I cannot save and sanctify myself; I cannot make atonement for sin; I cannot redeem the world; I cannot right what is wrong, purify what is impure, or make holy what is unholy. That is all the sovereign work of God. Do I have faith in what Jesus Christ has done? He has made the perfect atonement for sin. Am I in the habit of constantly realizing it? The greatest need we have is not to do things, but to believe things. The redemption of Christ is not an experience, it is the great act of God which He has performed through Christ, and I have to build my faith on it.

If I construct my faith on my own experience, I produce the most unscriptural kind of life— an isolated life, with my eyes focused solely on my own holiness. Beware of that human holiness that is not based on the atonement of the Lord. It has no value for anything except a life of isolation— it is useless to God and a nuisance to man. Measure every kind of experience you have by our Lord Himself.

We cannot do anything pleasing to God unless we deliberately build on the foundation of the atonement by the Cross of Christ.

The atonement of Jesus must be exhibited in practical, unassuming ways in my life. Every time I obey, the absolute deity of God is on my side, so that the grace of God and my natural obedience are in perfect agreement.

Obedience means that I have completely placed my trust in the atonement, and my obedience is immediately met by the delight of the supernatural grace of God.

Beware of the human holiness that denies the reality of the natural life— it is a fraud. Continually bring yourself to the trial or test of the atonement and ask, “Where is the discernment of the atonement in this, and in that?”

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October 9, 2010

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

This devotional spoke to me about obedience and how important it is to be obedient to the Spirit of God. Even in the smallest of decisions and issues, there can be no rationalization or wavering if I want to be in the center of God’s grace and will. And it is only in His grace and will that I find hope, faith,  peace and happiness.

And God says…”I have a plan for your life, a hope and a dream that is at the very core of who you are. I put that hope and dream inside of you. It is right inside my will for your life. However, your view of my plan for your life will get cloudy when you seek your own designs and desires. When you chose to step outside of my will and choose your own way, you disconnect from Me and My plans for your life.”

“Stay connected, stay obedient, and rest in knowing you are in My will that includes your highest hopes and dreams and service.”

DJR Journal 10 9 10

It occurs that several things conspire against simple obedience for me.   Being an American … We started with a Declaration of INDEPENDENCE,  Being my father’s son, to strive and excel.    And the nature from Adam.    …   But if and when I do submit and obey, the results are really great.    I’m finally beginning to learn that.

It’s true, you have a lot pulling you to independence and rebellion.   But you can overcome.  As I overcame,   The rewards are great.

I am seeing that and thank you for lessons like this from Oswald and the music and my brother.   With all of that we’ll see if we cant start winning more than we are losing.    Thank you Lord.

Isn’t it humiliating to be told that we must come to Jesus! Think of the things about which we will not come to Jesus Christ. If you want to know how real you are, test yourself by these words— “Come to Me . . . .” In every dimension in which you are not real, you will argue or evade the issue altogether rather than come; you will go through sorrow rather than come; and you will do anything rather than come the last lap of the race of seemingly unspeakable foolishness and say, “Just as I am, I come.” As long as you have even the least bit of spiritual disrespect, it will always reveal itself in the fact that you are expecting God to tell you to do something very big, and yet all He is telling you to do is to “Come . . . .

“Come to Me . . . .” When you hear those words, you will know that something must happen in you before you can come. The Holy Spirit will show you what you have to do, and it will involve anything that will uproot whatever is preventing you from getting through to Jesus. And you will never get any further until you are willing to do that very thing. The Holy Spirit will search out that one immovable stronghold within you, but He cannot budge it unless you are willing to let Him do so.

How often have you come to God with your requests and gone away thinking, “I’ve really received what I wanted this time!” And yet you go away with nothing, while all the time God has stood with His hands outstretched not only to take you but also for you to take Him. Just think of the invincible, unconquerable, and untiring patience of Jesus, who lovingly says, “Come to Me. . . .”

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October 8, 2010

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

Just when I feel like I have given up my nature to Jesus I do something or say something stupid and or very self serving, and my natural self stares back at me in all his muck and grime. Just when I think I have finally reached a place where I no longer have to be vigilant, I find I should have been vigilant.

And God says…”When you fall, get back up. Confess your sin and come to Jesus. Look to Jesus for your resurrection and vigilance. The Holy Spirit is with you so you can become and remain vigilant. “

“As you have learned, in all things the answer to the question is Jesus. Come to Jesus. Stay connected to Jesus,,,,and live.”

DJR Journal 10 8 10

It is interesting that JD and i are finding places to serve and fellowship with roots to John Wesley.   Here is a page from a book given to me by the local Methodist Pastor.

Good roots for sure.   I plan to ask him, “When do we get to do the stuff?”   …  The stuff in the book.      The stuff Wesley said to do at every meeting?

