To him who overcomes . . . —Revelation 2:7

Life without war is impossible in the natural or the supernatural realm. It is a fact that there is a continuing struggle in the physical, mental, moral, and spiritual areas of life.

Health is the balance between the physical parts of my body and all the things and forces surrounding me. To maintain good health I must have sufficient internal strength to fight off the things that are external. Everything outside my physical life is designed to cause my death. The very elements that sustain me while I am alive work to decay and disintegrate my body once it is dead. If I have enough inner strength to fight, I help to produce the balance needed for health. The same is true of the mental life. If I want to maintain a strong and active mental life, I have to fight. This struggle produces the mental balance called thought.

Morally it is the same. Anything that does not strengthen me morally is the enemy of virtue within me. Whether I overcome, thereby producing virtue, depends on the level of moral excellence in my life. But we must fight to be moral. Morality does not happen by accident; moral virtue is acquired.

And spiritually it is also the same. Jesus said, “In the world you will have tribulation . . .” (John 16:33). This means that anything which is not spiritual leads to my downfall. Jesus went on to say, “. . . but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” I must learn to fight against and overcome the things that come against me, and in that way produce the balance of holiness. Then it becomes a delight to meet opposition.

Holiness is the balance between my nature and the law of God as expressed in Jesus Christ.

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December 4, 2013-JDV

Lord, you have taught me to “give up, surrender” and let You engage the challenges of my life. Then I read the devotional form Chambers and he says we must be at war all the time; that we must fight to maintain a spiritual and moral balance. He also says that I am to fight to overcome the things that come against me, and yet I am told that You have already won the battle. Which is it Lord? Do I fight or surrender? How can I build moral and spiritual balance? Do I fight and struggle with the things that come against me, or do I give up and surrender my fight to You?

And God says…”Many life lessons are simple and paradoxical. Through Jesus, you have life that comes from His death. You are at your strongest when you surrender and rely on Me.  You are the most wise when you come to Me as a little child. As the Apostle Paul wrote; “When you want to do the right thing, you actually end up doing what is wrong. You struggle to do the right thing and then time and time again do the wrong thing. There IS a war going on inside of you. But once you realize that Jesus has already won all your battles, the struggle is transformed into a victory party. The real struggle is for you to surrender, to give up yourself.  The fight is not a fight that you take on, it is a surrender to Jesus……so that He can fight on your behalf. Seek first the kingdom of God, which is Jesus, and everything else you require, need or desire shall be provided.”

My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power . . . —1 Corinthians 2:4

If in preaching the gospel you substitute your knowledge of the way of salvation for confidence in the power of the gospel, you hinder people from getting to reality. Take care to see while you proclaim your knowledge of the way of salvation, that you yourself are rooted and grounded by faith in God. Never rely on the clearness of your presentation, but as you give your explanation make sure that you are relying on the Holy Spirit. Rely on the certainty of God’s redemptive power, and He will create His own life in people.

Once you are rooted in reality, nothing can shake you. If your faith is in experiences, anything that happens is likely to upset that faith. But nothing can ever change God or the reality of redemption. Base your faith on that, and you are as eternally secure as God Himself. Once you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, you will never be moved again. That is the meaning of sanctification. God disapproves of our human efforts to cling to the concept that sanctification is merely an experience, while forgetting that even our sanctification must also be sanctified (see John 17:19). I must deliberately give my sanctified life to God for His service, so that He can use me as His hands and His feet.

Journal DJR
Good Morning Lord. Sometimes I think I’m doing the right thing, the good thing and the Godly thing … but it doesn’t turn out so well. Is that because my effort at sanctification was just that … My effort?

You cannot will yourself sanctified or set apart or cleaned up. If you try, it will be the work of your flesh and won’t be filled with my power. If you wait for my sanctifying work to manifest in your life, it will be a joy to walk in the way that I direct. If you cook up your own ideas, you will get tired and stressed out. It’s a pretty good test of whether you are working with my power or your own. If you are stressed and tired … It’s not me. I give my servants rest, even in the hard times. Back up and get yourself re-calibrated with my love and sacrifice. Listen for my voice, then go again.
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Not that I have already attained, or am already perfect . . . —Philippians 3:12

It is a trap to presume that God wants to make us perfect specimens of what He can do— God’s purpose is to make us one with Himself. The emphasis of holiness movements tends to be that God is producing specimens of holiness to put in His museum. If you accept this concept of personal holiness, your life’s determined purpose will not be for God, but for what you call the evidence of God in your life. How can we say, “It could never be God’s will for me to be sick”? If it was God’s will to bruise His own Son (Isaiah 53:10), why shouldn’t He bruise you? What shines forth and reveals God in your life is not your relative consistency to an idea of what a saint should be, but your genuine, living relationship with Jesus Christ, and your unrestrained devotion to Him whether you are well or sick.

