In that day you will ask in My name . . . —John 16:26

We too often think of the Cross of Christ as something we have to get through, yet we get through for the purpose of getting into it. The Cross represents only one thing for us— complete, entire, absolute identification with the Lord Jesus Christ— and there is nothing in which this identification is more real to us than in prayer.

“Your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him” (Matthew 6:8). Then why should we ask? The point of prayer is not to get answers from God, but to have perfect and complete oneness with Him. If we pray only because we want answers, we will become irritated and angry with God. We receive an answer every time we pray, but it does not always come in the way we expect, and our spiritual irritation shows our refusal to identify ourselves truly with our Lord in prayer. We are not here to prove that God answers prayer, but to be living trophies of God’s grace.

“. . . I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you; for the Father Himself loves you . . .” (John 16:26-27). Have you reached such a level of intimacy with God that the only thing that can account for your prayer life is that it has become one with the prayer life of Jesus Christ? Has our Lord exchanged your life with His vital life? If so, then “in that day” you will be so closely identified with Jesus that there will be no distinction.

When prayer seems to be unanswered, beware of trying to place the blame on someone else. That is always a trap of Satan. When you seem to have no answer, there is always a reason— God uses these times to give you deep personal instruction, and it is not for anyone else but you.

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August 6, 2013

Journal for Today-JDV

Lord it is hard to change my mind and immediate responses about many things (and people) that are important to me. Every time I think this way or act that way…or fail to tell the whole story …. it occurs to me that what I am in fact saying is that I do not trust You to guide me through this world and the issues of everyday life. Every time the issues or relationships seem important, I seem to want to “take over” instead of trusting You to guide my life and circumstances. I try to believe you will make my paths straight, but will You help me in my unbelief?

And God says…”How does it work for you when you are in charge of your life and circumstances? Are you at peace, happy and content regardless of the storms and broken things and people around you?  I never promised to remove the storms, or give you everything you wanted, but I did promise to bring you life and life more abundant. I did promise to provide everything you need if you would first seek the Kingdom of Heaven (which is Jesus). Trust Me for everything you need in your life, try to stand on the balcony and observe your life unfold as I take over.  You will know the peace that passes all understanding. Delight yourself in Me and I will give you the desires of your heart.”

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Journal DJR
Good Morning, Lord: The words of the song today speak to all of us. But the hip-hop style is different than a lot of us grew up with. So I wanted to share the artist’s testimony here. Thank you, Lord for the work you are doing in and thru our brother, Lecrae.

’. . . and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished.’ . . . But they understood none of these things . . . —Luke 18:31, 34

This bewildering call of God comes into our lives as well. The call of God can never be understood absolutely or explained externally; it is a call that can only be perceived and understood internally by our true inner-nature. The call of God is like the call of the sea— no one hears it except the person who has the nature of the sea in him. What God calls us to cannot be definitely stated, because His call is simply to be His friend to accomplish His own purposes. Our real test is in truly believing that God knows what He desires. The things that happen do not happen by chance— they happen entirely by the decree of God. God is sovereignly working out His own purposes.

If we are in fellowship and oneness with God and recognize that He is taking us into His purposes, then we will no longer strive to find out what His purposes are. As we grow in the Christian life, it becomes simpler to us, because we are less inclined to say, “I wonder why God allowed this or that?” And we begin to see that the compelling purpose of God lies behind everything in life, and that God is divinely shaping us into oneness with that purpose. A Christian is someone who trusts in the knowledge and the wisdom of God, not in his own abilities. If we have a purpose of our own, it destroys the simplicity and the calm, relaxed pace which should be characteristic of the children of God.

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August 5, 2013

Journal for Today-JDV

Lord, help me understand that Your ways are not my ways and teach me how to wait on you. Teach me to wait upon You and Your will. Help me to be still waiting on You to show me the way, every day with every part of my life.

And God says…”You want to chase your own notions of what will make you happy and give you peace, many times forgetting that real happiness and peace comes from trusting Me. How has your own notions worked for you in the past? Have you found long term happiness and peace in your own ideas of what makes you happy and gives you peace?  Trust in Me with all your heart, and I will give you real happiness, peace and fulfillment. Delight yourself in Me and I will give you the desires of your heart.”

When Jesus finished commanding His twelve disciples . . . He departed from there to teach and to preach in their cities —Matthew 11:1

He comes where He commands us to leave. If you stayed home when God told you to go because you were so concerned about your own people there, then you actually robbed them of the teaching of Jesus Christ Himself. When you obeyed and left all the consequences to God, the Lord went into your city to teach, but as long as you were disobedient, you blocked His way. Watch where you begin to debate with Him and put what you call your duty into competition with His commands. If you say, “I know that He told me to go, but my duty is here,” it simply means that you do not believe that Jesus means what He says.

