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 2016

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

Good morning God. Thank you for the hope and eager enthusiasm for this day. Waking up knowing you are God, and I am surrendered to You leaves me excited and eager to face the day…even though there are tasks, challenges and a number problems to face.

Chambers says, Once we get intimate with Jesus we are never lonely and we never lack for understanding or compassion. Using our terminology we might say, once we are surrendered and connected to Jesus, we are never lonely and we never lack for love, understanding, compassion, patience, empathy, intelligence, or strength and spiritual power. And like the efficiency experts say, we get all these things, “just in time”; just when they are needed.

And God says…”You have used the term, “peace meter” or dashboard to describe how you might monitor your daily or hour by hour, issue by issue surrender and connection with Jesus. You know you are intimate with Jesus when you can eagerly face the constant demands of life curious and happy to face the day. As Paul says in the Living translation of Philippians4:7, ” If you do this, you will experience God’s peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will keep your thoughts and your hearts quiet and at rest as you trust in Christ Jesus.”

“The song reminds you that it is right and proper to surrender and just be held by Jesus. He is eager to hold you and give you this day your daily bread; everything you need to find peace right in the middle of life.”

 

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 2016

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

Good morning God and thank you for this devotional and the music. Lord, I couldn’t keep from tapping my feet and moving to the sound of the music this morning. And like he does on many occasions, Chambers fueled my fires again this morning, especially when he said … “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.” At first this sounded very spiritual and correct but the more I prayed and pondered the statement it occurred to me that when we are blessed as we are truly surrendered and connected to You, we have no choice. The blessings simply flow out of us. Is this right Lord? We are not to feel obligated or guilty about having to share our blessings, it will simply flow out of us  through the power of the Holy Spirit.

And God says…”As you worship, recall what Paul wrote to the church in Corinth… 2 Corinthians 9:8 (TLB) God is able to make it up to you by giving you everything you need and more so that there will not only be enough for your own needs but plenty left over to give joyfully to others. When you worship out of your surrender; that is giving up your rights to yourself and your own ideas and the limitations you put on God, and are blessed, you will find it impossible to not bless others. Acknowledge the Lord in all your ways, and do not rely on your own understanding and He will make your paths straight. You do not have to wait for your own blessings to be manifest in order to be a blessing for others. You can trust God to meet all your needs, blessing others while you wait on the Lord. Give and it shall be given unto you, rolled up, pressed down and overflowing. The living waters and blessings of the Holy Spirit cannot be contained as they flow from your surrender and connection,  blessing you and others.”

“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.

There are times when you can’t understand why you cannot do what you want to do. When God brings a time of waiting, and appears to be unresponsive, don’t fill it with busyness, just wait. The time of waiting may come to teach you the meaning of sanctification— to be set apart from sin and made holy— or it may come after the process of sanctification has begun to teach you what service means. Never run before God gives you His direction. If you have the slightest doubt, then He is not guiding. Whenever there is doubt— wait.At first you may see clearly what God’s will is— the severance of a friendship, the breaking off of a business relationship, or something else you feel is distinctly God’s will for you to do. But never act on the impulse of that feeling. If you do, you will cause difficult situations to arise which will take years to untangle. Wait for God’s timing and He will do it without any heartache or disappointment. When it is a question of the providential will of God, wait for God to move.Peter did not wait for God. He predicted in his own mind where the test would come, and it came where he did not expect it. “I will lay down my life for Your sake.” Peter’s statement was honest but ignorant. “Jesus answered him, ‘…the rooster shall not crow till you have denied Me three times’ ” (John 13:38). This was said with a deeper knowledge of Peter than Peter had of himself. He could not follow Jesus because he did not know himself or his own capabilities well enough. Natural devotion may be enough to attract us to Jesus, to make us feel His irresistible charm, but it will never make us disciples. Natural devotion will deny Jesus, always falling short of what it means to truly follow Him.