. . . by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world —Galatians 6:14

It is not genuine consecration to think that we can refuse to be used of God now in order to store up our spiritual power for later use. That is a hopeless mistake. The Spirit of God has set a great many people free from their sin, yet they are experiencing no fullness in their lives— no true sense of freedom. The kind of religious life we see around the world today is entirely different from the vigorous holiness of the life of Jesus Christ. “I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one” (John 17:15). We are to be in the world but not of it— to be separated internally, not externally (seeJohn 17:16).

We must never allow anything to interfere with the consecration of our spiritual power. Consecration (being dedicated to God’s service) is our part; sanctification (being set apart from sin and being made holy) is God’s part. We must make a deliberate determination to be interested only in what God is interested. The way to make that determination, when faced with a perplexing problem, is to ask yourself, “Is this the kind of thing in which Jesus Christ is interested, or is it something in which the spirit that is diametrically opposed to Jesus is interested?”

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November 27, 2013

Thank you Lord, for all you have provided, and for the ongoing opportunity to look to You for life and life more abundantly. Thank you for the guiding me to the place where I look to You first and foremost this morning and most mornings. And I am especially thankful for Your grace that envelopes me when I do not look to You first.

And God says…”You are transformed as you continue to look to Jesus, and your transformation continues as a byproduct of His sacrifice, even when you are not thinking of Him at all. My grace finds you because of Jesus, because of His sacrifice.  Seek first the Kingdom of God, which is Jesus, and everything you need for a rich and abundant life will be provided; food shelter, hope, love, and the people to share them with. Delight yourself in the Lord and I will give you the desires of your heart. “

. . . except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . —Galatians 6:14

If you want to know the power of God (that is, the resurrection life of Jesus) in your human flesh, you must dwell on the tragedy of God. Break away from your personal concern over your own spiritual condition, and with a completely open spirit consider the tragedy of God. Instantly the power of God will be in you. “Look to Me. . .” (Isaiah 45:22). Pay attention to the external Source and the internal power will be there. We lose power because we don’t focus on the right thing. The effect of the Cross is salvation, sanctification, healing, etc., but we are not to preach any of these. We are to preach “Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). The proclaiming of Jesus will do its own work. Concentrate on God’s focal point in your preaching, and even if your listeners seem to pay it no attention, they will never be the same again. If I share my own words, they are of no more importance than your words are to me. But if we share the truth of God with one another, we will encounter it again and again. We have to focus on the great point of spiritual power— the Cross. If we stay in contact with that center of power, its energy is released in our lives. In holiness movements and spiritual experience meetings, the focus tends to be put not on the Cross of Christ but on the effects of the Cross.

The feebleness of the church is being criticized today, and the criticism is justified. One reason for the feebleness is that there has not been this focus on the true center of spiritual power. We have not dwelt enough on the tragedy of Calvary or on the meaning of redemption.

God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . —Galatians 6:14

State your beliefs to yourself again. Get back to the foundation of the Cross of Christ, doing away with any belief not based on it. In secular history the Cross is an infinitesimally small thing, but from the biblical perspective it is of more importance than all the empires of the world. If we get away from dwelling on the tragedy of God on the Cross in our preaching, our preaching produces nothing. It will not transmit the energy of God to man; it may be interesting, but it will have no power. However, when we preach the Cross, the energy of God is released. “. . . it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. . . . we preach Christ crucified . . .” (1 Corinthians 1:21, 23).

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Journal Entry for Today-JDV

November 25, 2013

Good morning Lord and thank you for the reminder to look to the cross for consistency; a consistency that only You have and always provide me. It is true that when I look to the cross, and see You, it all becomes clear even though I do not understand. Then it occurs to me that I do not need to understand, I simply need to see You and allow You to live in my surrendered life.  And I know I must surrender my life, because I have enough experience to realize I am unable to live a life of love, peace, understanding, hope and thanksgiving without You living through me.  I know I can live an abundant life, in every area of my life, when I allow You to live through me. Thank You Lord.

And God says…”Left to your own devices, you chase the things that you think will make you happy and they do not. Left to your own devices, you can and will pursue noble and not so noble endeavors that you believe I have commissioned, and I have not. Left to your own understanding and you make choices that bring short term answers that do not hold up in the cold light of day. When you simply trust Me, and allow Me to live through you, you can do all things. You will rise above day to day chaos, complexity and trials. When you simply trust me, you can get out of the boat and walk on water, you will run and not get tired, and you will love without bounds. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding and I will make your paths straight. Delight yourself in the Lord and I will give you the desires of your heart.”

Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God —1 Corinthians 10:31

When He has come, He will convict the world of sin . . . —John 16:8

Very few of us know anything about conviction of sin. We know the experience of being disturbed because we have done wrong things. But conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit blots out every relationship on earth and makes us aware of only one— “Against You, You only, have I sinned . . .” (Psalm 51:4). When a person is convicted of sin in this way, he knows with every bit of his conscience that God would not dare to forgive him. If God did forgive him, then this person would have a stronger sense of justice than God. God does forgive, but it cost the breaking of His heart with grief in the death of Christ to enable Him to do so. The great miracle of the grace of God is that He forgives sin, and it is the death of Jesus Christ alone that enables the divine nature to forgive and to remain true to itself in doing so. It is shallow nonsense to say that God forgives us because He is love. Once we have been convicted of sin, we will never say this again. The love of God means Calvary— nothing less! The love of God is spelled out on the Cross and nowhere else. The only basis for which God can forgive me is the Cross of Christ. It is there that His conscience is satisfied.