Luelle and i have visited one service of this 100+ year old church and one small group.    It feels good to us.    The best part is the openness to a wide variety of experience.  Along with the congeniality of the people.   Certainly not flaming charismatics, but open to as much of that as a person wants to have in their own life.    From the book, one of Wesley’s mantra’s was “think and let think”      I like that.   I never really studied Methodism seriously,  but I like what I’m experiencing here.   My stereotype of Methodist was off base, at least at this local congregation.   We’ll see where this goes……….. Who’d of thunk it?

Round Hill Methodist Church

October 07, 2010

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him —2 Corinthians 5:21

Sin is a fundamental relationship— it is not wrong doing, but wrong being— it is deliberate and determined independence from God. The Christian faith bases everything on the extreme, self-confident nature of sin. Other faiths deal with sins— the Bible alone deals with sin. The first thing Jesus Christ confronted in people was the heredity of sin, and it is because we have ignored this in our presentation of the gospel that the message of the gospel has lost its sting and its explosive power.

The revealed truth of the Bible is not that Jesus Christ took on Himself our fleshly sins, but that He took on Himself the heredity of sin that no man can even touch. God made His own Son “to be sin” that He might make the sinner into a saint. It is revealed throughout the Bible that our Lord took on Himself the sin of the world through identification with us, not through sympathy for us. He deliberately took on His own shoulders, and endured in His own body, the complete, cumulative sin of the human race. “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us. . .” and by so doing He placed salvation for the entire human race solely on the basis of redemption. Jesus Christ reconciled the human race, putting it back to where God designed it to be.

And now anyone can experience that reconciliation, being brought into oneness with God, on the basis of what our Lord has done on the cross.

A man cannot redeem himself— redemption is the work of God, and is absolutely finished and complete. And its application to individual people is a matter of their own individual action or response to it. A distinction must always be made between the revealed truth of redemption and the actual conscious experience of salvation in a person’s life.

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October 7, 2010

Journal Entry for Today

Last night in Bible study, the question was asked,”How do we stay close to God so that we know His voice and His will for our lives, especially when life is being very good for us? We seem to turn to God when life is full of trials and challenges, but we seem to become very independent of God as we live the abundant life. How can we avoid this pattern of behavior?”

I replied that the only way I know to stay connected to God is to be in constant fellowship and connection through daily prayer and Bible study, like CO2, where we are also accountable to a brother. I asked if anyone knew any other way to stay connected on a daily basis and no one could think of another answer.

And God says…”Acknowledge the Lord in all your ways and He will make your paths straight. When you come to Me in prayer and search out My truths in My word, you are rewarded. Knock and the door will be opened, seek and you will find. When you pray in secret I will answer your prayers openly for all to see. When you seek My Spirit for your daily life, you will be rewarded. You will not need to seek My will; you will be living My will. You will not need to seek connection with Me; you will be living the connection and commitment.”

“When you seek Me daily, and look into My word, you are transformed and we are connected. It is here that I touch your heart and mind and you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am the Lord your God. When you live like this, you live your days in certain, knowing Me.”

If Jesus Christ is going to regenerate me, what is the problem He faces? It is simply this— I have a heredity in which I had no say or decision; I am not holy, nor am I likely to be; and if all Jesus Christ can do is tell me that I must be holy, His teaching only causes me to despair. But if Jesus Christ is truly a regenerator, someone who can put His own heredity of holiness into me, then I can begin to see what He means when He says that I have to be holy. Redemption means that Jesus Christ can put into anyone the hereditary nature that was in Himself, and all the standards He gives us are based on that nature— His teaching is meant to be applied to the life which He puts within us. The proper action on my part is simply to agree with God’s verdict on sin as judged on the Cross of Christ.

The New Testament teaching about regeneration is that when a person is hit by his own sense of need, God will put the Holy Spirit into his spirit, and his personal spirit will be energized by the Spirit of the Son of God— “. . . until Christ is formed in you” (Galatians 4:19). The moral miracle of redemption is that God can put a new nature into me through which I can live a totally new life. When I finally reach the edge of my need and know my own limitations, then Jesus says, “Blessed are you . . .” (Matthew 5:11). But I must get to that point. God cannot put into me, the responsible moral person that I am, the nature that was in Jesus Christ unless I am aware of my need for it.

And very often God uses the trials and circumstances of this life to make us acutely  aware of our need for the nature of Jesus Christ.-JDV

Just as the nature of sin entered into the human race through one man, the Holy Spirit entered into the human race through another Man (see Romans 5:12-19). And redemption means that I can be delivered from the heredity of sin, and that through Jesus Christ I can receive a pure and spotless heredity, namely, the Holy Spirit.