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January 4 2016

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

Good morning Lord. This devotional reminded me that in my own strength I am not capable of following You. In my own strength, I seem to always follow the path to the “Big Four”: to look good, feel good, to be right and to be in control. How do I let go of this tendency and seek to follow You in all things?

And God says…”Apart from Me you can do nothing. When you try to muster up the discipline, persistence and personal power to follow Me you will always fail. I require perfection. And you cannot achieve perfection this side of heaven. However your surrender to Jesus allows Me to see His perfection in you, and you to live in the mercy and grace provided by His sacrifice. Seek first the kingdom of God, which is Jesus, and I will provide everything else you need, including the perfection I require. Acknowledge Me in all your ways and I will make your paths straight.

“Surrender your “Big Four” to me daily, hourly and minute by minute. This is the way to pray without ceasing. Simply see yourself placing all your requests, needs, needs of your family and friends, visions hopes, dreams, success and failures at the foot of the cross every day. And if you feel that you cannot muster enough faith to believe that I will meet all your needs, according to My riches in heaven, do as the father did when speaking with Jesus (Mark 9:24). Simply say, “I believe, help me in my unbelief”. I will always meet you at the very point of your need as you seek to follow Me. Seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened. ”

Our Lord never “patches up” our natural virtues, that is, our natural traits, qualities, or characteristics. He completely remakes a person on the inside— “…put on the new man…” (Ephesians 4:24). In other words, see that your natural human life is putting on all that is in keeping with the new life. The life God places within us develops its own new virtues, not the virtues of the seed of Adam, but of Jesus Christ. Once God has begun the process of sanctification in your life, watch and see how God causes your confidence in your own natural virtues and power to wither away. He will continue until you learn to draw your life from the reservoir of the resurrection life of Jesus.

Thank God if you are going through this drying-up experience!The sign that God is at work in us is that He is destroying our confidence in the natural virtues, because they are not promises of what we are going to be, but only a wasted reminder of what God created man to be. We want to cling to our natural virtues, while all the time God is trying to get us in contact with the life of Jesus Christ— a life that can never be described in terms of natural virtues. It is the saddest thing to see people who are trying to serve God depending on that which the grace of God never gave them. They are depending solely on what they have by virtue of heredity.

God does not take our natural virtues and transform them, because our natural virtues could never even come close to what Jesus Christ wants. No natural love, no natural patience, no natural purity can ever come up to His demands. But as we bring every part of our natural bodily life into harmony with the new life God has placed within us, He will exhibit in us the virtues that were characteristic of the Lord Jesus.And every virtue we possess  Is His alone.

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December 30 2015

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

Good morning Lord and thank you for this day and this devotional…and for the earlier journal entry I wrote that mysteriously disappeared as I was typing. I was almost finished writing the journal entry and was feeling quite smug about my wonderful spiritual insights, and then poof, it was gone. Boy that was a message. The real message was/is that my personal virtue, spiritual insights and writing hold no value except the transforming Holy Spirit value provided from surrendering my virtue, insights and writing to You. I looked all over my computer, and could not find the document anywhere. And then it occurred to me that all things work together for good and that my smug, self-satisfied and virtuous feelings were exactly what the devotional was about today. Thank you for that “real time” lesson.

And God says…”When you focus on Me, and not the tasks at hand, you will see the value in things that do not work, writing that is lost, money misplaced, and goals that are unreached. When you focus on Me and not the tasks at hand, I can show you the value of things that seem to hold no value. When you seek first the kingdom of God, which is Jesus, I can provide everything else you need, including “closure” where you thought there was none. Acknowledge Me in all your ways and do not rely on your own understanding of what is needed for your daily tasks and I will make your paths straight. Your true virtues are the virtues of Jesus and they come to life in you as you surrender yourself to me. When you give up your rights to yourself; your rights to look good, feel good, be right and to be in control, the virtues of Jesus become yours by the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.”