Forgiveness doesn’t merely mean that I am saved from hell and have been made ready for heaven (no one would accept forgiveness on that level). Forgiveness means that I am forgiven into a newly created relationship which identifies me with God in Christ. The miracle of redemption is that God turns me, the unholy one, into the standard of Himself, the Holy One. He does this by putting into me a new nature, the nature of Jesus Christ.

Journal DJR

Good morning Lord,
I really like the conclusion of this thinking … “The miracle of redemption is that God turns me, the unholy one, into the standard of Himself, the Holy One. He does this by putting into me a new nature, the nature of Jesus Christ.” I get it. I love it. Thank you for it. But the way this conclusion is arrived at is … troubling, messy, hard to understand and somehow still causes some resistance in me. Perhaps in the yet uncrucified part of my mind. There is still that thinking that “there must have been some other way” …. And “Why did He set it up that way?” I know these thoughts are way above my pay grade … but they are there. What to do with them?

You have those thoughts in the yet unredeemed part of your mind. All humans have thoughts like that because they think and love with human love. You will have them less and less as you focus more and more on me and spend time with me. It’s automatic. Dont try to get rid of those thoughts, Just focus on me and let my thinking and my nature come into you and replace them. Getting stirred up about your old unredeemed parts won’t help the process … it will slow it down. Relax. I do love you. Know that and appropriate what I died for. Take it in and live the new life that I have for you.

If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed —John 8:36

God pays no attention to our natural individuality in the development of our spiritual life. His plan runs right through our natural life. We must see to it that we aid and assist God, and not stand against Him by saying, “I can’t do that.” God will not discipline us; we must discipline ourselves. God will not bring our “arguments . . . and every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5)— we have to do it. Don’t say, “Oh, Lord, I suffer from wandering thoughts.” Don’t suffer from wandering thoughts. Stop listening to the tyranny of your individual natural life and win freedom into the spiritual life.

“If the Son makes you free . . . .” Do not substitute Savior for Son in this passage. The Savior has set us free from sin, but this is the freedom that comes from being set free from myself by the Son. It is what Paul meant in Galatians 2:20  when he said, “I have been crucified with Christ . . . .” His individuality had been broken and his spirit had been united with his Lord; not just merged into Him, but made one with Him. “. . . you shall be free indeed”— free to the very core of your being; free from the inside to the outside. We tend to rely on our own energy, instead of being energized by the power that comes from identification with Jesus.

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November 18, 2013

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

Lord, when I read one of these “just pull yourself up from your own bootstraps” kind of devotionals it points out to me just how much I need you.  I cannot remember being successful at just gritting my teeth and forcing myself to control and discipline myself just because I know I should be a better Christian. It has not worked that way for me.

And God says…”It does not work that way for anyone. The apostle Paul, perhaps the most focused and disciplined explained his dilemma …”I want to do right but then I do not. Who is to save me from this….Thanks be to God I have been saved already by Jesus Christ”. You have been redeemed; you have been saved from the power of the natural. Now you can choose to live in the supernatural by simply surrendering to Me. Let Me provide the way, your truth and the light for your daily living. Seek Jesus first and everything else becomes clear and your choices are easily made by the power of Jesus.”

 Peter . . . said to Jesus, ’But Lord, what about this man?’ Jesus said to him, ’. . . what is that to you? You follow Me’ —John 21:21-22

Most of us live only within the level of consciousness— consciously serving and consciously devoted to God. This shows immaturity and the fact that we’re not yet living the real Christian life. Maturity is produced in the life of a child of God on the unconscious level, until we become so totally surrendered to God that we are not even aware of being used by Him. When we are consciously aware of being used as broken bread and poured-out wine, we have yet another level to reach— a level where all awareness of ourselves and of what God is doing through us is completely eliminated. A saint is never consciously a saint— a saint is consciously dependent on God.

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November 15, 2013

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

Lord, I do understand that I am not to interfere with Your will but I also understand that You came to give us abundant life. How can I know which person to help and which to leave alone to the circumstances You allowed? How can I know when to reach out to help someone in need and when to leave them to Your divine circumstances?

And God says…”The same lesson, day by day is the answer to your question; you become aware of when to reach out and when to allow Me to work in another’s life, when you first surrender to Me and allow Me to work through you …”From the inside Out”.  You cannot determine who to help and who to leave for my shaping. You can only be available and open to My leading. Let Me be the lamp that lights your way a step or day at a time. Trust in Me with all your heart, and not your own ideas and understanding, and I will make your paths straight.  Seek Me first every day, and look for Me in every circumstance, and I will lead you from the inside out.”