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October 6, 2010

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

Sometimes I think I understand the trials and challenges of life and the velocity with which they come at me. Early in my life as a believer it seemed to me that I did not face as many challenges and life was not as difficult and challenging. Could it be that God is using the challenges of life, and assaults of the enemy to my own advantage? Just like the death of His Son?

Can my regeneration be found in the trials and challenges of life?

And God says….”I use the very obstacles and challenges of your life to give you new life. How will your old nature be crucified if you can overcome life’s challenges with your own skills and with your nature intact?  If you are competent and strong in yourself, you will need trial after trial after trial to become broken enough to let go of your old nature. When you are weak I can be strong in your life, when the challenges of life seem overwhelming and you need miracles I can live through you. You are My child and I will deliver you and bless you as you let go of your own strength and depend on Mine.”

We are inclined to forget the deeply spiritual and supernatural touch of God. If you are able to tell exactly where you were when you received the call of God and can explain all about it, I question whether you have truly been called.The call of God does not come like that; it is much more supernatural. The realization of the call in a person’s life may come like a clap of thunder or it may dawn gradually. But however quickly or slowly this awareness comes, it is always accompanied with an undercurrent of the supernatural—something that is inexpressible and produces a “glow.”

At any moment the sudden awareness of this incalculable, supernatural, surprising call that has taken hold of your life may break through—”I chose you . . .” (John 15:16). The call of God has nothing to do with salvation and sanctification. You are not called to preach the gospel because you are sanctified; the call to preach the gospel is infinitely different. Paul describes it as a compulsion that was placed upon him.

If you have ignored, and thereby removed, the great supernatural call of God in your life, take a review of your circumstances. See where you have put your own ideas of service or your particular abilities ahead of the call of God. Paul said, “. . . woe is me if I do not preach the gospel!”

He had become aware of the call of God, and his compulsion to “preach the gospel” was so strong that nothing else was any longer even a competitor for his strength.

If a man or woman is called of God, it doesn’t matter how difficult the circumstances may be. God orchestrates every force at work for His purpose in the end. If you will agree with God’s purpose, He will bring not only your conscious level but also all the deeper levels of your life, which you yourself cannot reach, into perfect harmony.

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September 29, 2010

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

There is a keen sense of peace and well being that emerges as I focus and look to Jesus.  This sense of peace and well being is not because the circumstances and difficulties of life have disappeared, nor because all my prayers have been answered. I simply become aware that everything is as it should be as I focus and stay connected to Jesus. And I know that as I am focused on Jesus, as I stay connected, I am right in the middle of His will.

And God says….”Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. You can delight yourself in the Lord and capture the very things your heart cries out for; peace, hope, love and faith. These fruits are not dependent on your circumstances. They are by products of your delight in the Lord. Acknowledge Me in all your ways and do not rely on your own designs and plans and I will make your paths straight.”

The rich young ruler had the controlling passion to be perfect. When he saw Jesus Christ, he wanted to be like Him. Our Lord never places anyone’s personal holiness above everything else when He calls a disciple. Jesus’ primary consideration is my absolute annihilation of my right to myself and my identification with Him, which means having a relationship with Him in which there are no other relationships. Luke 14:26  has nothing to do with salvation or sanctification, but deals solely with unconditional identification with Jesus Christ. Very few of us truly know what is meant by the absolute “go” of unconditional identification with, and abandonment and surrender to, Jesus.

“Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him . . .” (Mark 10:21). This look of Jesus will require breaking your heart away forever from allegiance to any other person or thing. Has Jesus ever looked in this way at you? This look of Jesus transforms, penetrates, and captivates. Where you are soft and pliable with God is where the Lord has looked at you. If you are hard and vindictive, insistent on having your own way, and always certain that the other person is more likely to be in the wrong than you are, then there are whole areas of your nature that have never been transformed by His gaze.

“One thing you lack . . . .” From Jesus Christ’s perspective, oneness with Him, with nothing between, is the only good thing.

“. . . sell whatever you have . . . .” I must humble myself until I am merely a living person. I must essentially renounce possessions of all kinds, not for salvation (for only one thing saves a person and that is absolute reliance in faith upon Jesus Christ), but to follow Jesus. “. . . come. . . and follow Me.” And the road is the way He went.

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September 28, 2010

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

Sometimes when I feel disconnected from God, I wonder what I might have done wrong, what have I allowed to get in the way of the intimate relationship that is essential to love, peace, joy, hope and rest?

And God says…”Sometimes you seek the fruits of your relationship instead of the relationship only. When there is only Jesus in your eyes and heart, everything else will follow. However, when you seek the fruits of your relationship, you put the fruits ahead of Jesus. The fruits and blessings follow the relationship. Seek Jesus and rest. All else will follow……..Seek first the kingdom of God”

The “Go” of Renunciation

The “Go” of Preparation