He teaches where He instructs us not to teach. “Master . . . let us make three tabernacles . . .” (Luke 9:33).

Are we playing the part of an amateur providence, trying to play God’s role in the lives of others? Are we so noisy in our instruction of other people that God cannot get near them? We must learn to keep our mouths shut and our spirits alert. God wants to instruct us regarding His Son, and He wants to turn our times of prayer into mounts of transfiguration. When we become certain that God is going to work in a particular way, He will never work in that way again.

He works where He sends us to wait. “. . . tarry . . . until . . .” (Luke 24:49). “Wait on the Lord” and He will work (Psalm 37:34). But don’t wait sulking spiritually and feeling sorry for yourself, just because you can’t see one inch in front of you! Are we detached enough from our own spiritual fits of emotion to “wait patiently for Him”? (Psalm 37:7). Waiting is not sitting with folded hands doing nothing, but it is learning to do what we are told.

These are some of the facets of His ways that we rarely recognize.

Journal DJR
Good Morning Lord,
It really is true, that whenever we start thinking that you always do a thing in a particular way … that’s when you refuse to show up in that way. “Your mercies are new every morning” and you seem to want us in a mode of discovering them new, each day. One exception that may be in a different category is this CO2 time I spend with my brother. We’ve been doing it for about 4 years now and it doesn’t get old and you dont seem to disappear. We are even using the same Oswald Chambers devo to start the conversation each day … we’ve talked about changing, but wont until this seems to get repetitive … and so far, it hasn’t.
Actually, it leads to new ways of hearing the same message: That the important thing is to stay connected with you, stay curious and expectant and letting you lead in our lives. We’ve got a long way to go …. but we’ve come a long way. Thanks for that.

When Jesus finished commanding His twelve disciples . . . He departed from there to teach and to preach in their cities —Matthew 11:1

Let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing —James 1:4

Many of us appear to be all right in general, but there are still some areas in which we are careless and lazy; it is not a matter of sin, but the remnants of our carnal life that tend to make us careless. Carelessness is an insult to the Holy Spirit. We should have no carelessness about us either in the way we worship God, or even in the way we eat and drink.

Not only must our relationship to God be right, but the outward expression of that relationship must also be right. Ultimately, God will allow nothing to escape; every detail of our lives is under His scrutiny. God will bring us back in countless ways to the same point over and over again. And He never tires of bringing us back to that one point until we learn the lesson, because His purpose is to produce the finished product. It may be a problem arising from our impulsive nature, but again and again, with the most persistent patience, God has brought us back to that one particular point. Or the problem may be our idle and wandering thinking, or our independent nature and self-interest. Through this process, God is trying to impress upon us the one thing that is not entirely right in our lives.

We have been having a wonderful time in our studies over the revealed truth of God’s redemption, and our hearts are perfect toward Him. And His wonderful work in us makes us know that overall we are right with Him. “Let patience have its perfect work . . . .” The Holy Spirit speaking through James said, “Now let your patience become a finished product.” Beware of becoming careless over the small details of life and saying, “Oh, that will have to do for now.” Whatever it may be, God will point it out with persistence until we become entirely His.

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July 31, 2013

When I am focused on You Lord, it seems that it is all I need. When I am connected to You, Jesus, I can be at peace without answers or solutions, because You are the answer and solution. You fill up my heart and head, when I seek You and You alone.  How is this Lord, and how can I sustain this kind of intimacy?

And God says…” You cannot capture nor seek intimacy with Me, you can only surrender. When you surrender to Me, you are connected. You are not connected when you try to find Me in works, study or even prayer or conformity. Although those are all things that are good .You will find our intimacy in your surrender, allowing Me to live through you; works, study prayer and transformation can then occur.  Let patience have its proper result…and allow your faith to grow through  surrender, and connection.”

Jesus did not commit Himself to them . . . , for He knew what was in man —John 2:24-25

Disillusionment means having no more misconceptions, false impressions, and false judgments in life; it means being free from these deceptions. However, though no longer deceived, our experience of disillusionment may actually leave us cynical and overly critical in our judgment of others. But the disillusionment that comes from God brings us to the point where we see people as they really are, yet without any cynicism or any stinging and bitter criticism. Many of the things in life that inflict the greatest injury, grief, or pain, stem from the fact that we suffer from illusions. We are not true to one another as facts, seeing each other as we really are; we are only true to our misconceived ideas of one another. According to our thinking, everything is either delightful and good, or it is evil, malicious, and cowardly.