When God, by His Spirit through His Word, gives you a clear vision of His will, you must “walk in the light” of that vision (1 John 1:7). Even though your mind and soul may be thrilled by it, if you don’t “walk in the light” of it you will sink to a level of bondage never envisioned by our Lord. Mentally disobeying the “heavenly vision” (Acts 26:19) will make you a slave to ideas and views that are completely foreign to Jesus Christ. Don’t look at someone else and say, “Well, if he can have those views and prosper, why can’t I?” You have to “walk in the light” of the vision that has been given to you. Don’t compare yourself with others or judge them— that is between God and them.When you find that one of your favorite and strongly held views clashes with the “heavenly vision,” do not begin to debate it. If you do, a sense of property and personal right will emerge in you— things on which Jesus placed no value. He was against these things as being the root of everything foreign to Himself— “…for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses” (Luke 12:15). If we don’t see and understand this, it is because we are ignoring the underlying principles of our Lord’s teaching.

Our tendency is to lie back and bask in the memory of the wonderful experience we had when God revealed His will to us. But if a New Testament standard is revealed to us by the light of God, and we don’t try to measure up, or even feel inclined to do so, then we begin to backslide. It means your conscience does not respond to the truth. You can never be the same after the unveiling of a truth. That moment marks you as one who either continues on with even more devotion as a disciple of Jesus Christ, or as one who turns to go back as a deserter.

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December 29 2015

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

Good morning God and thank you for this devotional and the words of Oswald Chambers that often provide a sharpening place for the views You have given us over the last few years. Here Chambers reminds us that when You give us a vision or truth, that we are to “walk in the light” after You give us the vision and light. But Lord, that has never worked for me in the “real world”. I find that whenever You give me a vision or truth, that I am to wait on You, surrender the truth and vision and wait for You to live out the truth and vision through me. In the past, whenever I would see the vision or revealed truth, I would think: “well this is up to me now…I must walk in the vision, share the vision, and live it out. I must tell the next person about the revealed truth of a book, study or Spirit led discovery.” But over the last few months and years You have taught us to wait on You. You have shown us that our action is not required, only our surrender. Is this right Lord? Are we to receive a vision or truth; surrender it to You and then wait, or are we to take action and live it out?

And God says…”The bondage that can come from a heavenly vision is not your lack of action or conformity and obedience but rather a lack of surrender and connection. I give you those visions and insights so that you know I am your God and I am living through you. However, apart from Me you can do nothing. On your own and in your own disciplined nature you cannot be obedient and faithful. However, you have discovered that when you are surrendered and connected, I can live through you so that your life is one of obedience and faith. Like the song says, “Lift your eyes to the Maker of the mountains you can’t climb”. The very reason for Jesus and His sacrifice is because no one could or can live up to the vision. However, you can do all things through Christ Jesus. It is not a partnership whereby I show you what needs to be done and you do it. It is a surrender whereby you give your daily and minute to minute life to Me, and I live through you.”

These words of our Lord refer to our initial conversion, but we should continue to turn to God as children, being continuously converted every day of our lives. If we trust in our own abilities, instead of God’s, we produce consequences for which God will hold us responsible. When God through His sovereignty brings us into new situations, we should immediately make sure that our natural life submits to the spiritual, obeying the orders of the Spirit of God.

Just because we have responded properly in the past is no guarantee that we will do so again. The response of the natural to the spiritual should be continuous conversion, but this is where we so often refuse to be obedient. No matter what our situation is, the Spirit of God remains unchanged and His salvation unaltered. But we must “put on the new man…” (Ephesians 4:24). God holds us accountable every time we refuse to convert ourselves, and He sees our refusal as willful disobedience. Our natural life must not rule— God must rule in us.To refuse to be continuously converted puts a stumbling block in the growth of our spiritual life.

There are areas of self-will in our lives where our pride pours contempt on the throne of God and says, “I won’t submit.” We deify our independence and self-will and call them by the wrong name. What God sees as stubborn weakness, we call strength. There are whole areas of our lives that have not yet been brought into submission, and this can only be done by this continuous conversion. Slowly but surely we can claim the whole territory for the Spirit of God.

