run with them…
“Gather your material carefully, and then allow God to “set your words on fire” for His glory.”
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
Steve Harvey Introduces Jesus To A Secular Audience
About
Change this text in the admin section of WordPress
You are currently browsing the CO2MannaToday blog archives.