Refusing to be disillusioned is the cause of much of the suffering of human life. And this is how that suffering happens— if we love someone, but do not love God, we demand total perfection and righteousness from that person, and when we do not get it we become cruel and vindictive; yet we are demanding of a human being something which he or she cannot possibly give. There is only one Being who can completely satisfy to the absolute depth of the hurting human heart, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord is so obviously uncompromising with regard to every human relationship because He knows that every relationship that is not based on faithfulness to Himself will end in disaster. Our Lord trusted no one, and never placed His faith in people, yet He was never suspicious or bitter. Our Lord’s confidence in God, and in what God’s grace could do for anyone, was so perfect that He never despaired, never giving up hope for any person. If our trust is placed in human beings, we will end up despairing of everyone.

Journal DJR
Good Morning Lord,
When seen this way, “disillusionment” is a good thing. Help me today and always to be disillusioned and set free from hero worship (except you) and partisan, I’m right, they are wrong thinking. And be like you, trusting no one but believing and hoping the best for everyone. And staying curious to see what you are about in the circumstances that you bring me to.

Behold, He is coming with clouds . . . —Revelation 1:7

In the Bible clouds are always associated with God. Clouds are the sorrows, sufferings, or providential circumstances, within or without our personal lives, which actually seem to contradict the sovereignty of God. Yet it is through these very clouds that the Spirit of God is teaching us how to walk by faith. If there were never any clouds in our lives, we would have no faith. “The clouds are the dust of His feet” (Nahum 1:3). They are a sign that God is there. What a revelation it is to know that sorrow, bereavement, and suffering are actually the clouds that come along with God! God cannot come near us without clouds— He does not come in clear-shining brightness.

It is not true to say that God wants to teach us something in our trials. Through every cloud He brings our way, He wants us to unlearn something. His purpose in using the cloud is to simplify our beliefs until our relationship with Him is exactly like that of a child— a relationship simply between God and our own souls, and where other people are but shadows. Until other people become shadows to us, clouds and darkness will be ours every once in a while. Is our relationship with God becoming more simple than it has ever been?

There is a connection between the strange providential circumstances allowed by God and what we know of Him, and we have to learn to interpret the mysteries of life in the light of our knowledge of God. Until we can come face to face with the deepest, darkest fact of life without damaging our view of God’s character, we do not yet know Him.

“. . . they were fearful as they entered the cloud” (Luke 9:34). Is there anyone except Jesus in your cloud? If so, it will only get darker until you get to the place where there is “no one anymore, but only Jesus . . .” (Mark 9:8 ; also see Mark 2-7).

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July 29, 2013

Lord, why is it that I see the difficulties of this life…”as my cross” to bear, instead of seeing difficult circumstances as an opportunity to trust You again, and again and again? I would love for curiosity to be my first reaction to difficult and trying circumstances of this life, and the second reaction to be the knowledge that You are in control. And help me to find the confidence knowing and trusting that you have plans for good for me.

And God says…”The clouds of life are where you are challenged to trust Me. When things are going very well, you have no need to trust with Me with everything. But when you have uncertainty,  pain and heartache,  you listen for me very closely. I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Trust in Me with all your heart, do not rely on your devices and I will make your paths straight. Delight yourself in the Lord and I will give you the desires of your heart. Trust in Me, surrender your own ideas of what you think are your right and proper plans for your life, and be confident that I will meet all your needs and provide for your very good future.”

Blessed are . . . —Matthew 5:3-11


When we first read the statements of Jesus, they seem wonderfully simple and unstartling, and they sink unnoticed into our subconscious minds. For instance, the Beatitudes initially seem to be merely soothing and beautiful precepts for overly spiritual and seemingly useless people, but of very little practical use in the rigid, fast-paced workdays of the world in which we live. We soon find, however, that the Beatitudes contain the “dynamite” of the Holy Spirit. And they “explode” when the circumstances of our lives cause them to do so. When the Holy Spirit brings to our remembrance one of the Beatitudes, we say, “What a startling statement that is!” Then we must decide whether or not we will accept the tremendous spiritual upheaval that will be produced in our circumstances if we obey His words. That is the way the Spirit of God works. We do not need to be born again to apply the Sermon on the Mount literally. The literal interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount is as easy as child’s play. But the interpretation by the Spirit of God as He applies our Lord’s statements to our circumstances is the strict and difficult work of a saint.