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December 28 2015

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

Good morning God, and happy Monday after Christmas. The festive holiday is over; we joyously celebrated the birth of Jesus and only occasionally succumbed to the commercial trappings that consumed us from the media. Candlelight services were wonderful, as was the music that filled the church and replaced the sermon the Sunday before Christmas. The time with family was priceless, as were the opportunities to reach out to others. On a number of occasions I found myself checking to see if I was surrendered and connected with You God. Chambers calls it continuous conversion, we call it surrender and connection with a transformation that provides strength for our curiosity and obedience.

However Lord, Chambers also says that if we trust our own abilities instead of You, we produce consequences for which You will hold us responsible. That cannot be right can it God? If the word tells us that there is no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus, then how can we be held accountable when we trust our own abilities instead of You?

 

And God says…”Why do you seek to be surrendered and connected? It is because you want Me to live through you and transform your life. You want to live an abundant life; the one I promised you. And you know you can live that life and be at peace, even though circumstances are not optimum, when you are surrendered to Me. You know all the while that I am good all the time, and that I love you beyond imaginings. I do not hold you responsible when you are not surrendered and connected, curious and obedient, grace can and will cover all you are and all you do; however, I cannot transform you or your circumstances when you are not surrendered. I cannot give you the peace that passes understanding when you have chosen to be your own god, and do things your way. The results of your unsurrendered life are the consequences that Chambers speaks of. Acknowledge the Lord in all your ways and I will make your paths straight. Seek first the kingdom of God, which is Jesus, and I will provide everything else you require.”

The gospel of Jesus Christ always forces a decision of our will. Have I accepted God’s verdict on sin as judged on the Cross of Christ? Do I have even the slightest interest in the death of Jesus? Do I want to be identified with His death— to be completely dead to all interest in sin, worldliness, and self? Do I long to be so closely identified with Jesus that I am of no value for anything except Him and His purposes?

The great privilege of discipleship is that I can commit myself under the banner of His Cross, and that means death to sin. You must get alone with Jesus and either decide to tell Him that you do not want sin to die out in you, or that at any cost you want to be identified with His death. When you act in confident faith in what our Lord did on the cross, a supernatural identification with His death takes place immediately. And you will come to know through a higher knowledge that your old life was “crucified with Him” (Romans 6:6). The proof that your old life is dead, having been “crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20), is the amazing ease with which the life of God in you now enables you to obey the voice of Jesus Christ.

Every once in a while our Lord gives us a glimpse of what we would be like if it were not for Him. This is a confirmation of what He said— “…without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). That is why the underlying foundation of Christianity is personal, passionate devotion to the Lord Jesus. We mistake the joy of our first introduction into God’s kingdom as His purpose for getting us there. Yet God’s purpose in getting us into His kingdom is that we may realize all that identification with Jesus Christ means.

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December 23 2015

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

Good morning God and thank you for this reminder again; that the gospel of Jesus is the main thing, and that we need to always keep the “main thing the main thing”. And Chambers seemed right on target; when he explains that something transformational occurs to us when we surrender to and focus on the cross of Jesus.

 

And God says…” When you simply focus on the cross of Jesus, and surrender all of your rights to yourself; your right to look good, feel good, be right and be in control, you, in effect, give Me permission to transform you. Your faith in your surrender ignites our intimate relationship. Delight yourself in the Lord and I will give you the desires of your heart.”

My experience is not what makes redemption real— redemption is reality. Redemption has no real meaning for me until it is worked out through my conscious life. When I am born again, the Spirit of God takes me beyond myself and my experiences, and identifies me with Jesus Christ. If I am left only with my personal experiences, I am left with something not produced by redemption. But experiences produced by redemption prove themselves by leading me beyond myself, to the point of no longer paying any attention to experiences as the basis of reality. Instead, I see that only the reality itself produced the experiences.

My experiences are not worth anything unless they keep me at the Source of truth— Jesus Christ.If you try to hold back the Holy Spirit within you, with the desire of producing more inner spiritual experiences, you will find that He will break the hold and take you again to the historic Christ. Never support an experience which does not have God as its Source and faith in God as its result. If you do, your experience is anti-Christian, no matter what visions or insights you may have had. Is Jesus Christ Lord of your experiences, or do you place your experiences above Him? Is any experience dearer to you than your Lord?

You must allow Him to be Lord over you, and pay no attention to any experience over which He is not Lord. Then there will come a time when God will make you impatient with your own experience, and you can truthfully say, “I do not care what I experience— I am sure of Him!”

 

Be relentless and hard on yourself if you are in the habit of talking about the experiences you have had. Faith based on experience is not faith; faith based on God’s revealed truth is the only faith there is.

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December 21 2015

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

Good morning God and thank you for the reminder to keep the “main thing the main thing”. How often I cloud the issue searching for the right scripture, song, doctrine or prayer. I have looked for answers in experiences, parables, bible studies, and from others I though more “spiritual” than me. Then you remind me and bring me right back to Jesus.

And God says…”It is not because you focus on surrender, connection, curiosity and obedience that you experience a peace that passes all understanding and look forward to each new day with eager anticipation and enthusiasm. It is because of whom you surrender to. Seek first the kingdom of God, which is Jesus, and I will provide everything else you require, including the strength and power to surrender, be connected, curious and obedient. Acknowledge Me in all your ways and do not rely on your own understanding or experiences, and I will make your paths straight. And recall that is it perfectly fine to look back in your rear view mirror and recall times when you were rescued and lifted up. But first recall who did the lifting.”

It is only a faithful person who truly believes that God sovereignly controls his circumstances. We take our circumstances for granted, saying God is in control, but not really believing it. We act as if the things that happen were completely controlled by people. To be faithful in every circumstance means that we have only one loyalty, or object of our faith— the Lord Jesus Christ. God may cause our circumstances to suddenly fall apart, which may bring the realization of our unfaithfulness to Him for not recognizing that He had ordained the situation. We never saw what He was trying to accomplish, and that exact event will never be repeated in our life. This is where the test of our faithfulness comes.

If we will just learn to worship God even during the difficult circumstances, He will change them for the better very quickly if He so chooses.Being faithful to Jesus Christ is the most difficult thing we try to do today. We will be faithful to our work, to serving others, or to anything else; just don’t ask us to be faithful to Jesus Christ. Many Christians become very impatient when we talk about faithfulness to Jesus. Our Lord is dethroned more deliberately by Christian workers than by the world. We treat God as if He were a machine designed only to bless us, and we think of Jesus as just another one of the workers.

The goal of faithfulness is not that we will do work for God, but that He will be free to do His work through us. God calls us to His service and places tremendous responsibilities on us. He expects no complaining on our part and offers no explanation on His part. God wants to use us as He used His own Son.

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December 18 2015

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

Good morning God and thank you for this lesson. And while I thought I was living right in the middle of a faithful surrender to Romans 8:28, all things work together for good to those who love God; I noticed that I was just trying to control a conversation so that I came out on top. I had replaced my transparency with communication methods designed to “give me the edge” because I wanted to “be in control”. What is up with that? Just when I feel like I have grown past the seduction of the big four; to look good, feel good, be right and be in control, I fall right back into a trap to try and regain control. Lord, I pray that You will help me become a man after your own heart as I surrender myself to You. Help me walk by faith even when I cannot see.

And God says…”It is good that you recognize your failure to surrender and live connected. Paul recognized and lamented his repeated failures…”Who will save me from this wretched condition? Thank God it has already been done by Christ Jesus.” You will never be perfect this side of heaven, and you will find that your nature will always pull you in the direction of trying to “look good, feel good, be right and be in control”. You can avoid this trap when you are surrendered and connected to Me. And when you are not surrendered and connected, this side of heaven, remember that I do not see your failures. I see only Jesus. Acknowledge Me in all your ways, and I will make your paths straight. And like the father that told Jesus, I believe, help me in my unbelief; you can say and pray; I surrender, help me God in my unsurrender.”