The teachings of Jesus are all out of proportion when compared to our natural way of looking at things, and they come to us initially with astonishing discomfort. We gradually have to conform our walk and conversation to the precepts of Jesus Christ as the Holy Spirit applies them to our circumstances. The Sermon on the Mount is not a set of rules and regulations— it is a picture of the life we will live when the Holy Spirit is having His unhindered way with us.

Journal DJR
Good morning, Lord,
?? “Strict and difficult work of a saint”?? That doesn’t sound too attractive at first reading. ” as easy as child’s play.” sounds better.

The Christian life is both … easy and difficult. It has both parts and both aspects. A lot of whether you see it as easy or difficult depends on your perspective … where you are looking from. If you are looking from a place where the burden is all on you and your will power and abilities … then life will be hard. If you put your major effort into staying connected with me and hearing my voice and staying surrendered … then life gets easier. Circumstances get easier to handle. At first, connecting and surrendering so that I can pour my power thru you will seem difficult. But it gets easier, the more you do it. That is our life long project … conforming you to the image of Jesus.

But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us . . . sanctification . . . —1 Corinthians 1:30

The Life Side. The mystery of sanctification is that the perfect qualities of Jesus Christ are imparted as a gift to me, not gradually, but instantly once I enter by faith into the realization that He “became for [me] . . . sanctification . . . .” Sanctification means nothing less than the holiness of Jesus becoming mine and being exhibited in my life.

The most wonderful secret of living a holy life does not lie in imitating Jesus, but in letting the perfect qualities of Jesus exhibit themselves in my human flesh. Sanctification is “Christ in you . . .” (Colossians 1:27). It is His wonderful life that is imparted to me in sanctification— imparted by faith as a sovereign gift of God’s grace. Am I willing for God to make sanctification as real in me as it is in His Word?

Sanctification means the impartation of the holy qualities of Jesus Christ to me. It is the gift of His patience, love, holiness, faith, purity, and godliness that is exhibited in and through every sanctified soul. Sanctification is not drawing from Jesus the power to be holy— it is drawing from Jesus the very holiness that was exhibited in Him, and that He now exhibits in me. Sanctification is an impartation, not an imitation. Imitation is something altogether different. The perfection of everything is in Jesus Christ, and the mystery of sanctification is that all the perfect qualities of Jesus are at my disposal. Consequently, I slowly but surely begin to live a life of inexpressible order, soundness, and holiness— “. . . kept by the power of God . . .” (1 Peter 1:5).

Journal DJR
Good morning Lord, The first sentence seems to be contradicted by the last sentence. Instantly … and Slowly but Surely. Which is it?

It is both. It is instantly credited to your account. And slowly but surely you learn to draw it out and let it live in you. The key is surrender. and let me empower it. If you try in your own power to live a better life … it just wont work. Even as you achieve some apparent success, it wont be the same as a life powered by my life. And if you do it in your own power, you’ll be proud of what you created. If you let me power it … there is no room for pride. So stay connected, stay surrendered, stay curious, and confident. I’ve provided the power. Go and live it out.

This is the will of God, your sanctification. . . —1 Thessalonians 4:3

In the process of sanctification, the Spirit of God will strip me down until there is nothing left but myself, and that is the place of death. Am I willing to be myself and nothing more? Am I willing to have no friends, no father, no brother, and no self-interest— simply to be ready for death? That is the condition required for sanctification. No wonder Jesus said, “I did not come to bring peace but a sword” (Matthew 10:34). This is where the battle comes, and where so many of us falter. We refuse to be identified with the death of Jesus Christ on this point. We say, “But this is so strict. Surely He does not require that of me.” Our Lord is strict, and He does require that of us.

Am I willing to reduce myself down to simply “me”? Am I determined enough to strip myself of all that my friends think of me, and all that I think of myself? Am I willing and determined to hand over my simple naked self to God? Once I am, He will immediately sanctify me completely, and my life will be free from being determined and persistent toward anything except God (see 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24).

When I pray, “Lord, show me what sanctification means for me,” He will show me. It means being made one with Jesus. Sanctification is not something Jesus puts in me— it is Himself in me (see 1 Corinthians 1:30).

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July 22, 2013

Lord, thank you for the reminder that You will mold me and shape me into your image. Thank you for the scripture in 1 Thessalonians 5 (NIV) ²³ May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. ²⁴ The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.

And God says…”Trust Me with your sanctification…all of it. Sanctification happens from the inside out, starting with your connection with Jesus. Trust Me to do the work inside of you. All of it. You are to simply trust Me and be connected to me. Trust Me to meet all your needs, including your sanctification. Seek first the kingdom of God, which is Jesus, and everything you need will be provided.”